Firefighter’s Family Brings Holiday to Him

In his 23 years as a firefighter, Capt. Jim McBride never missed a Christmas with his family.

But as dusk set Christmas Eve, hot spots were still flaring inside the 3,821-acre perimeter of the Ranch fire that sprang up three days before in the mountains between Ojai and Santa Paula, destroying one home and threatening others.

At that point McBride, a 39-year-old logistics chief for the California Department of Forestry, had no choice but to call home to Riverside and tell his wife, Imy, and six children that he wasn’t going to make it home for the holiday.

As Southern California residents tore open packages under trees, ate roasts and headed to the beach Saturday, about 1,000 firefighters from across the state were spending Christmas 1999 apart from their families, trying to get the Ventura County fire fully contained.

While McBride was among them, so was his family.

“I could just tell in his voice he was very upset,” said a shivering but content Imy, shortly after sunrise Saturday morning. She and her children were huddled around picnic benches at Soule Park, the firefighters’ outdoor command station, a 2 1/2-hour drive from the McBrides’ home.

“I thought the heck with it,” she said. “We’ll just take Christmas up here.”

In Riverside, Imy, the kids and seven relatives gobbled up their dinner of prime rib, made a flurry of calls to book last-minute hotel rooms, piled into three cars and headed north to surprise Jim.

“It made my Christmas to have them here,” said McBride, his eyes tearing in the cold. He and his family spent Christmas morning together, hunched over the tamales, chorizo, beans and eggs that were the firefighters’ breakfast.

Thinking fast, one of McBride’s cousins put into the back of his pickup truck the bicycles Santa Claus would otherwise have delivered to Riverside and hauled them to Ojai. The McBride clan rose at 5 a.m. to open presents, then followed Jim to a predawn briefing at the camp.

Johnathan McBride, 7, was overjoyed. Not only did he get to see his dad after all, but Santa found him, despite the sudden change of venue. “I think this is the best-est Christmas ever,” he declared with a gaptoothed grin.

Johnathan’s brother, Michael, 19, a volunteer firefighter for the Riverside County Fire Department, planned to stay in Ojai after Christmas and help his father coordinate the meals, supplies, fuel, medical care and communications equipment for the troops. The rest of the family was heading back home.

Other firefighters, away from their loved ones, made do. Organizers tried to keep spirits up by holding morning prayer services and hanging colored lights along the catering trucks. A Christmas dinner of turkey, ham and stuffing and performances by local musicians were scheduled for the evening.

Firefighter Arnold Williams, 38, left his home in Fresno last week on his wife’s birthday, and for the first time in nine years spent Christmas apart from her. She is 4 1/2 months pregnant with the couple’s first child. He hoped she’d wait until he returned to open the gifts, including baby clothes and a car seat.

Scooping out bits of slush from a plastic cup of apple juice that froze in the overnight cold, Williams said that at least he’d have a story to tell his child one day about the importance of helping a community in trouble.

Along with the professional firefighters, several hundred trained jail inmates and wards of the California Youth Authority made up the ground crews that were cutting brush and digging fire walls, as choppers sprayed water and fire retardant from above.

Jose Rivera, 19, of Compton, a ward with the CYA in Ventura, said he’d fallen down a hill and bruised himself digging the fire wall. He was sad, he said, because he’d probably miss his family’s scheduled visit today at the facility for youthful offenders. But Rivera got all the redemption he needed when a group of Ojai residents stood outside their home and sang carols to him and his friends.

“We’re giving people a good Christmas gift, that their homes ain’t burning down,” he said.

His friend, Rogelio Sarmiento, 21, realized he might still be fighting the fire this Wednesday, when he’s scheduled to make parole.

With winds of 25 mph, and gusts at twice that speed, officials told their troops that even if they had the fire 100% contained by nightfall, the area would be under surveillance for days. They said it could be the new year before some of them get to go home.