A Terrifying Day on Afton Lane

Something was wrong with the wind.

Giselle Miller, 41, heard it whip through the trees on Monday morning as she cooked scrambled eggs for her son, Grant, at their home near the Lemon Heights foothills.

“Wouldn’t it be scary if a fire broke out today, Mom?” asked Grant, 14, although the Santa Ana winds kick up every October.

This time, they left an ugly calling card.

“Fire,” Miller’s husband said in an urgent phone call during breakfast.

Miller flipped on the TV and saw her close friend, Bonnie Decuollo, on the news. Decuollo, a quarter of a mile away, was standing in front of her flaming house on Afton Lane, in the eye of a wind-driven firestorm.

Four of 10 houses on Afton Lane were destroyed; the rest were damaged. Just after 9 a.m., the fire roared down the street, cloaking the cul-de-sac of white picket fences and rose gardens in a smoky fog so thick that residents could not see across the street.

Within minutes, white-hot embers jumped from roof to roof of half-million-dollar homes.

Neighbors banged on each other’s doors. Spooked horses jumped fences. Flaming palm trees turned into torches.

By noon, when the fire was mostly under control, neighbors huddled in the street and shook their heads at the destruction wreaked by a capricious wind. Within a few hours, the quiet street--where neighbors dog-sat for each other and threw block parties--had turned into a disaster area, crowded with firetrucks, media and looky-loos.

But neighbors rejoiced in small favors like the story of Sherman Fairbairn, who rescued his black cat, Rocco--scared and whiskers singed--from his family’s smoking house. And they cried with neighbors like Decuollo, who lost her house and precious family heirlooms.

Afton Lane neighbors who escaped with blackened roofs felt the heavy weight of survivors’ guilt.

“It’s incredible,” said Mike Hannegan, 22, who lives across the street from two gutted homes. “The thing is, I’m going to be here day after day, and I still got a home. I still got some place to come every night. I don’t know what these people are going to do.”

Monday’s fire, which began in the Lemon Heights neighborhood, destroyed 10 homes and damaged 16 others; the worst destruction was on Afton Lane.

Monday afternoon, the day after her 44th birthday, Decuollo stepped gingerly into her backyard through puddles of water left by firefighters, who were unable to save her home. She stood on a brick planter and peeked through her living room window.

“Oh my gosh,” she gasped. “It’s history.”

She wandered through the backyard and called for her two missing cats.

“Brownie!” she shouted. “Princess!”

She did not need one more piece of bad news after the morning’s horror.

Earlier, Decuollo was shaken awake by a crackling sound, the kind of noise a fireplace makes.

She looked out the windows and saw a wall of fire. Immediately, she hustled her pajama-clad 12-year-old twin girls into the car and tore out of the driveway. She dropped the girls at a friend’s house and returned for her cats.

Her roof was flaming. Hot embers flew at her, burning through her white turtleneck and stinging her skin. They landed on her shoulder-length hair and caught fire. She beat at them and fought her way into the house for her four cats. She grabbed Tasha and Chloe, and fled. She never found her other two cats.

Across the street, attorney Sherman Fairbairn had rushed home from his Tustin office to look for his two dogs and a cat. He knew his three kids were safe in school; his wife, Lorraine, arrived at the house shortly after he did.

Sherman Fairbairn had seen the smoke but wasn’t that worried. He knew the Santa Anas were blowing and thought that perhaps the foothill homes were at risk. But not his street, not on the flatlands.

But when he arrived, his house was in flames. Animal control officers told him they rescued his dogs, Greta and Cappy, and the Fairbairns managed to grab some pictures and jewelry. But Rocco was nowhere to be found.

A few hours later, the Fairbairns returned to look for Rocco and found her in a puddle of water. Sherman Fairbairn scooped the cat in his arms, leaving a big muddy stain on his white shirt. He carried Rocco to safety, immediately swarmed by a half a dozen TV cameras and reporters.

More than the cat was saved, though that’s not what drew the cameras.

“He’s what matters to me,” Sherman Fairbairn said later, pointing to son Nicholas, 15. “And her and her,” looking at his wife and daughter Elizabeth, 10.

On southeast Skyline Drive at Afton Lane, Barbara Hanson, 54, stood on her driveway and watched the media onslaught.

She has a wood-shingle roof like most of the neighborhood, and just that morning, a roofing company had called with an estimate on a fireproof roof.

“This isn’t a good time,” she told him. “Our roof is on fire.”

Hanson had heard the same sound of crackling fire that her neighbors described and jumped into action, even before a storm of embers landed on her roof, burning a few holes through it.

She knew the Santa Ana winds were tricky. Every year, the winds downed power lines and snapped tree lines. Sunday night, neighbors tucked away patio furniture and rolled barbecues inside when they heard the winds coming.

Hanson saw the flames barreling past a grove of palm trees, the tinder-dry blackened fronds collapsing on the ground.

She backed her car into the driveway and loaded it with valuables and keepsakes.

As it turned out, the fire didn’t spread her way, but she enlisted her termite inspector who had arrived that morning to hose down her roof anyway.

You never know what those freakish winds will do.

Also contributing to this report were Times staff writer Lisa Richardson and correspondent Hope Hamashige.