Residents say narrow dirt roads made Loma Fire evacuation nearly impossible

At a Loma Fire community meeting tonight, those who left their homes say the narrow dirt roads made evacuation nearly impossible.

“We have a committee, and we really put a lot of work into this, and we can’t get anyone to help us. And we said we are going to be locked in here if there is a fire,” said Priscilla Huber, who lives on Loma Chiquita Road.

And that’s nearly what happened to Huber and many others when the Loma Fire sparked on Monday.

“It took me two and a half hours to get down when normally it’s 30 minutes, because fire engines are trying to get up, people with horse trailers. I had to keep on backing up,” Huber said, trying to hold back tears.

Dirt roads that are only one and a half lanes created bottle necks for residents and emergency vehicles.

“Casa Loma is the main way out for anyone, there is no other way out, really. Right now, all the other roads are in such bad disrepair, and Casa Loma is in really bad disrepair,” Huber said.

Cal Fire agrees.

“It’s extremely difficult. The asphalt’s beat up, there are dirt roads. They’re not easily passable unless you have four-wheel-drive. There’re trunks of rocks and debris,” Cal Fire public information officer Jay Smith said.

While the county is not responsible for private roads, residents say county codes kept their roads from being recognized.

“Santa Clara county? We pay taxes, but it doesn’t seem to matter because of the fact that it was a private road, and they were gonna charge us $750 thousand dollars to actually come in and make it a road that they will service,” said Huber’s neighbor Ronnie Powell.

The Santa Clara County FireSafe Council is helping with a $180 thousand grant. It’s not to pave the road but to make sure they’re fire safe.

“We can do the vegetation clearing on either side to make it safer as an evacuation and to assist as a fuel break for firefighting,” said Patty Ciesla with the FireSafe Council.

Huber left in a rush on Monday, and she’s been wearing the same outfit since. Huber said her neighbors gave her strength.

“We keep on being told that nobody is safe. We just trying to be there for one another because we don’t have anything else do to. I mean some of us are going to be literally with nothing,” Huber said.

Cal Fire did say that as a part of their fire repair, they’ll fix up the roads and leave them in better shape than before.