‘We’re in a Bad Spot . . . the Rig Is Burning’

The desperate radio calls made clear what the flames and thick smoke obscured: Engine Co. 10 was in deep trouble.

“We’re in a bad spot,” a crew member radioed. “The rig is burning.”

Just up the road in Malibu’s Corral Canyon, Los Angeles City Fire Capt. Ron Lem turned back to help the trapped colleagues. It was too late.

“I’ve never seen anything like yesterday,” said another firefighter who was at the scene. “That was about the worst.”

As four firefighters lay in a hospital burn center Wednesday, details emerged of a horrific sequence that in an instant--a mere shift in the breezes--transformed a heartening morning’s work into a brush with the most fearsome side of their foe.

In those few moments Tuesday, a pair of Glendale firefighters--along with the four Los Angeles colleagues caught in their fire engine--were overtaken by a windblown inferno that exploded upon them as they worked to protect houses in the hill country.

Glendale firefighter Bill Jensen, 51, was fighting for his life Wednesday at the Grossman Burn Center at Sherman Oaks Hospital with burns over 70% of his body as specialists prepared him for skin graft surgery, possibly by the end of the week.

“We’re certainly getting no worse. That’s a good sign,” said Dr. Peter Grossman.

Scott French, 41, was in the same hospital in good condition with burns to his face and an ear. Two city firefighters from Los Angeles--Ross Torstenbo, 42, and Surgey Tomlinson, 29--were listed in fair condition. All are expected to undergo skin graft surgery, Grossman said.

Two other Los Angeles firefighters injured in the firestorm were released after being treated for less serious injuries.

The firefighters, assigned to protect a settlement of homes called Malibu Bowl, found themselves under assault when winds that had been pushing the dwindling blaze toward the sea turned an about-face, creating a scene of chaos, desperation and anguish. The tragedy is also laden with irony: Jensen wasn’t supposed to be on the rig that took him to the fire; he is normally posted to a different unit. French is a fund-raising booster for the burn center now treating him.

The injured firefighters were among two five-engine strike teams assigned to protect homes along Newell Road, a narrow side street off Corral Canyon Road.

French told the Glendale Fire Department’s chaplain that he and Jensen were manning fire hoses next to a hillside home threatened by a sweep of flames slowly climbing the embankment.

The chaplain, Gary Ruff, said French told him that the flames were crackling on the hillside below, just out of their view. Then the wind shifted and the canyon seemed to explode all at once.

“It was like a bomb went off,” said neighbor John Cerniglia.

Witnesses saw the firefighters scrambling along the home’s retaining wall in a desperate bid to outrun the towering flames. They were no match for their cruel swiftness.

“They had to go back to the roadway to get away and of course that meant they had to run back up the hill they had come down,” said Glendale Fire Department spokesman Dave Starr, a battalion chief. “They did run back up it. There just wasn’t any place to go. The fire just followed them right up there.”

In the panicked flight, Jensen was caught farther behind. French, the chaplain said, “was just able to run a little faster.”

A resident two doors away said three other firefighters rushed to Jensen’s side, carrying him to the driveway next door, giving him bottled water and fixing an oxygen mask on his face.

“Hold on buddy,” a colleague implored.

The pair were ushered partway down the hill and then shuttled by rescue helicopters to the burn center.

A Pasadena firefighter said he walked toward the road and was stunned to find Jensen’s charred brush jacket and webbed belt.

“He obviously was running and didn’t have time to deploy his shelter,” the metallic fire protection blankets that are standard gear, said Firefighter Perry Castellano. “You’re not aware of the degree of how bad someone is burned until you see something like the brush jacket or brush belt.”

Fire investigators were trying to determine whether a vehicle abandoned by a panicked resident blocked access to the injured Glendale firefighters.

Jensen and French weren’t alone in tragedy. Farther up Newell Road, the same wall of fire ensnared a truck carrying four Los Angeles firefighters on their way to the threatened home. Two Los Angeles trucks made it through the pall. The third, Engine Company 10, did not. Witnesses said it was stopped when the engine in front stalled momentarily in the thick smoke.

Firefighters in line behind Engine Company 10 said the area became an instant furnace.

“We had all the windows shut,” said fire engineer Don Witty. “It was getting hot, really hot.”

“You couldn’t see,” said Witty’s supervisor, Capt. Tom Moore. “It was a wall of fire and smoke. You couldn’t even see that road anymore.”

Added to the chaos outside were the desperate radio calls from the ill-fated engine. At first the broadcasts kept breaking up in the mountainous terrain, according to one Fire Department official in the area.

Unable to get out, a crew member switched radio bands and finally reached a Los Angeles city fire helicopter, as a crew member pleaded for an air ambulance and a water drop to douse the flames.

“We’re in a bad spot,” the crew member radioed. “The rig stalled. We can’t go any further. The rig is burning.”

In the panic, the firefighters were able to deploy only one of their department-issued fire-protection blankets, said Witty.

“There is only one shelter for four of us,” Witty recalled the radio broadcasts saying.

Lem, whose crew had made it farther along, ran back with a hose to try to put out the flames.

But when Lem arrived, the trapped firetruck was smoldering and the Los Angeles crew was trying to use it as a shield.

“They were huddled on the hill side of the truck,” Lem said. “Their captain was hanging over them, and protecting them as best he could.”

With that, Lem said he pulled three of them up a small hill to safety and they were later shuttled part way down the canyon to be rescued by helicopter.

Witty described the evacuation scene as chaotic as firefighters fought to save the lives of their colleagues.

“They were burned pretty bad,” he said. “They were hurting.”

Jensen, the most severely burned of the firefighters, is popular around the small Glendale department for his colorful tales of firefighting adventures and close calls.

“He is an institution around here. A lot of the younger people look to him as a mentor,” said Starr. “He has a lot of experiences, a lot of stories.”

The burly Jensen was not supposed to have been with the crew that found itself engulfed. He is normally assigned to a separate engine company, but ended up as part of the Corral Canyon strike team while working a colleague’s shift.

French’s wife said he had asked to be transferred to a strike team that would be among the first called out on large-scale fires and other disasters.

“He knew, and we knew, that he would have a greater chance of getting injured. But we accepted that,” said Mary French.

French also is an organizer of the California Firefighters Burn Relay, a charity run to raise money for the burn facility. He has known the burn centers founders, the Grossmans, for some time, and has worked closely with them on fund raising.

Glendale firefighters were holding prayer sessions at station houses and the Sherman Oaks hospital every 15 minutes. Firefighters were flocking to the burn facility to show support and give blood if necessary.

Firefighters who were in the same danger zone also struck a thankful note.

“We were very lucky,” said Moore, captain of the fire engine just behind the trapped truck. “We quite possibly could have had a lot more injured.”

Times staff writers Ken Ellingwood, Jeff Leeds and Robert J. Lopez also contributed to this story.

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Hillside Trap

A quickly shifting blaze caught firefighters on a narrow canyon road in Malibu, injuring six of them.

Chronology of the Tragedy on Corral Canyon Road

1) Glendale and Burbank firefighters are battling a blaze in Corral Canyon. An engine company from the Pasadena Fire Department arrives to help.

2) Five trucks try to head for the fire that is racing toward Newell Road, but are stopped by choking smoke. Two trucks break through, but Engine Company 10 from Los Angeles City stalls and is trapped.

3) The two trucks behind Engine 10 back down narrow Corral Canyon Road to safety.

4) The Glendale firefighters battling the blaze on Newell Road are trapped and overrun by the wall of fire.

Source: Interviews with firefighters

Researched by: ROBERT J. LOPEZ, JOSH MEYER and AL SEIB / Los Angeles Times

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Healing Fire’s Wounds

Speed is essential when treating burns and other fire-related injuries like those suffered by Bill Jensen and other firefighters in this week’s blazes. Facilities such as the Grossman Burn Center at Sherman Oaks Hospital and Health Center, where Jensen and three other injured firefighters are hospitalized, treat such victims with the help of a burn team. It usually includes several doctors, a surgeon and, if there is smoke inhalation, a pulmonologist.

Degree of Burns

First-, second- and third-degree burns are referred to by medical personnel as superficial partial thickness, partial thickness and full thickness burns. Partial and full thickness burn victims receive specialized care in a burn unit.

First degree: Affects only epidermis. Skin reddens and may peel, but does not blister.

Second degree: Affects epidermis and dermis. Skin blisters.

Third degree: Skin’s entire thickness is destroyed.

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Skin Surface Area

This is a rough guide to what each area represents of the total skin area. Patients burned on more than 20% of their body are put in burn intensive care units.

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Treatment

Patients with second- or third-degree burns undergo the following treatment. The recovery period varies with the severity of the injuries, but may take several months.

1) Burn team evaluates injuries. Vital signs taken.

2) Burn is cleaned with soap and water. Gauze dressing with silver sulfadiazine, an antibiotic and pain reliever, is applied.

3) Pain killers, such as morphine, are administered intravenously.

4) Intravenous solution is administered to replace fluids lost through edema, when fluid flows from unburned parts of the body to burned areas.

5) Once stabilized, patient is put in hyperbaric chamber, in which oxygen-rich atmosphere decreases swelling and hastens healing.

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Smoke Inhalation

Smoke consists of oxides of nitrogen, sulphur and lead, among other substances. When smoke is inhaled, carbon in the smoke attaches to the hemoglobin in the blood, preventing cells from absorbing oxygen. Hyperbaric oxygen treatment is used to displace the carbon from the hemoglobin.

Sources: Burn Center at Sherman Oaks Hospital and Health Center, American Medical Assn. Encyclopedia of Medicine

Research by JULIE SHEER / Los Angeles Times