‘Everything is black’: Airport fire destroyed beauty, tranquility of El Cariso Village

The normally lush green El Cariso Village fall colors, accented by flocks of blue jays, will instead be muted when the seasons change on Sunday, as will be the mood in the rural neighborhood eight miles west of Lake Elsinore in the Santa Ana Mountains that suffered through a devastating wildfire.
“At the top of the hill, all you can see for miles is everything is black, and there is not a tree left standing,” Kim Martin, one of some 250 El Cariso residents who live along the unpaved