Danger in the Air

Early Friday morning they could feel it in their sinuses and sense it even before the sun rose and superheated the hillsides.

Brush-fire weather. When all the moisture is sapped out of your skin. When the desiccated air dries out the back of your throat, just seconds after you’ve downed a huge glass of ice water.

On instinct, firefighters know when to pack their “brush bag,” which holds an extra set of clothes, a razor, a toothbrush, maybe a candy bar. If a brush fire breaks and it’s big, lasting several days, the bag is a godsend away from home and the station.

When the fire hazard ratchets up--as it did this week with triple-digit temperatures, low humidity and periods of gusty Santa Ana winds--a blaze can break out quickly. Unpredictably.

“When I woke up this morning and went to my car, it was warm already. It was daybreak, with no fog or clouds. It tells me the wind was blowing,” said Firefighter Robert McGuire of Los Angeles Fire Station 74 in Tujunga. “When it’s kind of warm and dry first thing in the morning, that’s a big clue that things have changed for the worst.”

Even though the summer of 1999 may be remembered as the summer that never was, Capt. Terry Waters of Station 74 cautioned that the fire season can continue well into late fall. All it takes is a few Santa Anas for the brush and dead leaves to turn into kiln-dry tinder, the stuff that quickly fuels flames.

Station 74 should know. It is responsible for covering the largest brush area in the city of Los Angeles; part of its response zone cuts five miles into Angeles National Forest up to Vogel Flat.

Waters, a veteran of the monstrous Big Tujunga fire more than 20 years ago--a firestorm that stretched from the mountains westward into the San Fernando Valley--said today’s firefighters are better trained and equipped to respond to such events.

*

Earlier Friday, Station 74--on Foothill Boulevard near Mt. Gleason Avenue--ran through a drill: Giant blowers simulated winds, while firefighters yanked out their fire shelters and huddled under them. Known as “shake and bakes,” the shelters look like foil-wrapped baked potatoes when fire crews huddle under them on burning hillsides.

Mental preparedness is key.

If it feels like fire weather, McGuire said he runs a list of to-dos through his mind, and ticks off a checklist of equipment that needs to go on the engine. Years of working for the U.S. Forest Service and on a county fire crew have taught him the ground rules of battling brush fires: constant communication, caution, heads-up awareness.

Almost on cue, the relative calm of Station 74 was punctured by a 911 call just before 3 p.m. Friday: “Grass fire. Wentworth, La Canada Way, off Mary Bell,” the dispatcher said, rattling off the streets to get there.

Jackets and helmets were thrown on, bodies flexed into action. And with smoke visible in the distance, Engine 74 headed out on Foothill Boulevard.

Within 10 minutes, the small grass fire in a horsy Shadow Hills neighborhood was out. Anxious residents, who had turned on sprinklers and consulted each other over fences, praised the quick response.

“It’s very reassuring” said resident Ruth Stern, cell phone in hand. “I’m glad to know they got here that quickly.”

Dawn Phillips, another neighbor on La Canada Way, said she was relieved the blaze was out. Her 5-acre property is also home to four horses. “I was on the phone with someone in Salt Lake City and my office was surrounded by smoke,” she said. “But then I heard the fire engines.”

It’s a scene that was repeated at multiple locations, multiple times around the city Friday.

Using what the Fire Department calls the brush burning index, Friday’s rating was “extreme.” (The most dangerous is a “red flag”)

City firefighter pilot Paul Shakstad is well aware of the volatile nature of brush fires that can, with the change of wind patterns and temperatures, become violent firestorms.

Like a soldier at war, the 28-year veteran is alert to any problem--for example, a radio in a helicopter that isn’t working properly. Shakstad tells the mechanic to take it apart just one piece at a time. He wants to make sure it can be quickly reassembled at a moment’s notice.

“If we can get massive resources within the first 10 to 15 minutes on a fire, we have the best chance,” Shakstad says. “You want to make sure you are able to launch a maximum effort at any second. You become concerned about anything that may hamper that.”

Like most veteran firefighters, when Shakstad thinks of fire danger, he thinks of Malibu, 1993. It was the grass fire-turned-conflagration that no one can forget.

“It’s like being in a combat zone,” Shakstad said. “It is combat, us against the fire. And we are fighting to save people’s lives and property.”

*

Two weeks ago, the city Fire Department air support pilots moved into a temporary trailer on the site of the former Air National Guard headquarters at Van Nuys Airport. The site gives pilots the room they need to maneuver heavy water-laden helicopters.

The rest of the team remain at the old air support headquarters, which is too cramped to allow helicopters to take off with a load of water. Instead, the aircraft had to be flown to one of many water reservoirs, where the tanks would be filled before proceeding to a fire. That cost precious minutes during the crucial first attack on a fire.

From the Valley fire command center in Sherman Oaks, Assistant Chief Wilfred Bisson has his finger on the pulse of fickle weather conditions. He, too, monitors the brush burning index, a computerized measure of the dangers that increase as wind picks up and humidity drops.

“There are several microclimates in L.A.,” Bisson said. “What may be a red flag [alert] in one area may not be in another.”

High temperatures are expected to linger over the weekend, with temperatures today similar to Friday’s, according to WeatherData, which collects weather statistics for The Times.

Staff writer Martha L. Willman contributed to this story.