Anxiety, relief on the way home

Times staff writer Janet Wilson is a longtime resident of the tight-knit community of Modjeska Canyon.

I just wanted to sleep. It was Tuesday at 9 p.m., and I was hitting a wall. The Santiago fire had roared through Modjeska Canyon in Orange County, leaving several of my neighbors’ homes burned to the ground. My house, at the end of Wilkinson Road, remained standing, but I couldn’t feel good. We live in a tight-knit community. Anyone’s loss is our own.

As I started to lie down, my cellphone rang again. Friends and neighbors told me the wind had shifted, and the fire seemed headed back to Modjeska.

Returning to the canyon at night was surreal. Gold necklaces of fire ringed the hillside ridges. I turned my car onto my dead-end street and saw my house. It was untouched by the fire, but the hill behind it was burning.

With a bandanna over my mouth, I met a firefighter who was trying to save our homes, working against the fire in the dark with a pickax. He had driven from central California to try to save two little streets basically in the middle of nowhere. I couldn’t thank him enough.

I went inside my home and collected a few more treasures. This time, I grabbed a few wedding presents -- some china and wine goblets -- along with an original set of Charles Dickens’ books that were my great-grandmother’s.

I left at 1 a.m.

By midmorning, I was back. A neighbor along the way gave me the good news: “Your house is OK.” The damage in the canyon wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

We had the volunteer firefighters at Station 16 to thank. At one point Tuesday morning, the firefighters were ordered out of the canyon because conditions were too dangerous. Everyone believed all 300-plus homes were lost.

But less than an hour later, Battalion Chief Mike Rohde, of the Orange County Fire Authority, decided to send a group of firefighters back into the canyon. They would be led by my neighbors and friends, volunteer firefighters who had worked for years for a moment like this, to save our homes.

A brigade of fire trucks headed for the canyon mouth. Leo Hetzel, a volunteer firefighter in Modjeska for more than 30 years, said it was just like the end of a cowboy movie when the cavalry arrives. Hetzel, other volunteers and 75 professional firefighters were able to save the vast majority of the homes.

“It was a spectacular save,” Rohde said.

I couldn’t agree more.

I spent most of my day reporting Wednesday.

I kept working for the same reason many of my neighbors volunteered to fight fires: We didn’t want to be evacuated and worry. We needed to do something. We wanted to be part of the action.

In reporting, I had a task and was kept busy. I still had some of these weird little moments when I burst into tears for about eight seconds and then pulled it together.

Before I left the canyon for the night, I looked up the hillside and saw flames.

Firefighters told me that the fire was threatening to come back to Modjeska.

Behind the canyon, the land is filled with 100-year-old chaparral that is 70% dead because of the drought.

My relief that my home had not burned was mixed with dread that it could burn tonight. The firefighters said it could be a another very long night.

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janet.wilson@latimes.com