All Fired Up as Sun Goes Down : Beaches at Night Draw Revelers, Lovers--and Trouble

Before the first headlight appears on Coast Highway, hundreds of beach fires already slap at the sky, mimicking the colors of the sunset. The sun worshipers are going off duty, and a second, less easily pigeonholed shift of beach enthusiasts has arrived.

Anthropologists have reasoned that the campfire was the precursor of television. It was the mesmerizing light source people watched at night.

The campfire was also the focal point for a variety of tribal rituals, and some observers might argue that along Southern California’s beaches, it still is.

Throughout the summer they burn, from San Diego to Santa Barbara, but the 4 1/2-mile stretch of sand comprising the developed sections of Bolsa Chica and Huntington state beaches is probably the campfire capital of California. About 650 concrete fire rings lie scattered 10 yards apart, two and three deep at Huntington, and Bolsa Chica boasts another 550 or so. In contrast, there are only 50 campfire rings along the 31 miles of Los Angeles County beaches, according to a spokesman at the Department of Beaches and Harbors.

“If you get here at six o’clock on a Saturday night, you probably won’t find a single (empty) fire pit,” said lifeguard Randy Trefry, night supervisor for the two state parks. What you will find, Trefry said, is a condensed cross-section of Southern California; as many as 30,000 people, who will have strikingly different--sometimes dangerous--reactions to the strange influence of the surf, stars, flames and other intoxicants. (Alcohol is legal on most parts of Huntington and Bolsa Chica, unlike most Southern California beaches.) At one fire on a recent evening, with no audible accompaniment, young women in gray sweat shirts danced barefoot around the raised fire ring, their long shadows sashaying across the sand. At another, Christian groups linked arms and swayed to hymns.

In one circle, a swarm of teen-agers shrieked and chugged beers. Tilting back their heads, they would poke a hole in the bottom of the cans, letting the suds explode into their mouths. Nearby, a well-dressed couple sipped wine from goblets and hugged. That fires do, indeed, fan the flames of passion was evidenced by the abundance of bodies curled up in blankets and sleeping bags, oblivious to passers-by or blowing sand.

“We come here every week, from the first Friday after the Fourth of July till the end of summer” said Alice Canales, as 20 or so members of La Puerta Abierta Assembly of God Church in East Los Angeles sat in the glow of a fire at Huntington State Beach.

“Everyone’s so busy during the week. This gives us a chance to get to know each other better,” Canales said.

“We talk about old times, new times . . ., “ said a woman reclining on a bright poncho.

“Memories,” said another voice. “Reminiscing.”

“This is just a nice chance for us to relax and talk,” said Canales.

“And to pig out,” added the woman on the poncho. The group’s string of red, white and blue flags snapped beside her in the sea breeze.

What’s on the menu?

“Burritos with chorizo, steaks, hot dogs, pan dulce ,” Frank Canales said.

“And diet sodas!” someone else shouted.

Frank Canales laughed, and tossed an old cabinet door into the fire.

While most people remained huddled around a single fire, others were more sociable, roving the beach in search of a compatible party.

Randy Hallock is a self-described strolling minstrel, hopping from one beach party to another.

Hallock, who doesn’t reveal his age (“In rock ‘n’ roll, you have to be young.”) lives in Pomona, but sleeps in his van several nights a week during the summer, to be nearer the campfire scene.

Passing as close to the flickering perimeters of the campfires as decorum allowed, Hallock waited for someone to spot his weathered guitar and invite him in for a song or two. He asks nothing in return, but doesn’t refuse if someone makes an offer.

“I’ve got some cheese and hot dogs in here now,” he said, pointing to a bag at his side which contained donated food. If someone really liked his tunes, he’d offer them cassettes illustrated with his magic marker drawings of red and yellow flames and hand-labeled: “Randy--Recorded Live at the Huntington Beach Fire Pits.”

Standing in the darkness amid several circles of light, Hallock raised his guitar and ran a pick over the strings. “This song is a brief history of what I’m about,” he offered.

My stage is under the stars, with the moon and Mars,

When the sun goes down I’m on . . .

With the ocean at my back, I yackety-yack,

around concrete pits of fire . . . .

Between verses, he blew a rousing interlude on a kazoo attached to a wire frame around his neck, then continued:

I play my music outside, where the distance is wide ,

Like a gangster on the run .

I have to dodge and hide

like Bonnie and Clyde

But it’s all part of the fun.

“My only competition around here is from a guy who’s deaf and goes around to the fires handing out pins and asking for money,” Hallock said. “I don’t have a big name with the local officials here, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

Phil Kerwin also earns his living from the campfire crowd, although his activity--driving through the parking lots selling firewood, lighter fluid and marshmallows for Olympic Concessions--is officially sanctioned.

But $5 for a bundle of wood?

“You wouldn’t believe it, people buy it,” he said, grinning and shaking his head incredulously.

The crew from Regis Construction Co. in Newport Beach had plenty of their own wood, which they’d turned into two roaring fires. With sparks flying and swaddled babies crying, they had one of the bigger parties on the beach.

“We’re just letting loose after a grueling, grueling week,” said Chuck Cerny of Covina.

“We’re here to have a bit of fun, a couple of whiskeys, and let off some steam.”

True to their profession, the builders had constructed an 8-foot table from sheets of plywood, lumber and a huge cable spool, then covered it with salads, popcorn, punch, a hibachi on which hot dogs sizzled, and a “boom box” stereo blaring rock music.

By 10 p.m. a bank of fog had slipped in off the ocean, giving an eerie cast to the long lines of fires. “This is earthquake weather,” a woman remarked, with a shiver.

“No, this is Friday night, end of the week, let’s . . . relax weather,” Cerny said, rattling the ice in his plastic cup. A moment later, though, he conceded: “I can feel the fog now, it’s diluting my whiskey.”

At 11, the beaches underwent another transformation. At Bolsa Chica, 3,000-watt floodlights suddenly snapped on atop each of the 60-foot light standards that skirt the 2 1/2 miles of developed beach at 50-yard intervals. Then, from speakers on the light poles, the voice of lifeguard Randy Trefry boomed above the sound of the surf and the highway: “Bolsa Chica State Beach is now closing, all persons and vehicles should begin exiting the park at this time.”

“I love it here,” Trefry said a moment later, as he drove along the bike path watching the beach, where some groups were breaking up and others refused to budge. “But I don’t do much lifeguarding anymore, even though that’s what it says on my badge.”

Instead, Trefry and the eight other lifeguards patrolling Bolsa Chica and Huntington beaches that night are full-fledged peace officers, carrying guns and handcuffs.

“I’ve worked at Lake Perris, San Clemente, Doheny and San Onofre (state beaches), and by far this has the highest law enforcement activity,” he said.

This night, Trefry’s team had made one arrest on suspicion of assault with intent to commit rape, another on warrant violations, and they’d taken into custody two youths who had allegedly smashed the windshield of a parked car.

On an average summer weekend, the officers will arrest five to 10 people at the two parks, Trefry said. During Trefry’s time at the two beaches, he’s seen murders, rapes, robberies, stabbings, gang fights and suicides.

Trefry watched a group of about 30 young people who had moved only as far as the parking lot, where they danced around a ’57 Chevy singing “Twist and Shout.”

For the next couple hours, most of the incidents that kept the officers speeding back and forth across the park involved alcohol:

One young driver flew his Honda over a curb and into a sand pit. He fumbled through a drunk test, and spent the night in jail. At Trefry’s suggestion, two Canadian revelers handed over the keys to their pickup and hiked off to Jack-in-the-Box. They were promised that if they consumed sufficient quantities of coffee, they’d get the keys back. A man reported his wife and two daughters missing in the ocean. They called the lifeguard station to say they’d taken a cab home.

At nearly 1 o’clock, only a few groups lingered. Trefry pulled up behind some remaining cars and announced over his loudspeaker: “May I have your attention: I will begin issuing citiations to vehicles for remaining in the park after closing.

“The pen is mightier than the sword,” Trefry observed, scratching out tickets while the revelers scrambled across the sand toward their cars.

About an hour later, the beach was pronounced “all clear.”