Blaze Briefly Stirs Memories of Ortega Fire : Firefighting: The county’s new helicopter helps put out flames that threaten San Juan Capistrano homes.

A helicopter that the county leased earlier this week to help battle wildfires got its first real test Friday when it was called upon to aid firefighters in quelling a 750-acre blaze.

Even though fire personnel had not yet finished training on the helicopter, the chopper quickly became part of a task force that responded to the fire, which burned within 150 feet of an expensive tract of homes in northeast San Juan Capistrano before firefighters, with the help of 15 m.p.h. winds, changed its direction.

The fire charred some 750 acres of grassland before it was declared extinguished shortly after 6 p.m., said Capt. Dan Young of the Orange County Fire Department. Firefighters were expected to patrol the area over the weekend to extinguish any flare-ups, he said.

No injuries were reported.

The fire had threatened about 40 homes off Rancho Viejo Road, between Avery Parkway and Junipero Serra Road, but firefighters were able to stop its advance. No structures were damaged.

Fire investigators have not determined what caused the blaze, but Young said it appeared to have been started by a person. Pointing to a blackened section of hill where the fire reportedly started, Young said, “There’s no reason for a fire to start there. There’s nothing mechanical on that spot” that could have ignited the vegetation. “It was probably human-caused.”

For residents, the fire brought back the terror of last October’s Ortega fire, which blackened almost 20,000 acres before being extinguished.

“It was very frightening,” said Marjorie Frost, who watched flames consume a hill from the patio of her home on Horseshoe Bend. “I had my cats in a carrier and I was ready to dash at a moment’s notice if the wind changed.”

The Ortega fire prompted the digging of large fire breaks around the residential tract. In many places, Friday’s blaze burned to the cleared band of earth and stopped.

“Last year they didn’t disc this area at all,” said Barbara Cotter, who called Friday’s blaze more frightening than the Ortega fire, which was stopped several miles away.

“This one we could see,” she said. “It scared me half to death.”

Most of the burned hillside is part of the Rancho Mission Viejo, a 40,000-acre cattle ranch owned by the Santa Margarita Co.

Firefighters had just begun their first week of training on the county’s new firefighting helicopter when the first report of the blaze was called in just before noon.

“We had a few problems coordinating the helicopter with ground crews because of our unfamiliarity with the equipment,” county Fire Chief Rich Wiseman said. “But overall, we’re very pleased with how it worked.”

The helicopter was leased by the county in response to last year’s Ortega and Laguna Beach blazes, which officials said illustrated the need for quick reaction to fast-moving fires driven by high winds.

The helicopter, a Bell model 205A-1 Huey, can carry 360 gallons of water and can reload its tanks in about 50 seconds while in the air, using a hose and pump.

In addition to the Bell helicopter, two airplanes and one other small helicopter were used to fight Friday’s blaze. Also involved were several bulldozers and about 120 firefighters and prison inmates.

Wiseman said a textbook example of fire preparation stopped the fire from damaging homes.

“If you’ll look around, you’ll see the area went through weed abatement, removing potential fuel for the fire,” he said. “Fire-resistant plants have been planted throughout this neighborhood.”