Steven Cuevas
October 24, 2007
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A pair of wildfires has incinerated more than 5,000 acres of forest near Lake Arrowhead and destroyed at least 350 homes and businesses. Green Valley Lake north of Running Springs is one of the hardest-hit communities. KPCC's Steven Cuevas was on the fire line on Tuesday.
[Loud whistling sound]
Steven Cuevas: You can't always believe your ears in the middle of a raging wildfire. This is not the sound of a 747 taking off, and I'm not at an airport.
Chon Bribiescas: Right now we're in the town of Running Springs, and the sound that we're hearing is the natural gas that's coming off the meters because, unfortunately, the house has burned down.
Chon Bribiescas is a public information officer with the U.S. Forest Service.
Bribiescas: You know, an explosion will occur when the gas actually accumulates, and then it becomes contained. In this case, it's venting out to the air, to the atmosphere. And so, as long as it keeps doing that, it's actually safer than if they were to turn it off.
Cuevas: Wind-driven flames turned these homes, and dozens of others in the path of the fire, into smoldering ruins in a matter of minutes. Fire commanders had to pull their firefighters out of the neighboring community of Green Valley Lake Monday night. Yesterday, crews still couldn't make it back in. Wind-blasted flames made the only road into and out of the 200-home hamlet impassable. The fire was left to burn.
Captain Jody Smith: Oh yeah, you can't go up. It's not safe.
Cuevas: So you guys can't get in very far?
Smith: No, this is it. We're holding here in this compound.
Cuevas: U.S. Forest Service Captain Jody Smith and his crew from Big Bear hunkered down on the campus of a Christian academy, just ahead of the advancing flames. Across the road, a fire cascaded over several homes. Trees and brush crackled and exploded. Other things did, too.
Smith: Heads up!
[Booming sound]
Cuevas: Propane tanks, and private stashes of ammunition. Or what sounds like ammunition.
David: Actually, that sounds like the tar from the structure itself. You know, the actual tar boiling and snapping.
Cuevas: That's David, another firefighter from the Big Bear crew. He didn't want to give his last name. The crew backed off these structures a few minutes before, when things start crashing and popping. All he and his colleagues could do now was watch and listen.
David: I couldn't tell. That's just the fire itself.
Cuevas: These firefighters are weary. Resources are stretched tight across the multitude of wildfires burning across Southern California. There's anger here, too. Firefighters don't like to stand around and watch houses burn down. But there were a few glimmers of hope Tuesday.
[Sound of aircraft]
Cuevas: Helicopters and tanker planes were able to dump water and long plumes of crimson fire retardant across the blaze. And this was the air show's undisputed star:
[Sound of DC-10 supertanker]
Cuevas: This actually is the sound of a jetliner: The DC-10 supertanker, to be exact. The plane can drop huge payloads of water and fire retardant. On this flyover, a quarter-mile long plume of retardant cascades over our heads.
Fire officials hope the increased air attack will finally give hand crews the upper hand. It couldn't come sooner. Moments after this crew backs off those burning houses, flames shoot across the roadway. They nearly singe a couple of newspaper photographers. Chon Bribiescas and Captain Jody Smith aren't too worried.
Cuevas: So do we need to start movin'?
Bribiescas: We're okay. When you see this guy (points at Smith) run, then we run! See, what he needs on the back of his shirt, it says: "If you see me running, try to keep up!"
Smith: The idea is not having to run. The idea is to be one step ahead.
Cuevas: Everyone on this mountain hopes an advantage like that comes soon.
Jim Wilson-Pool/Getty Images
