San Juan Bautista resident Yolanda Delgado was fixing something in the bathroom of her house facing Highway 156 when she heard crackling.
“I looked and I saw the smoke and I said, ‘Oh my God,” she recalled.
The hillside was on fire. A mechanical failure in the catalytic converter of a truck traveling along Highway 156 on Monday afternoon sparked four separate blazes about a mile apart, according to fire department personnel.
Flames destroyed at least one house in the Franklin Circle cul-de-sac where Delgado and her wife, Rebecca, live in San Juan Bautista. Several backyards—including the Delgados’—were burned, and residents complained how they had called 911 multiple times before getting responses on the fire causing injuries.
Responders transported a local resident to the hospital for smoke inhalation and a fire department captain for a shoulder injury, said Bill Garringer, the interim chief for the Hollister Fire Department.
San Juan Bautista resident Gabriela Candelaria, who lives next to the home destroyed by flames, contended that recent changes to the local department—Hollister fire now oversees coverage throughout the county—delayed the emergency response.
“In the last two years, our volunteer fire department has met a lot of political issues,” Candelaria said. “In this instance, it took 20 to 25 minutes for someone to respond.”
She said when the volunteer-run San Juan Bautista Fire Department partnered with the Hollister Fire Department, the requirements on local firefighters increased almost as if the roles were paid positions, meaning many locals couldn’t fill that need, she said. An out-of-the-area contract for 911 dispatch services added to local response times, she said.
“When we called 911, we got a busy call the first 10 times,” Candelaria said.
Heavy traffic delayed the arrival of fire engines coming from Hollister, but a San Juan Bautista fire truck was on the scene shortly after the call, the interim fire chief said.
“They were here right away but probably weren’t seen because of the smoke,” Garringer said. “It may seem that we took a long time to get here but we kept it to one house fire, so we’re pretty happy.”
Eight fire department engines responded to the hillside blaze that threatened houses, the interim fire chief said. Calfire managed the other three fires that stretched about 10 to 12 acres along the highway, said Dennis King, the Calfire battalion chief of Monterey.
“I believe that all three of those are contained,” he said.
