Facts About the 2003 Cedar Fire
By Lynnette Perkes
November 11, 2009
The launching pad for this story is the testimony of Robert Heimpel that “during the Cedar fire, he found a Poway Fire Department truck and crew stationed in front of Betty Rexford’s residence, and wondered why they were there, since they were sorely needed a couple of miles down the road.” It then adds a charge by a firefighter, conveniently nameless, that the crew was taken from a home which then burned to the ground.
The Web site carefully omits a crucial part of Heimpel’s testimony. In the full text, Heimpel admits he was not even in Poway the day of the Cedar fire. He testifies that the fire truck sighting took place not during the day of the Cedar fire but at 4 a.m. the following morning, when he was returning from a trip to San Bernadino, and when crews were going around doing mopping-up operations and putting out flare-ups.
Fire Department records do show a Poway truck and a truck from Miramar doing exactly that, about 9 p.m. in Beeler canyon, where residents reported flare-ups from the fire during the night. It’s not impossible that there might still have been a house under threat elsewhere at this late stage, but wouldn’t the truck from Miramar been sent to it, in that case — or do the recall troops contend that Betty runs Miramar air base, as well as the Poway Fire Department? (Heimpel’s testimony doesn’t actually say the truck was “at the foot of her driveway,” as the Web site puts it, but on the vacant lot across the street, overlooking the creek bed which had burned. Well, where would you park a fire truck to deal with flare-ups in the creek?)
Three of Betty’s neighbors — Dave Davis, Carol Funk and Shawn McMillan — have come forth to say there were no fire trucks in front of Betty’s house or any place else on Beeler Canyon or Creek roads during the day of the Cedar Fire. They say the blaze, which destroyed two Creek Road homes, including one three doors down from Betty, and an avocado orchard, as well as native trees and chaparral all down the canyon, was stopped by the residents themselves, who returned to their homes after being evacuated, and fought the blaze with garden hoses and shovels. Betty has said she has official Fire Department records that confirm there were no calls from her and no trucks sent during the day of the fire.
Though the story on the Recall Rexford site gets very elaborate, all the accusations are anonymous and/or implied, except for those of Heimpel. There’s something about this man you might like to know: Several years ago, Heimpel, a contractor, was convicted of illegally dumping fill and construction debris in the floodway of Beeler Creek. After a two-year investigation by the county and testimony by neighbors, he was fined and forced to do an expensive cleanup. And who testified? Betty Rexford, who lived across the street. Payback time?