Fire Crews Now Happy Campers : Forest: Firefighters from as far away as Montana and Wyoming helped get Ortega blaze under control. Enormous camp at Caspers park was home to 2,100.

Michael (Tiger) Kane, a 31-year-old crew boss for the Fort Apache Hotshots from Arizona, said he recalled one thing that made fighting the Ortega fire different from others.

“The winds,” said Kane, taking a brief rest at Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park about 10 miles east of here. “Man, these Santa Anas, you don’t get them anywhere else.”

The Ortega fire destroyed 21,384 acres and 36 homes and damaged 16 other structures, making it perhaps Orange County’s largest in recent years in terms of acreage and damage to wildlife resources, said Dolores Maese, a U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman.

The fire, which began at 4 p.m. on Oct. 27, was 100% contained at noon Monday and declared under control at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

The fire was overshadowed by last week’s devastating Laguna fire, which destroyed 366 homes and 16,682 acres and caused an estimated $270 million in damage.

By contrast, Maese said, the Ortega fire caused an estimated $25 million in damage, mostly to homes in the rural community of Rancho Carrillo and residences along San Juan Canyon.

The blaze quickly gained intensity because most firefighters were deployed elsewhere, Maese said.

Firefighters had to be called from as far away as Montana, Wyoming and Colorado by the U.S. Forest Service, which quickly erected an enormous camp at Caspers park that served as home to 2,100 firefighters.

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In addition to lost homes, valuable watershed was destroyed, and damage was heavy in public wildlife areas, such as Caspers park, one of Orange County’s recreational jewels. About 5,500 acres--more than two-thirds of Caspers--were burned, park officials said. The fire also closed Ortega Highway, a main thoroughfare from San Juan Capistrano inland to Lake Elsinore and other Riverside County communities.

Ortega Highway was reopened Wednesday night.

Tom Collins, 42, a park maintenance supervisor at Caspers, said a concession stand and two other small structures at San Juan Hot Springs were destroyed, including a lookout gazebo at the park’s highest point, at Three Trees near Badger Pass.

Collins said enough watershed was lost to cause a concern for this winter’s rains. “Everything that comes down the hillsides here will pour into San Juan Creek and go right out to Dana Point,” he said.

At the height of the fire, several communities southwest of the park were threatened, including Coto de Caza, an enclave of homes valued at $500,000 and up.

“We got about three dozen phone calls from Coto residents,” Maese said, “all worried for their safety and wanting to know which direction the fire was spreading.”

With the fire winding down, Maese said, about 1,000 firefighters were reassigned Tuesday night and Wednesday morning to the Malibu fire in Los Angeles County and the Beaumont-Banning fires in Riverside County.

On Wednesday, about 600 firefighters and four helicopters were part of the Forest Service’s new focus on mop-up operations and removal of trees and vegetation from drainage areas.

“We also are busy with travel arrangements and new assignments for the hundreds of people we still have at our camp here,” Maese said.

Helicopters were still needed, Maese said, to drop water on green vegetation, “keeping it nice and wet, preventing any flare-ups.”

At the camp headquarters, hundreds of firefighters had been bivouacked in what looked like something from the television show “MASH.” Firetrucks, buses and heavy equipment rumbled through the camp on dirt roads that once brought families in minivans. Three trailers served as a communications and operations center.

The camp actually functioned as a mini-city, with its own post office, laundry, medic unit, mess halls and outdoor entertainment areas with two large-screen televisions. “This is like Disneyland,” one firefighter said.

Sue Warren, a U.S. Forest Service ranger from Fresno, was in charge of the infirmary, where 46 firefighters were treated for minor injuries that ranged from sprained ankles to bee stings.

“We did get one firefighter who got poked by a stick near his eye,” Warren said. “But it cut the skin and did not damage his cornea.”

Other than that, Warren said, the biggest nuisance was the bees in camp.

“People would be eating sandwiches while talking to someone, and a yellow jacket would sting their lips,” Warren said, adding that poison oak was another common complaint.

Kane, the Arizona crew boss, said he had never encountered poison oak quite like California’s. Both his arms and the skin under his neck were white from dried calamine lotion.

“We have poison oak in Arizona,” Kane said. “But I’m used to it. This stuff is deadly. It must be the oils in the oak or something. I had my Nomex (fire retardant) long-sleeved shirt on and gloves and it still seeped through.”

“Other than that, the only thing that bothered us was the baby rattlesnake we found in our camp,” Kane added.

Orville Sprengeler, 26, a member of Kane’s crew, said they twice found themselves in life-threatening situations, both times when Santa Anas kicked up as they fought flames on slopes dense with trees and brush. They had to cut their way through with chain saws, he said.

Food for the camp was prepared by a Utah company. Joe Houston, 38, who owns the company with his brother, got a call at 6 a.m. Thursday with the work order. That morning, they left with a caravan of a dozen trucks carrying tents, tables, refrigerators and a mobile kitchen, arriving here Friday morning.

“We need a 40-foot trailer of food every day to feed this camp,” Houston said. Firefighters are fed a large breakfast, then given sack lunches for the field. Tuesday night, the crews had roast beef, mashed potatoes, corn, strawberry shortcake and salads from a salad bar.

Ortega Fire Under Control One week after it began, the Ortega fire on Orange County’s rural border is under control. Crews from as far away as Wyoming, Montana and Colorado helped quell the blaze. The Particulars Control declared: 6 p.m. Wednesday Acres burned: 21,384 Structure toll: 36 homes destroyed; 16 other buildings damaged Firefighting crew: 2,100 at peak Source: U.S. Forest Service

Ortega Fire Under Control