Harrowing Tales From the Fire Lines : Firefighting: Four men are seriously hurt battling Chatsworth blaze. Crews facing intense heat and danger must decide which homes to save and which to let burn.

The flames came in a rush through the night.

And they whipped, faster than a man can run, toward the crews battling the brush fire in the pre-dawn Wednesday on the Ventura County line.

The firefighters of Engine Co. 98, in the hills of above Chatsworth, watched as the flames raced toward them after a sudden wind shift, bearing down so quickly that they knew there was no escape, no way to back the truck out of danger.

Their only hope was to climb into the firetruck, close the windows and hope to survive. The heat of the fire was so intense that the windows were knocked out and flames leaped into the cab. Somehow, though badly burned, all four survived. Struggling from the truck, they began walking toward safety.

Fire Capt. Sonny Garrido saw them coming down the road toward him, their fire helmets melted.

“We’re burnt, we’re burnt,” Garrido recalled them saying. “They looked like they were in a state of shock. My guys put a lot of water on them to cool them off but they were in a lot of pain.” The firefighters were all seriously injured and taken to the Sherman Oaks Hospital Burn Center. What happened to them marked the most serious injuries in a day of high drama for thousands of firefighters throughout Southern California. They battled blazes from Ojai in the north to San Diego in the south, winning some of their battles and losing many others to the onslaught of fire pushed along relentlessly by the wind.

Theirs was a day in which painful decisions had to be made--which houses they would try to save, which ones would burn to the ground because of a lack of either water or personnel or both. Which ones, in their parlance, were “keepers.”

Before dawn, Gaylord Ward, a camp supervisor for the Los Angeles County Fire Department, heard the alarm go off at a fire camp in the San Gabriels. The location of the blaze was in the hills of Altadena. He and his men loaded up the truck for the 20-minute drive down the winding road. The firefighters could already see the glow from the flames.

And Ward recalled thinking, “Are we going to stop it?”

“When we got there the whole canyon was gone, and it was obvious it was going to be a major fire,” said Ward, whose crew was the first on the scene.

For the next five hours, Ward’s firefighters and then others tried to knock back the flames, throwing burning vegetation into the fire and heaping shovelfuls of dirt on the flames. Only at dawn did the water air strikes begin.

“It was hellacious,” Ward said.

Just after dawn, Firefighter Andy Solorzano found himself trapped in the battle to save Altadena. He and his crew were being overrun by fire as it raced through Eaton Canyon. Like what had happened earlier in the morning near the Ventura County line, the wind picked up to as much as 60 m.p.h., jumping flames across a canyon and directly toward the firefighters.

Trapped, they raced for cover behind the firetruck, hoping it would provide enough protection. The firemen adjusted their hoses to emit a fog-like spray and keep the fire at bay. Solorzano got in the cab and inched the firetruck down a narrow winding road to safety.

“We knew we had to protect the truck because if we lost it we lost our water,” Solorzano said.

They ended up near Altadena Drive and New York Avenue, battling to save six homes that were about to be overrun by fire. Solorzano said they saved five.

When Firefighter Ward Olson awoke Wednesday morning, he looked out the window and saw the smoke of Altadena. Quickly dressing, he threw his fire gear in his four-wheel-drive pickup and headed in the direction of the fire. Eucalyptus trees were in flames and exploding all around him as the fire took one house, then another. Olson hooked up with a fire team and fought the blaze for the next six hours.

“We saved a lot of houses,” he said. “But some you had to write off because we had limited water and personnel.”

By the middle of the afternoon, Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Dirk Wegner’s face was covered in soot. He was sitting in the staging area for firefighters at Victory Park in Pasadena, eating chicken McNuggets. He, like the others, was in awe of the fire, its swiftness and the destruction it had caused.

“It was just crazy,” he said. “The guys on my crew put it on the line.”

He also said more homes could have been saved, but firefighters were hampered when they ran out of water.

“We were screaming for water,” he said. “We would have given our souls for water.”

In another part of the fire, a Los Angeles County Fire Department captain and his crew discovered there was no water coming from the hydrant.

“I just don’t know how we’re going to do this,” he said in frustration. Then he ordered his crew to take water from a nearby swimming pool. They drove the engine to the back yard of a house, crashing through the sides of the fence gate and running over the neatly trimmed hedge. They were able to save one house using the water from the pool.

As the fires in Laguna Beach burned out of control, Fire Capt. Mike Virden told of how bad things had become in what was only hours before a picturesque oceanside art colony. Virden, who with his crew had driven 235 miles south from Kings County to help, said there were not enough fire hydrants in town to wet down houses in the line of the fire.

“Mother Nature is going to have to help us,” he said, voicing hope the winds would die down.

Further inland Wednesday, fire was shooting through the fields in the unincorporated area of Winchester in rural Riverside County, toward Yshmael Garcia’s home. Flames licked at both sides of his driveway. About a dozen firetrucks formed a line on either side of the Garcia driveway, allowing him to drive with his family to safety.

“I’d have to say they probably saved our lives,” Garcia said. “I don’t know what we would have done without them.”

Times staff writers Leslie Berger, Michael Granberry and Berkley Hudson contributed to this story.

“It’s Starting To Turn On Us.”

--Radio call from Lilac Lane

A sudden shift of wind down a narrow canyon created a wall of flame that trapped four firefighters stationed on Lilac Lane above Chatsworth to protect a mansion and nearby houses. All four were seriously injured.

The erratic fire began about 1 a.m. Wednesday near Santa Susana Pass Road and burned to the southwest into Ventura County and along Box Canyon Road.

Chimney effect: The topography of Lilac Lane, narrow with high hillsides, formed a natural chimney flue, funneling the flames toward the firefighters.

1. At about 5 a.m., a radio call warns firefighters that gusting winds have suddenly shifted direction.

2. Escape impossible, four firefighters scramble into the cab. There is no time to don breathing masks.

3. Flames 40 to 50 feet high engulf the fire engine, breaking out the windows. The fire jumps the road, igniting the nearby hillside.

4. A minute later, the firefighters, burned and suffering from smoke inhalation, walk to a nearby fire engine for help.

5. The firefighters are treated at the scene and rushed to area hospitals.