Some Like It <i> Sizzling </i> : The Elite El Cariso Hotshots: They Put Their Lives on the Fire Line

Cords were yanked and a symphony of chain saws broke the quiet of Los Padres National Forest as blades whirred through the chaparral that blankets the hillside above Ojai.

Twenty U.S. Forest Service firefighters, sweat oozing from beneath their hard hats, began their attack on an out-of-control brush fire that had already swallowed 27,000 acres of countryside around the quaint Ventura County town and forced the evacuation of 2,100 people.

Swinging saws, axes, hoes, shovels and rakes, Orange County’s El Cariso Hotshots methodically tunneled through the brush, leaving nothing flammable in their wake. Their strategy was to halt the 120-foot wall of flame by removing its fuel.

Several hours earlier, flames had jumped one of the fire lines, forcing the El Cariso crew and others to retreat and fight from a distance. This time, their efforts had worked, at least for the time being.

“Those guys just eat up brush and spit it out,” Capt. Rod Sims of the Ventura County Fire Department said later. “That particular crew is well-known for that up and down the state.”

Highly regarded for their tenacity and esprit de corps, the El Cariso Hotshots are one of the 50 National Forest Service teams that are considered the John Waynes of brush-fire battle. As such, the El Cariso Hotshots help form the front-line offense on wild-land fires throughout the western United States.

Lately they have had been busy close to home.

Since a rash of brush fires erupted last week from San Diego to Santa Barbara, the brawny firefighters have not returned to the barracks on the outer edge of Orange County that they call home six months a year.

For days the El Cariso Hotshots fought at the head of a raging desert brush fire in San Bernardino National Forest near Palm Springs in temperatures of up to 120 degrees.

When it appeared that the 20,000-acre fire was under control, they boarded their green four-wheel-drive trucks Monday evening for the five-hour drive to Ventura County, where acres of rugged countryside in Los Padres National Forest already had been ravaged.

Shortly after midnight, the weary crew settled into a fire camp, stretching out on bedrolls for a much-needed rest. An arid breeze made the 100-plus temperature bearable for sleeping. But the winds also fanned a fire that was suddenly flirting dangerously near homes in the hills surrounding the resort village and artist colony of Ojai.

The sleepy-eyed Hotshot crew was sent into the fiery forest.

“We got maybe an hour’s sleep,” said crew foreman Russ Brengman.

By 3:30 a.m. the crew was cutting a firebreak to contain the blaze, but the effort was abandoned after soaring flames jumped the line.

“This fire’s been moving so fast (that) you really can’t plan much,” said Hotshot Paul Davidson, 25. “You get here and the fire has moved. It’s impossible.”

Moments later, flames were circling a summer youth camp and several homes, and the Hotshots charged in that direction. Four hundred youngsters and staff at Camp Ramah were evacuated. But a caravan of school buses at the ready could hold no more than 200 people.

“We’re stuffing them into the crew carriers, 23 to a truck,” Jacobson said. “Those things normally hold eight (people).

“They were all up here sleeping,” he said of about 200 evacuated area residents. “They didn’t even know (how close the fire was). We were kicking in doors like cops.”

It would be 36 hours before the Hotshots returned to fire camp. After a quick meal, they trudged back to their bedrolls. Eight hours later, they were briefed and sent back to the mountains.

Yet the only thing the Hotshots find more taxing than fighting a fire is not having one to fight at all.

Back at their barracks on the grounds of the Los Pinos Conservation Camp for juvenile offenders in the Cleveland National Forest, the Hotshots keep busy chopping fire breaks and clearing brush. It’s grueling work, cutting a clean path through a wall of manzanita.

There is overtime pay for fire work. The rest of the time Hotshots make about $5 an hour--and there is a waiting list to work the mid-spring to early winter stint on the El Cariso crew.

“The camaraderie is great. Nothing in my life has ever compared to it,” said Don Matias, 25, of Lemon Grove, who has been a Hotshot for three seasons.

At a city fire department, he said, firefighters sit and wait for fires. “Here we work on a different project every day. You’re outdoors, you live off your pack, you see different parts of the country. I also enjoy being a part of a team, and that’s what this is.”

Added Kenny Jordan, 28, of Quail Valley, assistant Hotshot foreman and the man many point to as the crew’s chief motivator:

“The money’s not good but at least I take pride in what I do and so do the other guys. You feel like you’re earning your living.”

The crew formed in the late 1950s, and was dubbed the El Cariso Hotshots--for a town near the Ortega Highway--in 1960. About half of the Hotshots stay at the camp, which is about a quarter-mile from the Orange-Riverside county line. Others live in nearby Elsinore and Corona. A handful commute from San Diego or Anaheim.

Work Can Be Deadly

It is seasonal work for all but three of the 20 crew members, most of whom are in their 20s. In the off-season, about half the crew collect unemployment while the other half work as carpenters or masons, own their own businesses or attend college.

A Hotshot’s work is dangerous, even deadly. In 1959, eight Cleveland Hotshots--as they were known then--died in a fire at Decker Canyon. Six years later, a dozen more were burned to death when a fire trapped them in Angeles National Forest. Eight others were badly burned, and only three managed to escape unharmed.

The crew doesn’t use hoses, tankers or water-dropping aircraft to battle a fire. Armed with odd-looking hand tools, they work in areas a fire engine could never reach. Hotshot Doug McClanahan, 23, said they operate on the premise “that a fire will always go where a machine can’t get to.”

It’s the ability to succeed at a job that few others would attempt that gives the Hotshots a sense of pride and distinguishes them as one of the elite corps of firefighters.

“We go where no man dares to go,” said Parkinson, spitting out a wad of chewing tobacco. “Remind me to tell you about the time we had to barbecue lizards for dinner at camp because we ran out of food. They couldn’t even pack it in on horseback.”

Crew Is Self-Sufficient

Each man (there are no women on this crew, though other forest service crews include women) carries his own equipment: a Pulaski, which is a hoe-ax combination with sharp blades; a MacLeod, which is a combination broad hoe and rake, and perhaps a small rake, the tool used by the last man in line, who sweeps the trail bare. Hotshots also carry a gallon of water, flares and an aluminum fire shelter that can withstand 1,400- to 1,600-degree heat to protect a firefighter caught in spreading flames.

Unlike other wild-land firefighters, Hotshots are self-sufficient. They carry their own food and water rations with them and often hike miles into rugged, remote areas.

“We have to be able to operate with minimum support and without supervision,” Parkinson said. “An average engine company will go for 19 to 24 hours. We have to be prepared to go an average of 24 to 36. The most, I think, has been 52 hours. Once we start cutting line, we may be two or three miles with no way but to walk back.”

Fitness Key to Survival

At their barracks, the crew spends 45 minutes each morning doing calisthenics, followed by a four- to five-mile run. Later, they may hike an additional eight miles to and from a controlled burn or line cutting.

“Physical fitness is of major importance,” said Ralph Chavez, the crew’s supervisor. “It’s necessary for their survival. (Their job) is the dirtiest, hottest, nastiest and most physically and mentally stressful on a fire. They’re contending with heat which acts just like a magnet and drains the energy right out of you. . . . They may swing that tool 12,000 to 17,000 times before their shift is over.”

When they’re not working, the Hotshots often can be found at the El Cariso Country Store on Ortega Highway, or at their favorite watering hole, the Lookout restaurant, where their anthem, “Fire on the Mountain,” plays on the jukebox.

“I don’t have to be up here (financially). I come back because I want to,” said John Kelly, 40, of Corona, who is called “Pops.” “It’s hard to understand unless you’ve experienced it, but it’s like an elite fraternity.”

Kelly, who owns a sporting goods store, is a former volunteer firefighter for Riverside County. He applied with the Forest Service in 1982 because the El Cariso Hotshots “were just the best. You can definitely tell the El Carisos from any other crew. I wanted to be part of the best.”