A GoFundMe site has been set up to help T.J. Poucher recover from the devastating fire
October 28, 2019 (Poway) – T.J. Poucher, a Marine Corps veteran, awoke to a chemical smell and a choking feeling last Saturday night. Cracking open a door, he was blasted by heat “like a jet engine” that singed his hair and face, he told NBC 7.
Fortunately, his military training as an infantryman kicked in. “We thrive in chaos,” says Poucher, who knew he needed to break a window immediately. He escaped with his dog but burned his feet on the smouldering grass outside.
Poucher is grateful that his teenage children were not there during the fire, but the blaze destroyed everything else – a lifetime of memories gone, along with his work truck, his equipment needed for his fish tank cleaning business, two saltwater aquariums filled with fish and coral, and more.
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Photos by Deborah Horger, , Jeff Holz. Rebecca Jefferis Williamson and Imed Fehri and Alexis Parmnnoff
Update October 7, 2013 --SDG&E advises that the suspected cause of the outage is a faulted capacitor station. All power was restored by 1:30 p.m.; the outage began at 10 a.m. affecting 4,501 customers.
October 6, 2013 (San Diego's East County) -- An SDG&E sky crane loaded with 2,500 gallons of water helped firefighters halt a brush fire in Lakeside at 28 acres. No structures were lost; mop-up activiites will continue through the night. The blaze began shortly after power went out to more than 4,500 customers for reasons that SDG&E's website indicated were unkown at the time of the outage; power has been fully restored.
Below are our earlier updates on this fire, which began at Aquilla Drive in Lakeside and sent smoke billowing forth that was visible across much of East County as well as Poway and San Diego.
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Update 1:46 p.m. - The fire is now 8 acres and is 90% contained, Incident Page Network reports.
July 9, 2012 (1:25 p.m.) -- A fire that began at Metate Lane and Carriage Road in Poway shortly before 1 p.m. today has grown to seven acres, Greg George, Emergency Resource Officer at San Diego Fire Department told ECM. "It is still in fairly light fuel but it is growing," he said.
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April 27, 2011 (Poway) – A fire in the 13600 block of Sycamore Tree Lane this afternoon forced evacuation of 16 homes and has displaced a family with two children.
“The fire gutted the home and the fire department needed to cut a hole in the roof to control the fire,” photographer Ron Logan, who was at the scene, informed East County Magazine.
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September 29, 2010 (Poway) – Firefighters battling a fire at the home of Valentine Derkach in Poway on September 23rd found his body inside the residence. Following an autopsy, the San Diego County Coroner has concluded that gunshot wounds to Derkach’s head and chest were self-inflicted and ruled the death a suicide.
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Editor’s note: ECM was unable to issue a wildfire alert yesterday for this fire due to a computer server crash at the national service that we utilize for our alerts. We regret this omission, which was beyond our technical control.
June 8, 2010 (Poway) – A brush fire burned approximately 12 acres yesterday afternoon on a hill near Metate Lane and Community Road in Poway yesterday afternoon.
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August 6, 2009 (San Diego’s East County)1:45 p.m. – Two brush fires in Lakeside and Poway have been quickly contained.
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Neighbor hospitalized with chest pains
Editor’s note: ECM was unable to issue a wildfire alert yesterday for this fire due to a computer server crash at the national service that we utilize for our alerts. We regret this omission, which was beyond our technical control. 
August 6, 2009 (San Diego’s East County)1:45 p.m. – Two brush fires in Lakeside and Poway have been quickly contained.
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