As Wildfires Blaze in California, Chabad Offers a Hand

As wildfires raged around their neighborhoods this week—causing evacuations, widespread damage and more than a few scares for many—Chabad rabbis in the northern San Diego area sprang into action to do what they could to assist those fighting the flames, as well as those in the path of the fires.

Rabbi Yeruchem Eilfort, who co-directs Chabad at La Costa with his wife, Nechama, was sitting in his home office on Wednesday morning in Carlsbad, Calif., when he glanced up from what he was doing and saw a column of smoke rising in the distance.

With an unusually hot spring day—temperatures in southern California topped 100 degrees on Wednesday and Thursday,decreasing to almost 90 on Friday—and extremely dry conditions, any fire would be dangerous and even though it was on the other side of a lagoon, the rabbi leapt into action. It turns out that the blaze was less than two miles from their home.

“I sent out an email to our entire community list and tried to call people who live in that area,” Eilfort recounts. “Some didn’t even know there was a fire. One man immediately got out of his house; the fire was just three blocks away.”

The winds, he says, weren’t making things any easier; billowing smoke and ash were in the near distance, and sirens wailed throughout the day. “It sounded like a war zone here,” says the rabbi.

A few miles away, Rabbi Yair Yelin—co-director of Chabad Alef Center in San Marcos, Calif., with his wife, Chanie—had been watching the smoke billowing into his neighborhood. At first, the fires were far away enough that he wasn’t especially concerned.

By Wednesday afternoon, he, too, was in the thick of it.

The Rush to Assist

He was just finishing up an appointment at a local office building when the first responders evacuated the building. His wife, Chanie, was driving home after picking their kids up from school; she saw the smoke and began texting him.

“She got scared because she knew the fire was in the direction of my appointment,” says Yelin.

He didn’t get those initial texts until he got outside, at which point he replied to her and hopped into his car.

“When they say the fire is up the hill, it only takes five minutes for it to reach down the hill,” he explains. “There was only one road out of there and to the direction of my house, and cars were not moving.”

But the fire and flames were.

“I called 9-1-1 and asked them to please open the north side of the road so people could get out,” he says.

A few minutes later, the road opened, and Yelin made his way home. He and his wife began calling everyone they knew in the area, including students at California State University, San Marcos.

Among those Chanie Yelin contacted was Ainat Cooper, who along with her husband, Steven, and two children, Shai, 24, and Liron, 14, had just been ordered to evacuate their home—with less than five minutes to do so.

“[Chanie] phoned us and asked where we were, and I said, ‘We’re on the street.’ We didn’t know what to do,” Cooper recounts. “She insisted we come over, and it’s just amazing what they’ve done for us. Absolutely amazing.”

Knowing that others were stuck spending the night in evacuation centers and shelters, the rabbi and Shai Cooper decided to help out. They raided the Yelin pantry and filled the car with whatever they could.

Shai’s mother wasn’t sure she wanted her son to get involved. “I was a bit scared. I didn’t want the family to separate. But Shai said, ‘The rabbi is going, and I’ve got to join him. I’ve got to do what he’s done for us. He’s opened his home for us, and I’ve got to help other people, the same as the rabbi helped us.’

“It’s a good way of looking at things,” she says proudly. “To me, this is a good example and a good education. Whatever we can do to help other people will be something we would like to do.”

Lip Balm Comes in Handy

In Carlsbad, Eilfort and his wife, Nechama, were also fielding calls and hundreds of emails from friends, neighbors and worried family members. They even participated in an emergency planning call from the Jewish Federation of San Diego County.

And they canceled a planned meeting with community members to discuss the mid-construction Chabad of La Costa—set to open over Labor Day weekend—to make sure people stayed off the roads that needed to remain clear for emergency vehicles and those being evacuated from their homes.

By very late Wednesday night, it seemed like things were starting to calm down and firefighters were getting a handle on the blaze.

On Thursday morning—with the light of daybreak and the onset of an even hotter day—the blazes ignited again. The rabbi learned that most of the new fires were about three to five miles east in the canyons. “I personally saw five firefighting aircraft engaged,” he says.

The City of Carlsbad estimated the damage from the flames at more than $20 million thus far. Multiple fires continue to burn, homes have been destroyed, affected area schools are closed, and many residents are staying in shelters.

While firefighters battled on, the Eilforts knew they had to act.

If Wednesday had been a day of communications, then Thursday was a day of action.

“A member of my community called me and told me how he came back to his house late [Wednesday] night and found a group of firefighters lying on his front yard, resting. I said, those poor firefighters, we have to do something.”

So the Eilforts headed to their local Wal-Mart and stocked up on bottles of water and sports drinks—as much as could fit in the back of their car. Then, says the rabbi, “my wife, who is brilliant, said, ‘Let’s get ChapStick for them.’ ” She knew that standing in the wind-whipped heat battling flames would cause parched lips.

With the car loaded down with supplies, they drove to firefighters’ staging area, just four miles from the Chabad House.

“Within 30 seconds, the van was emptied,” the rabbi reports, adding that the ChapStick was immediately grabbed up. So the Eilforts went to find another area Wal-Mart, where they bought all of the available lip balm and returned with another round of donations.

“The collaboration between the different fire departments is magnificent,” relates Eilfort, who saw fire trucks from around the state working on the blazes. “There is a lot that can be learned from them.”

He also notes a parallel between the firefighting community and the way that shluchim, emissaries of Chabad, operate. “I had shluchim from all over calling me and asking, ‘What do you need? What can I do to help?’ Just like the firefighters share their resources, the shluchim do as well; it was very inspiring.”

Yelin concurs. Mentioning that Wednesday was his birthday and that his celebration was quite harried because of the situation, he says: “G-d gave us opportunity to spend my birthday reaching out to people, and helping and doing our shlichus. That was the biggest gift.”