In the Path of a Wildfire, Terror Becomes All Too Well Understood

The bright glow of dancing flames lit the evening sky above La Vida Hot Springs Cafe in the Carbon Canyon area of rural Brea.

A wildfire June 28 was racing through the canyon, gobbling up thousands of acres of pristine woodlands and threatening everything in its way. Devilish winds and 105-degree temperatures had propelled the arson-set conflagration out of control.

I was interviewing people outside the cafe when an editor advised that the nearby community of Sleepy Hollow was ablaze and asked whether I could make my way there. In so attempting, I learned firsthand about the terror that both people and animals feel amid such a fast-moving blaze.

Just two miles separated the restaurant from Sleepy Hollow, a hamlet of about 200 residents just over the border in San Bernardino County. But fire officials warned that flames had jumped across Carbon Canyon Road leading to the community, making travel there extremely hazardous.

Earlier in the day, Times photographer Mark Boster had told me that wildfires can travel so fast--leaping canyons to set another slope afire--that he routinely parks his car facing downhill and with the motor running as a precaution.

Deciding to at least try for Sleepy Hollow, I aimed my Volkswagen convertible east and drove cautiously down the winding, two-lane road. I had barely rounded the first curve when I encountered sheets of flame roaring on both sides of the road.

Flooring the accelerator and passing through, I felt the heat so intensely that I worried that my car might explode. Embers showered on the car, threatening to ignite the convertible’s top. After a few hundred yards, smoke became so thick and overwhelming that I had to turn around.

Earlier in the afternoon, Boster and I had been at Olinda Village, a community of about 500 residents in rural Brea where flames threatened but failed to envelop several neighborhoods. Many longtime residents viewed the fire with concern but not alarm as firefighters formed a protective perimeter.

Newcomers to the area were badly frightened, however. When Marilyn Teed returned home and saw flames crackling at the boundary of her hillside property, her first reaction was to sit down and cry.

“I can’t even believe this,” said Teed, 36, as she slumped on a lounge chair and watched firefighters battle to save her property. She and her husband had moved into the new home three years ago.

Firefighters managed to save the residence, but across the canyon flames were racing up a hillside. A mule deer--rarely seen at that time of day--bounded away ahead of the fire. Several rabbits scampered in confusion, ducking in and out of holes for safety.

Down the hill at Hidden Valley Ranch, owner Donna Hill and her workers had their hands full trying to calm horses panicking from smoke. Some of the horses had kicked and stomped so much that they had broken a metal corral. Owners had rushed from their homes to help rescue the animals.

“Both people and horses are panicking,” Hill said.

On the street above Hill’s small ranch, an older woman and her daughter had gotten one of their horses into a trailer but were wrestling to get the other one in so they could haul them to safety. The frightened horse would not budge, despite slaps on the rear and tugs on the rein. It even reared and kicked at the trailer, nearly injuring its owners. The horse eventually went in after more persuasion.

Later that night, I finally managed to reach Sleepy Hollow, where a dozen homes had been destroyed and hillsides blackened by fire. I did so by traveling a circuitous, hourlong route via the Riverside Freeway.

At 11:30 p.m., after our last deadline, I wearily returned home on Carbon Canyon Road. The route was finally safe, though dark and deserted. Approaching the point where I had been forced back before, I spotted large objects crowding the road. My headlights then illuminated six deer.

They appeared dazed as they stumbled out of my way, seemingly more afraid to re-enter their charred homeland than to stay on the road.