Video

The Cedar Fire was the second largest wildfire in the history of the U.S. state of California (after the Great Fire of 1889) and one of 15 fires that started in late October 2003 and were fanned by Santa Ana Winds in Southern California burning a total of 721,791 acres (2,921 km²) and 3,640 homes, and killing 14 Americans and 1 migrant worker. The Cedar Fire was reported at 17:37 PDT on October 25, 2003 south of Ramona in central San Diego County. Overnight it killed 13 people living north of Lakeside who had little or no warning that the fire was approaching. In only 16.5 hours the Cedar Fire had pushed southwest over 30 miles (48 km) and had burned over 100,000 acres (405 km²) at 5,000 acres (20 km²) per hour. By this time the fire was burning hundreds of homes in the Scripps Ranch community of San Diego, was threatening homes near the coast and had forced the evacuation of the main air traffic control facility for San Diego and Los Angeles shutting down all commercial air traffic in the area and disrupting air traffic across the United States. The Chabad Hebrew Academy was the largest school to be destroyed by the fire. Administration, faculty, parents, students, the local community and dedicated donors from around the world had the school back in session within 2 weeks of the fire. The local city government with council member Brian Maienschein and mayor Dick Murphy spearheading had the schools new buildings approved for occupancy within a miracle time frame. Swinerton builders rushed completion of the new campus with the full campus dedication taking place with the chief rabbi of Israel, Mayor Dick Murphy and Council member Brian Maienschein amongst the dignitaries in attendance that December. This video was taken by school parent Adam Sragovicz 4 days after the fire when local scripps ranch residents were allowed back into their homes as you can see the fires were still burning on the campus for over a month after the main fire had completed.