The Devil's Breath: The Untold Story of the San Diego Wildfires

Titled The Devil’s Breath after the Native American name for the infamous Santa Ana winds that fueled the fires, this half-hour news special profiles four of the seven undocumented migrants who died in the Harris Fire, which raged across San Diego’s East County and the border region on October 21, 2007. The program brings the victims’ stories to life through interviews with their traveling companions, the health care providers who treated them, the family members they left behind, visits to the sites where they perished, and audio of one survivor’s frantic 9-1-1 calls for help.

The program’s first segment introduces Juan Carlos Bautista, whose body was located ten days after the fire by The Desert Angels, a volunteer search and rescue group based in San Diego. Bautista, originally from the Mexican southern state of Chiapas, was crossing the border illegally to return to his construction job in San Marcos. He traveled with six other men, including Pedro and Jose Luis, who share the story of the group’s harrowing escape and their ultimately failed efforts to get help for Bautista, who was injured and unable to continue the journey to safety.

Next is the story of Maria Guadalupe Beltran, a Vista resident and mother of four who had returned to Mexico to attend her father’s funeral. She and her brother Nicholas were both critically injured, along with the coyote who escorted them, after re-entering the U.S. on foot near Tecate. They were airlifted out and treated at the UCSD Burn Center. After two weeks in a coma, Maria died at the hospital, with her partner and high school sweetheart Felipe Mercado at her side.

Areli Peralta, a 25-year-old woman from the state of Guerrero, Mexico, and her husband Ruben Santos Ramirez are also profiled in The Devil’s Breath. They left their small village with another young couple to start new lives in the U.S.. Their bodies were found in a scorched ravine days after the fire and remained unidentified in the morgue for months until DNA results could confirm their identities. Peralta’s grieving father, Concepción Peralta Ramirez, shares his struggle to search for answers and eventually lay his daughter and her husband to rest.

The program also addresses some of the issues that have emerged from this tragedy, including the emergency response to the border crossers’ pleas for help, the language barriers they encountered, delays in recovering and identifying the bodies found in San Diego’s backcountry, and the cost of medical treatment for the uninsured victims. Representatives from the San Diego Sheriff’s Department, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Medical Examiner’s Office, and the Binational Emergency Medical Committee are featured throughout the program.

Photographers Joaquin Elizondo and Willie Williams contributed more than just a visual eye to the project. Elizondo is also responsible for editing.

A song, entitled “Te llevo En Mi Corazon” was especially written for this documentary by composer/vocalist, Joaquin McWhinney of Big Mountain.

A volunteer search group, Los Angles del Disierto, finds the body of Juan Carlos Bautista Ocampo 3,000 feet on top of Tecate Peak. CAUTION. Image is graphic. Click image for larger view.

A volunteer search group, Los Angeles del Disierto, returns to the site where the body of Juan Carlos Bautista Ocampo is found, to place the Virgin of Guadalupe. Click image for larger view.

The Harris Fire rages out of control along the U.S. Mexico border. This fire killed 7 border crossers. Click image for larger view.