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A year ago, a fire roared up the steep canyons of Mission Valley, an inferno fed by acres of thick chaparral and range grasses made into kindling by a record-breaking heat wave.
Like a horse at full gallop, the blaze raced through Normal Heights, destroying home after home after home; not just homes but also the accumulations of a lifetime-family photographs, heirlooms, keepsakes.
The fire raged for hours, battled by more than 400 firefighters from as far as Riverside County, aircraft and 97 fire engines.
Finally, eight hours after it began at 11:53 a.m., after it had climbed the canyon to devastate the flat heights above, the conflagration was controlled. By then, the blaze had burned through 64 homes and had damaged 20 others, as well as 18 vehicles, 3 businesses and 18 outbuildings. Remarkably, although a few thousand people were forced to flee, no one was killed or severely injured.
Left behind on that long, hot day on June 30, 1985, when it seemed the flames would never die, was the haunting image of a World War II bombing scene: fireplaces and brick chimneys standing amid smoldering rubble, naked trees seared black, people crying openly at their losses.
The Normal Heights fire, which was touched off by a person still unknown behind Lehr's Greenhouse Restaurant & Florist near the junction of Interstates 8 and 805, will be remembered as San Diego's most destructive.
As often happens in the aftermath of such tragedy, questions were raised about city policies and procedures, and the government bureaucracy began a months-long effort to find ways to prevent a repetition.
A special city task force was formed, led by Councilwoman Gloria McColl, who two weeks before the fire had gone door-to-door in the canyon areas of her Normal Heights district, urging residents to trim overgrown brush as a precaution against fire.
Questions were asked, particularly about why state-dispatched aerial tankers that drop fire-retardant chemicals took so long to arrive.
Most of that effort is complete. Several important changes and additions to policies and programs have been made, among them a new multimillion-dollar program for clearing brush on public property approved by the City Council on June 20 and an aggressive public awareness campaign.
But other proposals, such as...