The flames raced over the hillside in moments, fueled by nature’s blowtorch, the Santa Ana winds.

And when the Lilac Fire in San Diego County took aim at Paul Isley’s 8.34-acre plant nursery below, the battle was already lost.

“This was not just a fire. It was a Santa Ana,” said Isley, who with his business partner, Jerry Robinson, operated the nursery as part of his RainForest Flora nursery business at 190th Street and Hawthorne Boulevard in Torrance. “It was so powerful and fast.”

Isley, who lost hundreds of rare plants as part of his inventory cultivated, in some cases, over decades — he estimates the financial loss to be in the millions — is focused primarily this week on helping three families, longtime employees and property caretakers who lived on the San Diego property at 6920 W. Lilac Road in Bonsall recoup after losing everything.

Isley, a Manhattan Beach resident, was in the South Bay when the fire broke out on Dec. 7. He received an urgent call from the caretaker alerting him of the fire’s outbreak. They could see smoke rising up over the hillside. Later, it was followed by flames.

“They got their hoses out and then called back an hour later and said, ‘There’s fire everywhere,’ ” Isley said. “They had the clothes on their backs and that was it.”

They lost three of their four cars, one of their three dogs and 26 of their 27 chickens in the fast-moving fire that destroyed 151 buildings and damaged 56 others. By the time it was over, the fire had burned 4,100 acres in its path. The cause remains under investigation but it was one of several horrific fires that have engulfed Southern California early this month.

Longtime caretakers

One of the families had worked with Isley for 17 years while living in a mobile home that was destroyed on the property in Bonsall, just east of Oceanside. They’re now living in temporary shelters as the Isleys work to provide new housing for them.

“He cared for those plants and his daughter had kids who also lived there,” said Paul Isley’s daughter, Kim, 26, of Redondo Beach. “This is just like a tragedy beyond comprehension right now.”

Kim Isley spent hours sifting through the ruins in search of a wedding ring belonging to the worker’s wife. It still hasn’t been found.

She was watching the news from Redondo Beach when she heard the announcement that a “huge nursery” had burned down in the Lilac fire. She knew it was probably the family business.

“I just collapsed and panicked and cried,” she said. “They’re grateful to be alive and they’re OK, so we all know that’s what’s really important, but between the loss of their home and what they owned and the plants, it’s pretty much catastrophic.”

Online fundraising

A GoFundMe page — www.gofundme.com/LilacNursery — has been launched to raise money for the families and to begin the rebuilding process.

Altogether, the nursery employs more than 30 people who rely on the family business.

Figuring that an electrical fire, which could be put out quickly, was the most likely threat, Paul Isley said the property in Bonsall was not insured for fire.

Something like an electrical fire, he said, was “not going to just blow away your inventory,” he said of the most likely scenario. “The thing we never anticipated was to have a forest fire. With all that high wind, it was like a blowtorch.”

Properties around them were not burned, he said. “It’s just the luck of the draw.”

Love of plants

Paul Isley was a student and manager of the football team at UCLA in the 1970s when he became intrigued with some hanging plants his friend was growing on his patio. “They looked like they were from outer space,” he said.

After collecting exotic plants on a 1974 drive throughout Mexico with a buddy, he found a ready market for them at the local swap meets — and his lifelong business was born.

“We lost a huge, irreplaceable part of our inventory; a lot of it doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world,” he said. His nursery sells to retail customers, including Trader Joe’s. “We’ve been doing this for 43 years.”

Two greenhouses were on the property in Bonsall.

“It’s going to cost a fortune (to rebuild) and I’m not sure how we’re going to do that,” Paul Isley said.

‘We’re just one story’

Daughter Kim said the family is still in shock but has mobilized to raise funds for their employees who lost so much.

“I kept saying, ‘This isn’t real, it can’t be happening,'” she said. “To see something my dad cared so much about, he’s such a plant man. You have feelings for them. It’s just like a horror scene.”

Paul Isley said it’s toughest when he wakes up first thing in the morning and has to adjust, again, to what is his new reality.

Despite the near total destruction, about 5 percent of the plants actually survived, Kim Isley said.

“They’re pretty sustainable and that’s what’s giving us hope,” she said. “One minute I’m happy and hopeful and excited to rebuild, but then I just feel so badly for everyone. We’re just one story. It’s a sad story, but so many people lost their homes.”