Waiting for Word From the Front : Fire: As rumors flew at a makeshift evacuation center, homeowners turned out by the Del Dios blaze were riding a roller coaster of hope.

On a blistering afternoon Monday, as fire raged around her Mt. Israel home, Jean Goldsmith had to make one of the fastest and most difficult decisions in all her 50 years.

Judging from the distance of the approaching flames, she had less than an hour to rescue the keepsakes and belongings she and her family of four had collected during a lifetime together.

She recalled thinking: What to take? What deserves to be saved? And the flames, the fire--keep an eye on the fire.

Monday evening, as they waited in a makeshift fire evacuation center in an Escondido middle school, Goldsmith and her husband, Jerry, told of the frantic, last-minute treasure hunt to save their memories.

“We had an old trunk full of pictures my son and I tried to carry out,” she said. “But it was too heavy. So we just grabbed the pictures. My son got his baseball card collection. I ran around the house trying to decide what to take.

“When we finally left, I realized I forgot the tax records--and my underwear.”

All around her, people listened in silence. Most were neighbors, many of whom could not reach their homes to get photographs and pets. They had been turned back at police barricades surrounding the fire and directed to the school auditorium.

As the hours dragged by, they carried around barking dogs and portable telephones, waiting for word from family members inside the fire line.

As dusk came and went, the middle school became an uncomfortable stock market of rumors, bad news and hopes that were repeatedly dashed and, moments later, revived.

Mothers worried about a missing school bus of high school students and about a crying teen-ager on foot who was turned back at the barricade by officers.

Meanwhile, more cars pulled up to the school with word from the front, the police line. For many, it became tales from the dark side. During the course of an hour, Arline Brady learned that her garage had burned, then her entire home--then came word that the house had been spared.

“That’s the worst part. You can’t depend on anything you hear,” she said.

By 6 p.m., 3 dozen people had checked into the Red Cross center, registering at plastic picnic tables set up across the gymnasium-style floor.

Some left messages on 3-by-5-inch cards posted on a makeshift bulletin board. One message offered a free corral for homeless horses. Another read: “Beatties, I have your dog. Dianne.”

At the time, there were still signs of hope.

“Fires are goofy,” said one man. “They skip around. Hit this. Miss that. There’s no rhyme or reason.”

By 6 p.m., as the fire continued to rage, some hopes began to die. Many homeowners clustered around a television set that broadcast a news story on the fire, looking for images of their embattled homes.

“Show the homes!” they yelled as the newscast strayed from images of the devastation.

Then Brent Brady saw his missing father being interviewed on the newscast.

“All you can do is hope that your family and animals got out,” he said. “The rest you can replace. I stopped worrying the moment I saw my dad.”

Jim Stewart had another roller-coaster story to tell. His neighbors fled the scene all around him while he spent an hour hosing down the roof of his parents’ $1-million Mt. Israel home.

“I got home from lunch, and my dad said the fire was coming,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do, so I called my 80-year-old grandmother. She said get on the roof and hose it down, so that’s what I did.”

Still, at 7:30 p.m., Stewart was unsure about the fate of his home and his family’s race horse and foal. He put his arm around a neighbor’s shoulder and said, “If what they’re saying is true, our houses are gone.”

Shortly before 8 p.m., a California Highway Patrol officer gave the crowd its first bit of substantiated news.

But the word was bad.

“The fire,” he said, “has reversed direction and is heading back up the hill. We don’t know which homes are now in danger.”

Eventually, Red Cross workers began taking names of people who needed to spend the night at the shelter.

Jerry Goldsmith could only second-guess himself. Earlier that afternoon, the Sea World curator had raced up from San Diego to help his wife and son in their wild dash through their $400,000 house.

“‘If there’s one regret, it’s not getting my daughter’s doll collection, “ he said with a shake of his head. “You save what you can, but when you drive away, you still feel empty.”