Wind Gusts Threaten to Renew Fire Danger

Bracing for the return of Santa Ana winds even stronger than those driving the destructive Lemon Heights blaze earlier this week, Orange County fire officials Thursday ordered a wide range of preparations, canceling days off and vacations for firefighters and putting additional volunteers on alert.

Two powerful weather systems are expected to settle over Western states by Saturday, generating extremely strong winds that could gust as high as 100 mph through some Southern California canyons and beneath some mountain ridges.

Such winds--capable of whipping small blazes into firestorms and hurling incendiary embers as far as two miles--would be stronger than anything recorded during the catastrophic Southern California fires in the fall of 1993 and almost as strong as those measured during the record readings taken above Pasadena in 1983.

“Yes, we’re a little nervous,” said William Edmundson, fire chief of Laguna Beach, where three years ago this Sunday a firestorm raced through the surrounding hills and destroyed or rendered uninhabitable 441 homes and buildings, causing $528 million in property damage.

“We’ve had a lot more telephone calls from citizens . . . who are afraid that it could happen here again,” Edmundson said.

Fire and utility officials said Thursday that they were doing everything possible to keep to a minimum any damage that could result from the Santa Anas, which earlier this week propelled a firestorm through a Lemon Heights neighborhood in Orange County, and similar conflagrations through a northern San Diego community and from Calabasas to Malibu.

More than 100 homes have been destroyed in the first wave of fires, and officials fear a second round over the weekend.

Rich Hawkins, a division chief with the U.S. Forest Service, noted that the devastating 1993 fires came in two waves.

“We are extremely worried about this weekend,” Hawkins said. “We think there’ll be trouble on the existing fires when these winds kick up on Saturday, and we think there’ll be a lot of additional fires.”

Crews and equipment, including helicopters with infrared scanners, will patrol the area this weekend, and additional firefighters will be on call, officials said.

Curtis Brack, a meteorologist with WeatherData Inc., said the extremely strong Santa Ana winds will be the product of two major pressure systems forming over the Western half of the country.

The first is a low-pressure system that will bring cool, relatively moist northwest gusts of up to 50 mph to the Southland this afternoon. The low pressure system will settle over New Mexico on Saturday.

The second system is a high-pressure system that will follow closely behind the first, settling over the Idaho-Utah area Saturday.

Because winds circulate counter-clockwise around low pressure and clockwise around high pressure, the combined airstreams from both systems will hit the Southland simultaneously, creating the unusually powerful Santa Ana conditions.

Dreading the prospect and not wanting to take chances, Orange County fire officials are preparing for the worst.

The Orange County Fire Authority will have its two helicopters, 74 fire engines, 41 paramedic units, 10 patrol trucks, six water carriers--not to mention 784 full-time firefighters and 765 on-call firefighters--ready to throw into action, Fire Capt. Scott Brown said.

“We know that Santa Ana winds are our worst nemeses,” Brown said. “We’re always in a heightened state of alert this time of the year, because we know that these winds are going to come.”

Nowhere in the county is the fear more tangible than in Laguna Beach. Remembering the devastation of three years ago, Edmundson said, he has asked that personnel cancel any vacation plans and to remain on-call throughout the weekend in case their services are needed.

All week, he said, firefighters have reviewed fire battling tactics.

“Just like a football team would have a practice, our firefighters are having practices,” the chief said.

Orange County residents also have gotten involved. Laguna Beach, Orange County Fire Authority and other city fire officials and volunteers have met with residents all week to give fire-prevention advice such as hosing down roofs and shrubberies, and clearing away any debris or flammable materials around houses.

Public utility companies, which spent the week trimming trees near power lines and clearing streets and rights-of-way of fallen branches, have also put their employees on alert.

At Southern California Edison, workers have been told to expect a call if emergencies arise. About 10 extra trouble shooters--those who go to the sites to assess damage--are on-call throughout the Southland, said Bob Adamson, a company spokesman.

Anaheim Utilities Department officials have met with assistant managers to make sure maintenance workers, trucks and other equipment are ready to be dispatched and extra power lines and supples are on-hand, said Mike Reynolds, operations superintendent.

Furthermore, the city’s various water reservoirs have been filled to 80% or 90% of capacity, he added.

“Normally we let [the water level] fluctuate a little,” Reynolds said. “But now we’re keeping those at a higher capacity level.”

Like all Santa Anas--which dehydrate due to compression as they slide down mountain canyons into the coastal valleys--the winds will be very dry. But Brack said that because they will be created, in part, by a cool low-pressure system, temperatures here will be relatively cool, with highs generally in the 70s throughout the weekend.

That, said Los Angeles County Fire Department forester Martin Gubrud, is about the only break firefighters will get if heavy brush ignites.

Thursday afternoon, another of the six firefighters injured Tuesday in Malibu’s Corral Canyon was released from the Grossman Burn Center in Sherman Oaks. He suffered burns on his arms, shoulders and back.

Surgey Tomlinson, 29, wore a hospital gown and pants at a news conference with his wife, Heather, and their 3-month-old daughter, Tabatha, by his side.

“It’s nice to be going home,” he said, adding that he would “just keep praying for the guys.”

Three other firefighters, including Bill Jensen, the most seriously injured of the group, were due for more surgery over the next few days to have damaged skin removed, said burn center Dr. A. Richard Grossman.

Meanwhile, Battalion Chief Robert Gillis offered more details on how four Los Angeles city firefighters survived the wave of fire that engulfed their truck.

All firefighters are issued a fire-protection shelter, which is like a three-sided pup tent, he said. Firefighters are supposed to set up the shelter and lie on the ground until the danger has passed. But the four firefighters did not have time.

“The fire came down on them too fast,” Gillis said. “All four of them were on the jump seat of the fire truck. They used one of the shelters like a blanket. All of them just huddled under it. That’s what saved them.”

In San Diego County, the California Department of Forestry was remaining vigilant even as firefighters moved into demobilization mode in the biggest of three fires that struck the area this week: the 8,600-acre blaze that destroyed 98 homes, including 60 in the La Costa neighborhood of Carlsbad.

Fire investigators also continued to interview residents of the Elfin Forest/Harmony Grove area, where the fire--the most disastrous in county history--began.

David Hammond, 42, that fire’s most seriously injured victim, underwent surgery at the UC San Diego Burn Center and was listed in serious condition Thursday, with unstable vital signs. He was burned over 45% of his body after fleeing from his fire-engulfed car.

The fire at the Rincon Indian Reservation, which burned 1,800 acres and destroyed five homes along Yellow Brick Road, was considered extinguished. But the 14,000-acre fire in the remote Otay Mountain near the Mexican border, believed started by a campfire, was only 50% contained.

Border Patrol agents are concerned that illegal immigrants may have been trapped and killed by the fast-moving Otay fire. Agents hiked and took helicopters into deep canyons to scour burned areas for survivors or bodies; so far, none has been found.

Since the beginning of Operation Gatekeeper, the Border Patrol crackdown near the San Ysidro port of entry, border crossers have increasingly used paths along Otay Mountain to avoid detection. As a result, the area has experienced 322 fires this year, compared to 24 during a comparable period before Operation Gatekeeper. Officials suspect the fires are being caused by campfires left by immigrants making the long and dangerous trek.

At the 14,000-acre Malibu burn site, occasional wisps of smoke wafted skyward but only a few hot spots remained.

The hillside communities that had faced the worst threat from the fire--Monte Nido, Malibu Hills, Malibu Bowl and Malibu Vista--were strangely quiet, compared to the frenzied activity at the height of the blaze.

Along affluent Latigo Canyon Road, where the sweet smells of jasmine and honeysuckle mixed with the stale stench of smoke, workers fixed electrical wires while homeowners directed housekeepers or tried to muster the energy to pitch in themselves.

Nine-months-pregnant Susan Rowton, 36, looked alternately at her ash-strewn carpeting inside her house and her packed-to-the-hilt car trunk outside.

“I’m thinking about starting on it, but it’s a little overwhelming,” she said.

Diane Schirtzer, 39, paced while she talked on the phone, describing her ordeal to friends while the vacuum cleaner roared upstairs. Firefighters made a stand in the face of 50-foot flames just beyond her son’s play set, she said, saving her home.

Even thinking about the prospect of more fires almost brought Schirtzer to tears.

“I really don’t know what to do,” she said. “I’m going to get someone to cut the rest of the trees back and just kind of pray.”

Next door, a 60-year-old retired engineer adopted a realistic stance as he looked at the soot scattered throughout his neoclassical white mansion, across the street from the home of rock singer Axl Rose.

“I’m not going to clean it up yet,” said Peter Panos. “It could be a lot worse this weekend.”

If things do heat up again, local fire agencies said they will be ready to redeploy.

As of Thursday afternoon, about 1,800 firefighters had been released from active duty from a force that at its peak had more than 4,000 firefighters at the scene, said Capt. Steve Valenzuela of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

A skeletal crew will patrol the area this weekend, Valenzuela said, including helicopters with infrared scanners able to detect potential hot spots. The rest of the force is on-call and ready to move if necessary.

At the command post at Malibu City Hall, firefighters sat in beach chairs tossing stale bread to sea gulls and waiting to be released.

“I’ve got a concert tomorrow with ‘Bugs Bunny on Broadway’--I’m taking my daughter and my niece,” said Capt. Digger Graves, adding that his family realizes that he might have to abandon the Universal City show if fires kick up. “You still buy season tickets, but it’s part of the job.”

The U.S. Forest Service is also taking no chances. In Albuquerque, 300 federal firefighters will be on standby this weekend to fly to Southern California if fires begin to flare, and a dozen water-dropping aircraft are also on standby out of state.

With a blaze continuing to rage in Big Sur, the Forest Service is stretched thin. Three “hot-shot” firefighting teams normally assigned to the Angeles National Forest are deployed elsewhere in the state, and out of the 20 engines assigned to the forest, only nine are in place. Officials were expecting another five engines from Northern California to arrive later Thursday.

Despite the pessimistic weather predictions, Van Vibber, 52, started work Thursday calling in a contractor to help him fix the damage to his home on Newell Road in Corral Canyon, just down the way from where two Glendale firefighters were felled by flames.

Fire crews had cut a three-foot hole in Vibber’s bedroom and chopped away a section in the back of his house when flames began eating at the walls. The firefighters left a note just inside the front door on the floor.

“Occupant: You had a small fire in the rear exterior corner of your house and next to the wall socket in the bedroom. We put the fire out quickly and your power is turned off at the electrical panel.”

It was signed, simply, “F.D.”

On Monday, Vibber, in anticipation of approaching fires, had filled the back of his Chevy Blazer with dozens of documents, from business files to family photos. On Thursday, he began unloading the materials, in spite of warnings that Santa Ana winds might again whip up the fires.

“You could ask the same question about Los Angeles,” Vibber said. “There will be another earthquake, but you don’t move everything out.”

Some residents hoped that a lot of what could burn already has burned--creating a natural firebreak in the area around their homes. Others said this week’s blaze had them ready for anything.

“If we get those heavy Santa Anas this weekend, I’m all prepared,” said Gary Fulltime, whose home in the Malibu Hills was untouched. “The hoses are out. The ladders are up. I’ve got barrels and ice chests filled with water on the roof. My property has been cleared of brush and landscaped with fire-resistant plants.

“I’m not worried,” he said. “The game is over.”

Along Pacific Coast Highway, some residents offered the traditional signal that they felt the worst was over: They showed their gratitude.

A large sheet flapping over an apartment’s balcony was scrawled with large, red writing, that read, “Thanks firefighters.”

Times staff writers Nicholas Riccardi, Andrea Ford, Efrain Hernandez, Tony Perry, Miles Corwin, Matea Gold and Abigail Goldman also contributed to this story.

* PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER: The National Interagency Fire Center links local, state and federal resources. E1