Firefighters are left to pick and poke

The first round of mop-up has begun. And to Santa Barbara fire Capt. Bill Taff, the devastation at Barrett Lake Mobile Home Park is nearly beyond description.

"This is depressing," Taff said as he surveyed the rows of burned mobile homes.

There's little left of one portion of the park. What is left is burned and twisted, barely recognizable as a home.

Now that the Harris Fire is slowly dying away, the firefighters are left to pick and poke at what's left behind, checking for smoldering hotspots that could reignite and destroy those homes left standing.

The mobile home park was their first stop. The scene there, one of the first places evacuated Sunday, is all black and gray in tone and mood. "I can't imagine coming back to this," said Santa Barbara firefighter Dave Ward.

In one driveway are the blackened frames of small bicycles, a sign that some children have nothing to come home to. Stoves and refrigerators survived as burned-out hulks, resting wherever where they fell. Aluminum runs in bright frozen streams, and glass has melted like plastic. Yet it is apparent these firefighters were not the first one here. Flourescent green cards have been attached to blackened gates at each devastated site where a home once stood.

The message is not-so-subtly ironic: "This property was inspected for damage assessment by the County of San Diego."

-- David Hasemyer, staff writer