A partial excerpt from the 11/18/70  Disaster Committee

On September 26, 1970, brushfires broke out in the “back country” of San Diego County.  They swept through hills and canyons and rulal communities like a sudden and vicious blowtorch.  Many evacuated families returned to the disaster area to find their homes intact – landmarks amon the rubble of their neighbor’shomes.  Civil Defense estimates that among the rubble were 400 homes destroyed.

With regard to Crest:  The Woman’s Clubhouse at Crest remained intact and was promtly set up as a community emergency center.  People at Crest, still among smoke and ashes, rolled up their sleeves and went to work.  For the first week following the fire, clubhouse volunteers cocoked on a 2 burner hotplate, 3 meals a day for 100 people, for firefighters and for burned out families.  These volunteers had been twice evacuated and returned to pitch in on the jobs that had to be done.  Outside help, too–time, manpower, food and other contributions to meet immediate necessities began to pour in.  Civil Defense, too , was faced with the “explosiveness” of public response and referred offers of help to the center at Crest.  Volunteers found themselves setting up a virtual grocery store and general store and a file on verified fire victims.  The clubhouse headquarters, a place where they could care for urgently needed food and other supplies and individual helps – and maybe just a place to go to “be together.”

The  1970 Laguna Fire  completely annihilated 115 homes in Crest.