Suddenly the whole hillside exploded in what firefighters call a “blowout”–a rolling eruption of flame that seems to start all by itself. It was probably ignited by a windhome spark or ash from another fire over the hill, but Orozco never saw it. From where be stood, all that was visible was a 40-foot sheet of flame moving straight toward him and Moland faster than a man could run. In the next two seconds Orozco made a decision that probably saved their lives. He turned the hose nozzle to “full fog” and pointed it straight up, creating a water curtain around them both. Orozco fell to his knees, seeking the undepleted oxygen that stays close to the ground; Moland fell on top of him.
The wall of flame swept over them. “I thought I was on fire,” Orozco said. “All I could see was orange everywhere, and I was taking a lot of heat. My captain was in a world of pain. I thought I was going to die.” Then the water stopped: the fire, about 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit, had melted the hose. Incredibly–and very fortunately–the fire, having consumed every dry twig and blade of grass on the hillside, flamed out at almost that instant. Orozco and Mol–and ran to their engine and yelled for backup, and another truck across the canyon aimed its spray their way as a precaution. Moland’s lungs were seared from inhaled smoke and ash, and he was hospitalized. The fire burned the skin of Orozco’s left arm right through his protective jacket, and he was hospitalized, too–but only for a few hours. Two days after nearly burning to death, he was back on the line. “Hey, it’s the big game,” Orozco said. “You don’t want to miss it.”
No one missed the dangerous game being played all around Los Angeles last week. From Ventura County to Altadena and south through Laguna Beach, all the way to the Mexican border, 14 major conflagrations turned the edge of the metropolis into a ring of fire. Accustomed as Californians have become to the annual brush-fire season, no one in Los Angeles could escape the fact that this year’s outbreaks were as bad as any in southern California. Television covered the multiple fires endlessly, and by Wednesday, the whole Los Angeles Basin was wreathed in a shroud of acrid smoke that turned the setting sun blood-red. Arson was the proximate cause of many of the fires, fire officials said. But the real cause was the collision of man and nature–the steady encroachment of L.A.’s suburban sprawl on an ecosystem in which drought, wind and fire have always played a major role (page 37).
The box score, still changing at the weekend, was 152,000 acres burned, more than 550 homes destroyed and property damage of at least $500 million. There were 84 casualties, including 67 firefighters. Astonishingly, not a single death was attributed to the fires anywhere–which is testimony to the care with which police and fire officials evacuated threatened neighborhoods, and also to the skill and experience of those, like Tony Orozco, who were actually fighting the fires. For them–ground troops in a war with no front lines and little or no warning of where the enemy would strike next–the battle for L.A.’s threatened suburbs was a weeklong blur of danger, exhaustion and brutally hard work.
Despite the widespread use of aircraft to drop water bombs and chemical fire retardants, the basic weapons in this war are still bulldozers, pumper trucks, hoses and the Pulaski–a combination ax and hoe that, in the hands of a man working within a few short yards of a major blaze, can be amazingly effective. “You feel the radiant heat and you say to yourself, ‘We’re not going to stop this puppy’,” said Capt. Joe Luna of the Ventura County Fire Department. “You’re awe-struck by what nature can do, and you’re scared witless. You five to do battle with the enemy. We love that stuff.”
Luna and Orozco were among the thousands of firefighters gathered in Borchard Park near Thousand Oaks, which was commandeered last week as a temporary base camp for the army defending L.A.’s northwest rim. As these men explained it, the art and science of fighting brush fires is essentially a strategy of containment–knowing which way the Santa Ana winds are blowing and which way the fire will go, then channeling the fire and ultimately surrounding it with fire lines and firebreaks. A firebreak is anything that will stop the burning–a road, a burned-out field, the Pacific Ocean. A fire line is a man-made interruption in the fire’s fuel supply. It can be created by a backfire, which deliberately burns off the brush in front of an advancing fire, by bulldozers that strip the earth bare, or by wetting down the flammable brush with hoses and aerial bombardment. (This is called a “wet line.”) Or it can be made the old-fashioned way–with shovels and Pulaskis.
So much for theory. What makes the firefighter’s lot so tough and dangerous is the unpredictable impact of the wind. The Santa Anas were blowing hard all across southern California last week–sustained winds of 40 miles an hour and gusts of up to 78 mph. Funneled through the canyons and hills that surround southern California, these winds could and did whip small fires to massive fury, then split them into fast-moving breakaway fronts whose direction no one could anticipate. The Thousand Oaks fire, apparently set by an unidentified arsonist near the 16th green of the Los Robles Golf Course, jumped a road and split in two during the first day of its rampage. One arm moved west toward Camarillo State Hospital, the chief mental hospital for southern California, while the other headed south toward Point Mugu, west of Malibu, and the ocean. Then the sea breeze began to blow–and to everyone’s astonishment, the fire doubled back to race eastward through ‘still-unburned canyons filled with upscale homes. Still burning and only partially contained at the weekend, the Thousand Oaks fire destroyed 39,000 acres, though Camarillo State Hospital and its residents were spared.
FOR FIREFIGHTERS AT the front, a sudden wind shift can be devastating. Last week such a wind shift nearly killed four City of Los Angeles firemen assigned to fight the Chatsworth fire beyond the northwest edge of the city. This fire was set by an arsonist at about 1 a.m. Wednesday in Santa Susana Pass, which connects the San Fernando Valley to the Simi Valley in Ventura County. The area is a folded mass of canyons and ravines, where funnel effects make wind shifts doubly dangerous. Capt. Jan Bernard and three firemen were fighting a slow-moving front shortly before dawn when the wind abruptly turned up-canyon and toward them. Bernard and his men scrambled into their truck just as it was engulfed by a 50-foot-wide fireball. The fireball burned the paint off the truck and shattered the windows of the cab. It melted the firemen’s plastic hard hats and burned all of them severely through their clothes. Bernard and Fireman Russell Nakamura, who were burned over more than a third of their bodies and suffered from smoke inhalation, were hospitalized in critical condition; Carpenter and Fireman Cleveland Tipton were reported to be in serious condition.
What kind of a “sick animal” would do this sort of thing? California Gov. Pete Wilson asked last week. In the Chatsworth fire, the answer seemed to be a clever and well-prepared animal. Investigators found what they described as “an incendiary device” near the fire’s point of origin and, according to news reports, were hunting for a man who had sent letters to public officials threatening to set off a fire on a hot and windy day. Meanwhile, authorities charged a homeless man with unintentionally starting the huge fire that ravaged Altadena through the week. (The homeless man, Andres Huang, admitted building a campfire to keep warm, but pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor charge.)
Farther south, the huge brush fire that destroyed much of Laguna Beach was also said to be arson. This fire, which burned out 318 houses in one of the most picturesque towns on the California coast, mysteriously erupted west of the San Diego Freeway on Wednesday morning. It moved fast, easily jumping a fire line along Laguna Canyon Road, and began to wreak havoc in the seaside town. Through the afternoon, as firefighters watched helplessly, the fire roared through the upscale enclave of Emerald Bay, then jumped across the canyon to Skyline Drive. “People were so blase, never dreaming it would come this far,” said resident Barry Holland, whose home was destroyed.
L.A.’s defenders got a lucky break when, at the weekend, the Santa Ana winds failed to return as predicted. But no one was claiming victory, and some experts warned that this year’s rolling disaster could be an omen of things to come. “It’s just waiting to blow,” said state forestry agent Jim Neumann, gesturing toward the unburned brush in Carlisle Canyon near Thousand Oaks. “It’s the urban interface, as people move farther into the brushlands. We’re asking for trouble–this is going to happen every year.”
MAP: Where the fires erupted…
The Santa Ana winds fanned more than a dozen fires, charring 720 buildings, 152,000 acres and causing at least $500 million in damage. Remarkably, no one was killed in the fires.
Acres burned: 39,000 Damage: 43 homes Cause: arson
Acres burned: 5,700 Damage: 118 homes Estimated loss: $58.5 million Cause: accidental, suspect arrested
Acres burned: 16,684 Damage: 318 homes Estimated loss: $270 million Cause: arson suspected
Acres burned: 25,100 Damage: 30 homes, 2 farms Estimated loss: $2.6 million Cause: unknown lt;p> The Kindling
Six years of drought leave a large accumulation of dried dead trees and shrubs. 2. Last winter’s rain spurs the growth of grasses now dried by the heat of summer. 3. Successful fire prevention spares the land, yet allows the buildup of even more flammable material. 4. Dried further by the heated winds, the deadwood becomes readyfuel for fires. The Winds
High-pressure systems over Utah and Nevada push dry air toward California. 2. As the air passes over the Mojave Desert, it gains heat. 3. Funneled through narrow mountain passes, the winds gain speeds of up to 100 mph. 4. The winds prime the dry brush for combustion. When the fires start, the winds quickly whip them out of control.
