TV REVIEWS : ‘Firefight’ on ‘Life & Times’ Lacks Heat

The fires--the ones that tore across the Southern California landscape in October and November like Gen. Sherman’s march to the sea--matter little compared to the fear, exhaustion and relief carved into the faces of the firefighters profiled in the “Life & Times” special “Firefight” (at 7:30 and midnight tonight on KCET-TV Channel 28).

One fireman, standing on a Malibu hill, quotes another one as saying: “When I die, I’ll go to heaven, because I’ve already been to hell.” Ventura County Fire Dept. Capt. John Moland recalls how, when a 50-mile-per-hour gust turned a bad Thousand Oaks fire into a ferocious firestorm, he didn’t dare take another breath because of the gaseous fumes: “One more breath, and that might be it.”

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As host and retired firefighter Henry Johnson talks to various veterans of the fires of ‘93, the context is war: Many of the helicopter pilots are Vietnam war veterans, the firefighters talk of a warrior’s delayed stress syndrome and the firefighting mission is like an army’s, which is to get to good ground and defend.

Writer Mike Thoele notes, however, that with increased building in the Santa Monica mountains, the battle is unfairly drawn for firefighters. Instead of controlling a fire from a natural break like a creek or a ridge, it must be stopped in front of homes, and this only increases the chance of a fire’s spread.

More of Thoele’s perspective, more maps and more of a sense of danger (we see only brief snippets of video shot by firefighters during the action) would have made “Firefight” into a fine document of a terrible time.

As it is, it’s oddly boring and sluggish, with only occasional surprises, like actor Ed Harris fleeing down Pacific Coast Highway with desperate concern on his face. And because this is L.A., you wonder: Hmmm, Ed Harris could play the firefighter. . . .