One Year Later, Airport Fire Victims Aren’t Near Getting Back to Lives They Once Had

Jay Lamothe woke up on Sept. 10, 2024, the day after the Airport fire broke out, and saw flames in the distance near his home in the El Cariso community in the Santa Ana Mountains.

The fire, started by an Orange County Public Works crew working with heavy machinery in Trabuco Canyon on a hot summer day, had made its way into Riverside County and was on the precipice of destroying one of the rare remaining rural communities in the area.

He’d lived in his home there for the last seven years. It’s a neighborly place, Lamothe said, where people check in on each other and lend a hand. That’s especially important since the community is nestled along Ortega Highway — one way in, one way out.

By the early afternoon, a huge wall of flames neared his home, and it was time to leave. Lamothe and his son, Ryan, were the second-to-last people to evacuate the area. Blocking their way out, though, were flames burning right on Ortega Highway.

“I had to look at my son, the only person I have in this world, and tell him to drive through flames,” Lamothe said. “Flames that I knew could take the oxygen out of the air and stall that car, and we’d be baked.”