They Rode a ‘Fire Tunnel’ to the Rescue

Four Los Angeles firemen drove their engine through “a tunnel of fire” on a windswept ridge Monday night to rescue two colleagues trapped when flames they were fighting jumped a dirt road and surrounded them.

“It was like driving through hell,” firefighter James Cho, 28, said.

Cho was one of the men clinging to the fire engine on the ride high up on East Fenn St., in Montecito Heights, a ridge that overlooks the Pasadena freeway and the center of Los Angeles.

Apparatus Operator Ronald Carr and Fireman Cameron Kennedy were trapped when they drove along the ridge in their pickup booster tank truck to try to stop the flames from reaching four houses shortly after 10 p.m. Monday. Their vehicle, a four-wheel drive pickup, is used to get firefighters into rough terrain quickly.

“We drove right through a tunnel of fire to get to them,” said Cho. “There was Capt. Carl Gundersen, firefighter Ed Elguea and me and Engineer Kenneth Mulholland was driving.

“It was a narrow, dirt road, with tall eucalyptus trees... The wind was blowing hard, the grass and brush were burning and the trees were blazing. Eucalyptus have a lot of oil. They burn hot. We were in our fire-resistant uniforms, but we were burning hot and couldn’t see too well because of the flames and smoke.

“Engineer Mulholland was very calm and got us through to where the truck was. They’d used their 200 gallons of water but we used our 400 gallons to damp down the fires around us and to stop the flames spreading to two more houses at the end of the ridge.”

The firefighters’ story was only one of many dramatic tales told as fires swept the Southland.

The Montecito Heights fire was a relatively small one. Two homes on the ridge were destroyed, and 20 acres of grassland were blackened, but no one was injured, said Los Angeles City Fire Department spokesman Jim Wells. Damage was estimated at $162,000.

The fire is believe to have been started by arsonists and two people have been arrested, said Fire Department Public Information Officer Gary Svider. However, Svider said he could not identify the people arrested.

While engine 16 was driving through the flames to rescue the trapped firemen, the crew of engine 47 was rescueing an elderly man trapped by a chain link fence when the flames destroyed his house.

“The first house we came to on the ridge was partially in flames as we reached it,” said Capt. Donald E.L. Betsworth, 54. “Before we could begin putting water on the fire the house exploded in flames. It was totally engulfed almost immediately.

“Then I saw this old man silhouetted by the light of the flames. The heat had driven him as far as he could go, but he was trapped by the fence. He was standing with his hands on the chain link fence, trying to find his way out.

“He would never have got out. The gate was locked with a big steel chain and we had to open it with chain cutters. It was so hot that as I led the old man out, my firemen kept wetting us down so we wouldn’t be burned. We wrapped the old man in a blanket. I asked for a rescue ambulance and had two of my men escort him up the hill to another truck.”

Red Cross officials identified the rescued man as Harold Sigler, 86. Fire officials said Sigler was not injured and refused to go to hospital for examination. The officials said they believed he is now staying with friends, but did not know where.