Orange County Units Join Battle : Brush Fire Destroys 15 Homes in Puente Hills

A swirling brush fire, fed by erratic winds, raged out of control in the Puente Hills, north of Whittier, on Monday, destroying at least 15 homes, damaging several others and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of residents.

Los Angeles County fire officials said they would not know exactly how many structures had been destroyed, or damaged, until the blaze is brought under control and they could provide no estimate of when that might be. No serious injuries were reported.

More than 970 firefighters--initially hampered by high temperatures and unpredictable winds--battled to contain the spectacular blaze, which had charred more than 1,500 acres by late Monday, fire officials said.

Three strike units from Orange County were sent to the fire early Monday evening. The units were composed of crews from the Anaheim, Buena Park, Costa Mesa, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Santa Ana and Westminster fire departments. Each department contributed at least one fire crew or a battalion chief.

“It’s burning like a maniac,” was the way Los Angeles County Firefighter Bill Borthwick put it.

“It’s a nightmare at the top of the hill,” said horse trainer Jill Snyder, 18, of Hacienda Heights, as she led two horses and two goats to safety. “From the horse trail, you could see flames everywhere.”

Los Angeles County fire spokesman John Lenihan said arson investigators pinpointed the area where the fire started shortly before 2 p.m. on the shoulder of Turnbull Canyon Road near Skyline Drive and burned toward homes in the Hacienda Heights area.

“There’s no reason for an area like that to be touched off,” he said. “It’s not an area where you would expect to have a fire ignite.”

About 250 families--approximately 600 people--were evacuated and sent to three centers, Lenihan said, adding that they would not be allowed back into their homes before this morning As night fell, firefighters were letting the blaze burn unchecked toward a landfill in the Puente Hills.

“In this case, the dump will be our friend,” Lenihan said late Monday.

“I know what catastrophe is like now,” Roy Vann, 40, said Monday afternoon as he sprinkled water on his roof while flames advanced to within 150 feet of his home on Beech Hill Drive. “I thought I was going to lose my home.”

His home was spared as backfires crews had set steered the flames toward a ridge away from the street.

The burned homes were scattered along the length of Turnbull Canyon, where houses valued as high as $1 million are secluded in heavily wooded areas, Lenihan said. Two of the homes destroyed were on Skyline Drive off Turnbull Canyon Road.

Refused to Evacuate

Even though their street was sandwiched between two walls of flame, residents on nearby Blue Sky Road refused to evacuate when deputies first told them to do so at 4 p.m.

“I am trying to save my house,” said John Anderson, as he, too, sprayed water on his wood shingle roof from a garden hose as the flames licked fewer than 50 yards away. The homeowner tried to remain upbeat and joked about passing soft drinks to firefighters clearing a break behind his house.

Firefighters and residents were hampered by low water pressure after pumps were knocked out by a power failure as the flames hopscotched from ridge to ridge in the rugged, chaparral-covered canyon, which officials said hadn’t burned in more than 50 years.

“This is the last stand of McGann,” said Tim McGann as water barely trickled out of his garden hose. “I’m going to save the house, man.”

Behind him, fire crews worked furiously with axes and chain saws to cut a break in the heavy brush as flames leaped 50 feet into the air no more than 10 feet from his home.

Winds Shifted

Fortunately for McGann, winds shifted and blew the flames away.

Chad Gonella said he was taking his girlfriend home, when he spotted the smoke from the Pomona Freeway and knew it was in his neighborhood.

Sheriff’s deputies “told me to leave,” he said. “But I came back anyway. I ended up helping the Fire Department. They gave me a hose. The fire got pretty close for a while, but it looks as though I’m going to make it.”

Like other residents of Turnbull Canyon, evacuee Joyce White packed family photos, small mementos and other memorabilia into the trunk of her car.

“We won’t have a stitch of clothing, but at least we’ll have these, our memories,” she said.

Pat Griffin, who lives next door to the local fire station on Turnbull Canyon Road, said she was not worried about her home “at the moment. I hope they won’t let it burn down.”

Looking up a ridge to where a neighbor was making a feeble attempt to water his roof with a garden hose fewer than 100 feet from the flames, she said: “You have to keep busy. He’s just like me. I swept the porch. You do anything to keep your hands busy.”

Area resident Steve Benton said he spotted the fire shortly after it erupted.

“It started as a small brush fire on the Whittier side of the ridge, near Turnbull Canyon Road,” he said. “All of a sudden, the wind caught it, and it was gone.”

A column of blue-black smoke, billowing hundreds of feet up from the blaze, was clearly visible from as far away as West Los Angeles and Hollywood.

Freeway Closed

Officials closed a section of the Pomona Freeway between the San Gabriel River Freeway and 7th Street in Hacienda Heights because of the blaze, and traffic was virtually gridlocked on surface streets in the area, sheriff’s deputies said.

Two “strike teams” of five engine companies each responded to the original alarm at 1:43 p.m., officials said.

Five more engine companies and five water-dropping helicopters were dispatched to the scene at 3 p.m. after the winds picked up, firefighters said.

By nightfall, firefighters from 10 departments, plus the U.S. Forest Service, were battling the flames with the focus on saving homes.

As winds blew flames away from Blue Sky Road, county Fire Capt. Mark Morgan said he was not sure the area was out of danger.

“We’re just trying to make sure the fire doesn’t get to the houses,” he said.

Scurried to Safety

Just as two dozen firefighters reached the top of a ridge behind Blue Sky Road, a burst of flame ignited the brush, forcing them to scurry back to the canyon below, Morgan said. When the fire did not spread and it appeared safe, they returned to the ridge to cut breaks.

Just as they crested the ridge a second time, “the fire just came around us and made a run on us,” said firefighter Steve King. “We had to get out of there fast.”

Raleigh Ornelas spent the afternoon helping firefighters, using a 3,500-gallon water truck he owns.

He said he arrived home on Orange Grove Drive at 1:30 p.m. and went to the fire station and volunteered. Fire officials sent him to Turnbull Canyon Road where he sprayed brush that caught fire.

“You couldn’t see nothing from both sides of the road,” said Ornelas, 42, adding that he helped neighbors spray their roofs.

“It’s my neighborhood,” he said. “I just want to help somebody.”

The evacuees--whose homes were in the vicinity of Turnbull Canyon Road and Blue Sky Road, Descending Drive, Edgeridge Drive, Skyline Drive and Las Tunas Drive--were sent to nearby Los Altos High School, 15325 E. Los Robles Ave., St. John Vianney School at 1345 S. Turnbull Canyon Road and Wilson High School at 16455 E. Wedgeworth Drive, county fire spokesman Joe Silva said.

Times staff writers Edward J. Boyer, Stephen Braun, John Kendall, John H. Lee and Craig Quintana contributed to this story.