Crews Keep Battling Stubborn Malibu Blaze; 6 Firemen Hurt

Six firefighters were hurt Tuesday as wildfires roared for a second day across Malibu and parts of San Diego County, and officials declared that the most devastating of the blazes was of “suspicious” origin.

Fire crews were scrambling to expand their partial containment of the two largest in a series of brush fires that swept across Southern California--hoping to work faster than the Santa Ana winds that were forecast to intensify later in the week.

On a day that dawned with ashen, sepia skies, rescue crews and wary residents from Carlsbad to Point Dume were drawing a clearer picture of the damage and the challenges ahead:

* Six firefighters from the cities of Los Angeles and Glendale were injured when their truck was overrun by a quickly shifting hot spot near Corral Canyon in Malibu. They had been racing to protect a burning home in the Malibu Vista area when the flames overtook them. All were helicoptered to hospitals; Glendale Firefighter Bill Jensen was reported in critical condition with burns over 70% of his body. Colleagues on the lines fought back tears as Jensen, 52, was wrapped from head to toe in white sheets, fitted with an oxygen mask and shuttled away.

* In San Diego County, three separate fires burned more than 21,000 acres and destroyed 82 homes Monday and early Tuesday, including 60 homes worth about $24 million in the upscale La Costa section of Carlsbad. The fire that hit La Costa, the most costly blaze in county history, is being investigated as a possible arson.

* In Malibu, five homes, a trailer and many sheds and outbuildings were lost, although fate, nature and preparation appeared to have staved off heavier losses, at least for a time. Fire officials said that even with moderate weather it would take two or three days to completely control the fire, which had burned 13,050 acres by Tuesday night. The inferno appeared to have been caused by power lines that arced into a eucalyptus tree.

* Gov. Pete Wilson declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties and called on President Clinton to declare a major disaster in all three counties because of the firestorms. Wilson’s action permits the marshaling of more state forces and allows local governments to recoup their heavy fire costs.

* The soot in the sky was not the only cloud still hanging over the fire zones, as forecasters predicted that high winds and temperatures will continue, with a brief respite possible Friday before even harsher conditions return for the weekend. Fire officials in Malibu worried that if they do not beat the wind, it could turn the fire toward the populous enclave of Point Dume.

More than anything, Tuesday was a day of returning: residents returning to charred remnants or merely smoky homes, and firefighters returning to another difficult day on the lines.

The Injured

The four Los Angeles and two Glendale firefighters were on their way to the burning home at 1:10 p.m. when “the fire just boiled up on them,” said Los Angeles City Deputy Fire Chief Dave Parsons. “They were unable to continue . . . because of a car blocking the road.”

Asked why the men did not abandon their vehicle and run, Parsons said, “You can’t run away from a freight train.”

Jensen, a “mountain of a man” one year away from retirement, began the day protecting homes in Malibu and ended it fighting for his life.

Jensen rode in the first helicopter to touch down Tuesday afternoon on the roof of the Grossman Burn Center in Sherman Oaks. The second helicopter carried another Glendale firefighter, Scott French, 42, and Los Angeles City Firefighter Ross Torstenbo.

The flames left Jensen in critical condition with second- and third-degree burns and “pulmonary injuries” from the soot that filled his lungs. French, although not as seriously hurt, was burned over a quarter of his body--his left hip, arm and his back--by the flames. Torstenbo suffered second- and third-degree burns on his hands, arms and about 15% of his body.

Inside the burn center, a dozen people, some in tears, formed a circle, joined hands and began to pray in a waiting room.

As burn center founder Dr. Richard Grossman clutched a medical chart and walked into Jensen’s room, a young man with tears spilling from his eyes pleaded, “Please take care of him, doctor.”

Three other firefighters from Los Angeles, who were unidentified, were treated and released at UCLA Medical Center.

“This is the last thing you think about when you go to work,” said Glendale Fire Capt. Don Wright. “This is not the kind of outcome anyone wants to see. Everyone’s sitting on the edge of their seats. Guys are walking around in circles, they don’t know what to do.”

Malibu

In Malibu, there was almost a giddy sense of relief in the acrid air Tuesday, tempered by sadness over the six injured firefighters.

Five other firefighters had been injured a day before, including Long Beach fireman Don Parkins, who hurt his neck when his engine lost its brakes and hurtled into several cars near Winding Way in Malibu.

Just moments before the Monday night accident, Parkins and his company had helped save half a dozen homes along the rural road near Malibu’s Paradise Cove.

The damage total in Malibu had increased with the destruction of two more homes Tuesday in Malibu, both in the Malibu Vista section to the east of Corral Canyon, where most of the fears had centered a day before.

Residents up and down Corral Canyon Road on Tuesday shared stories from the night before, cleaned up what they could and tried to chart the fire’s progress. Neighbors who hadn’t spoken in weeks shook hands, embraced and reintroduced themselves as they recalled their shared ordeal.

“While we’re standing on this field, to the left of us there was another fire, coming over the ridge,” said Michael Taylor, 36, a general contractor and nine-year resident. Looking at a group of houses that were spared any damage, he said, “I can’t believe none of them went up.”

Others continued to marvel at their own ingenuity and stubbornness, voicing the community’s now-trademark refusal to back down from a long history of fires and mudslides.

Along Winding Way, Anthony O’Rourke praised his investment in landscaping and a $1,000 pump, along with the kindness of nature, for seeing his two-story home through the night.

Said O’Rourke: “The winds have been kind to Winding Way tonight.”

While most residents were praising themselves for their preparations, government officials couldn’t report an entirely clean slate.

The city of Los Angeles’ Recreation and Parks Department has failed to clear dangerous brush along 45 miles of streets and hiking trails, despite Fire Department requests to do so, according to a city report. The fire-prone brush remains uncleared in four dozen parcels of hillside parkland from the San Fernando Valley to Griffith Park, the report said.

Park officials blamed lack of funds for the problem, although they did not receive a sympathetic hearing for their complaints from a City Council committee Monday.

San Diego County

The fire that ravaged La Costa burned 8,600 acres there and also destroyed five homes in San Marcos, one in Encinitas, and 10 in the Harmony Grove-Elfin Forest area, the fire’s point of origin. A separate fire destroyed six homes at the Rincon Indian Reservation and burned 1,800 acres, and a 11,000-acre fire raged on the desolate Otay Mesa region near the Mexican border.

While an investigation continued, Tom O’Keefe, division chief for the California Department of Forestry, said the La Costa fire was of “suspicious origin.”

The Harmony Grove-Elfin Forest, where the blaze began, has been an arson target in the past, including one fire this summer that was set 100 feet from the origin of Monday’s blaze, officials said.

Residents in La Costa and San Marcos told tales of horror from the night before: showers of burning embers, homes and trees bursting into flames, pets trapped inside burning homes, the terrifying hum of the gusting wind and the gunfire-like explosion of windows.

Pam and Nina Pamer, retirees from Cleveland, stood before the smoldering ruin of their La Costa dream home and talked about family treasures lost and lessons learned about living in Southern California’s fire zone.

“The advice I’ll give people is to have all your papers in order and be ready to leave at a moment’s notice,” Nina Pamer said. “And never, never have a shake roof.”

In San Marcos, Lois Dunlop, 75, returned to what was left of the home she had fled just hours earlier. She had thought she would be safe, but suddenly the wind shifted in the hours after midnight and sent a wall of flame racing toward the three-bedroom home nestled in an orange grove.

“It wasn’t all that great-big,” Dunlop said softly, “but it was my home.”

Dunlop and her husband did not even have enough time to save their most prized mementos--pictures from 1940 and baby pictures of their two grown children. In the confusion, the family cat disappeared.

“She’ll probably never get over this,” John Kean, the Dunlops’ son, said of his mother.

John Isbell, a technician with Pacific Bell, said of the devastation in Elfin Forest: “It looks like a nuclear wasteland.”

“Your first reaction when you’re with people who have lost their homes is heartbreak,” said Gov. Wilson after touring La Costa. His voice subdued, he noted the incongruity of Southern California fires driven by warm Santa Ana winds. “You look around today, and you see this glorious weather,” Wilson said. “It’s glorious, unless you’re a firefighter.”

Wilson told of a teenage boy in La Costa who dashed into a burning house to save his sister’s prized cheerleader outfit. Wilson’s staffers identified the family as Bob and Margaret Anne Lozuk and their 16-year-old twins Rob and Kristi Lozuk.

“You see such tremendous courage on the part of people, and you see these disasters bringing out the best in people’s neighbors and in total strangers,” Wilson said. “Remarkable kindness and generosity and courage.”

Firefighters, some with 20 or more years’ experience, said they had never seen a fire so fast and so erratic, moving one way and then shifting to another, burning some homes and skipping others.

“We made a stand on this one house, and damn if we didn’t save it,” said San Diego firefighter Tim Thorpe, who was dispatched to Elfin Forest. “But it was incredible. The fire traveled a quarter of a mile in about five minutes and had to be 60 feet high.”

The fire’s origin, east of La Costa, is in the middle of horse country, and at least 235 horses had to be evacuated to Horse Park, a state-run equestrian center in Del Mar.

Pam Johnson, a nurse, Del Mar resident and thoroughbred owner, said the most ominous moment came when she drove to Woodridge Stables to remove her horse and saw “fire licking the barn and heard the horses screaming.”

The north county inferno was actually a dozen or more fires ignited by blowing embers from the initial blaze east of La Costa.

Unlike other fire-prone coastal areas of Southern California, La Costa had never seen a brush fire like the one that roared west Monday. The fire killed the community’s sense of “it can’t happen here.”

“At one point, the flames were 50 to 70 feet high and just jumping from ridge to ridge,” said Belina Petty, 48, a securities operations manager whose home was damaged but not destroyed. “It was surreal.”

Traffic became quickly clogged as residents fled.

“The woman next to me was honking her horn furiously for no reason, as if that would help,” Petty said. “She was totally freaked out, completely panicked. We saw no police, no fire units and heard nothing on the radio. I couldn’t believe what was happening.”

Carlsbad Mayor Bud Lewis said city officials were first notified of the wildfire Monday at 5 p.m.

“They [Fire Department officials] said they could handle it--but it kept escalating,” Lewis said Tuesday. “By 6 p.m., all hell had broken lose. By 6:30, we called for assistance. We asked for 75 engines, and got 30. There were just too many other fires in Southern California.”

Orange County

The stunned victims of the community of Lemon Heights took stock of their lives Tuesday, sifting through the rubble of their homes.

A day after the wind-whipped blaze tore through this swath of unincorporated Orange County, fire officials began revising upward their estimates of the damage. The fires, caused by a power line downed by stiff Santa Ana winds, destroyed more than $6 million in property, razing 10 homes and damaging 23 other buildings.

Fire officials were unsure how much of the losses would be covered by insurers.

The quantitative and emotional toll of the fires came together Tuesday in the hardest-hit neighborhoods. Residents picked through the remains of their homes, looking for valuables that survived. Strewn across their lawns lay the charred remains of toys, bedsprings, clothes and toiletries.

And along the streets, homeowners walked about in shocked disbelief. “I walked in and cried,” said Lorraine Fairbairn, 45, a school principal who lost her home. “It was a lot worse than I anticipated.”

Gone are most of her clothes, family pictures, the favorite dishes and glasses. Burned are her television, stereo, videotapes, favorite novels, silver and knickknacks that made the house a home.

Some residents were able to carry out boxes and bags of things sentimental and mundane. Others lost practically everything.

If a final measure of the continuing uncertainty in the Southland was needed, it was provided by small brush fires that continued to crop up in neighborhoods far removed from the main fronts.

At 2:45 p.m., near the Foothill Freeway and the Glendale-Los Angeles border, flames raced up a steep hillside. More than 100 firefighters, assisted by water-carrying helicopters, cut them off before they could reach power lines on the first ridge above the highway. The blaze scorched about 20 acres.

Even that relatively small fire was cause for worry, said Assistant Los Angeles City Fire Chief Jim Young.

“We hope to knock it down in a couple of hours, assuming the winds remain the same,” Young said. “But we expect to baby-sit it all night.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Wind Alert

The Santa Ana winds that drove the Southern California wildfires are expected to kick up again Saturday.

Path of Santa Ana

High pressure pushes winds in from desert

* Lessons from 1993 fire helped curb losses. A19

* La Costa residents search ruins for keepsakes. A21

* THE TV COVERAGE: The terrible beauty of massive fires glowed on TV screens all day. The TV news coverage glowed too. F1