SAN DIEGO -- In an exhaustive report released Friday, the Sheriff's Department details -- and defends -- its response to last fall's wildfires, an epic disaster that left the agency facing criticism from some victims.

The blazes spawned a "series of events" that challenged the county law enforcement body "at a level incomparable to any in its 154-year history," according to the in-house analysis.

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The document provides a timeline of the department's reactions to the Cedar, Paradise and Otay fires, which collectively killed 16 people and leveled more than 3,200 structures in the San Diego region.

Combined, the infernos, which erupted on the last weekend of October, blackened about 376,000 acres -- or 13 percent of the county's total land mass -- and cost $43.23 million to fight, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

Some who lost their homes to the catastrophe have accused government agencies, including the Sheriff's Department, of failing to protect communities from the ferocious flames.

Residents of the San Diego Country Estates area, near where the Cedar Fire originated, "have been very vocal about their displeasure with the lack of public-safety personnel and evacuation notices," the report states.

More than half the 190 Ramona-area homes lost to the blaze were in that rural community.

In response, the authors of the document assert that the "staffing response was as efficient as possible," considering that the firestorm "developed suddenly, and at an unprecedented rate far exceeding any previous training scenarios short of another September 11th."

"If not for the initiation of the Paradise Fire (to the north), the staffing on the Cedar Fire would have been more proportionate to the development of the disaster, and more North County and court-services deputies would have been available," the report adds.

Dispatch records show that for seven hours, starting about 2:30 a.m. on Oct. 26, the first full day of the regionwide crisis, six sheriff's units evacuated homes in the Mussey Grade Road area, aided by the California Highway Patrol.

"The record during that time frame contains 55 entries regarding evacuations, delays due to horses and an inability to reach all of the residents due to their long driveways," according to the report.

In two situations, deputies began clearing people out of threatened neighborhoods before receiving evacuation orders from such firefighting agencies as the California Department of Forestry, the document states.

In the case of Muth Valley, CDF officials called for evacuations 45 minutes before the region became overrun by walls of flame.

By then, however, only three sheriff's units were available and able to get into the neighborhood, since the fire had made Wildcat Canyon Road impassable, the report continues.

"The short lead times shown in this analysis are another indication of how quickly and unpredictably the fire moved at this, its most deadly time," the document adds.