Veteran firefighter defends his own home

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Hamilton Truck Trail:

Two days ago Gary Summers saw puffs of smoke from the Santiago fire over the ridge near his home. Summers had fought countless house fires before he retired after 29 years with the Santa
Ana Fire Department. Now, he prepared to frantically defend his own home, the last house perched on the hillside here.

At 8 a.m., firefighters set a back-burn on the hillside next to his home. By midday, flames were dangerously close to his house. Summers paced his redwood deck, a garden hose in one hand, a cordless phone in the other taking calls from old friends and fire buddies asking if he was still there. He told them he felt “like a smoked ham.”

“It looks like just a little bunker here now, my house is the only thing that hasn’t burned, everything else is destroyed,” he said.

As the fire approached on all sides and helicopter after helicopter made water drops, they asked for Summer’s permission to cut down bushes and trees outside his house. “Cut it all down, anything you want,” he replied.

The fire appeared to move on. He appraised his scorched four-acre property. Thirty years before, he had built his own wooden-framed home. “This house could be in these ashes, too.”

-- Tony Barboza