Flames above the city

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At 7 p.m. flames were marching down the hill toward the city just north of town. Island resident Jessie Lomeli, 23, was rocking her 8-month-old daughter in a carry all covered with a blanket.

She was rocking her baby with her left hand and waving off falling ashes with her right hand. ‘I wish I had a mask because of all the smoke,’ said Lomeli, who has lived on the island for seven years. ‘It’s hard to breathe.’

No sooner had she completed that comment when a golf cart roared to a stop and hospital workers leaped out to begin passing out face masks.

-Louis Sahagun in Avalon