Volunteering to have fun

It was billed as a fundraiser for Orange County’s woolliest volunteer fire department.

For about 500 people gathered Saturday at Trabuco Canyon’s legendary back-country biker bar for beer, barter and barbecue, however, it was a celebration that a tragedy had passed.

“This is a chance for everyone to get away and forget about the fire,” said Rhonda Palmeri, manager of Cook’s Corner, just half a mile from the edge of the nearly contained Santiago fire and host of this year’s annual Holy Jim Fire Department Harvest Festival Auction.

Duane Turner, kept away from his home by the flames for a week, couldn’t agree more.

“It really lifts everybody’s spirits,” he said of the party, which featured live country music, cheeseburgers and patrons wearing bandannas. “We have people here who lost their homes. This lifts their spirits and ours; it’s being thankful for being here and who we’re here with.”

By coincidence, the festival occurred just as fire authorities reopened the road to Silverado Canyon for the return of the last evacuees. Late Saturday, they said, the blaze was 90% contained, with full containment expected today. For residents of the fire-ravaged canyons, it truly was a day to come home.

“This is an awesome community,” Turner said. “It was all for one and one for all. We were all in this together, all joining hands. Something good came out of this -- it really brought us together.”

That was evident as Turner, acting as auctioneer, elicited bids on a variety of donated items including food baskets, Angels baseball tickets, a rotisserie and a 1998 bottle of Dom Perignon.

By day’s end, organizers said, they had raised about $7,000 for the all-volunteer fire department that watches for smoke in nearby Holy Jim Canyon.

Since 1962, according to Chief Mike Milligan, the raggedy group has done so with about 25 sets of eyes, two firetrucks (including a 1948 pumper named Gertrude) and a small firehouse about five miles up a dirt road.

The Santiago fire -- during which the Holy Jim firefighters “didn’t touch a flame or squirt a hose” but did maintain a constant vigil over structures just a third of a mile from destruction -- convinced him that the department needed updating, Milligan said.

So he pared 25 volunteers down to a more manageable 12 and will use the money raised Saturday to train them, buy modern communications equipment and provide improved helmets, fire-retardant breeches and safety tents, among other things.

“We have always been five miles away from the nearest fire,” Milligan said, “but this time we were really close. I realized that we are very important to what happens up here. I realized that we needed to bring the department from the 20th century into the 21st.”

Though fundraisers are held annually, he said, they usually take place at the remote firehouse and attract about 40 participants. Cook’s Corner, well-known by locals and conveniently located at Santiago Canyon and Live Oak Canyon roads, volunteered its facilities even before the recent fires, manager Palmeri said, because “we like to party.”

Apparently she isn’t the only one.

“This is uplifting,” said Jess Morris, 53, whose 136-acre Modjeska Canyon ranch burned in the Santiago fire. “It’s a big break that gives us a little time to unwind and relax. This is a community celebration; the fire isn’t going to stop us. We’re letting people know that we’re here and we’re not going away.”

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david.haldane@latimes.com