Jason Falarski was on the books for a 24-hour shift at the Santa Clara Fire Department, starting at 8 a.m. Sunday. But if you were a firefighter in California last week, the books didn't count for much.

Falarski, a 35-year-old captain, had tiptoed out of the house early, letting his wife, daughter and two sons sleep. Then came the long-distance call for help in San Diego County.

By 10 p.m. Sunday, he was rolling south, one of 21 firefighters on five engines from Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. By 2 a.m., they were racing down the Grapevine, gaping at fires left and right. About the time his shift was supposed to end, he was checking in at Fire Station 80 in Ramona.

By Monday night, he was crouched between the pool and the barbecue grill on a luxurious backyard patio in Poway, throwing all he had at the climbing fire.

A few months ago, Falarski had brought his family to Southern California on vacation. This time, as he entered the disaster zone on Old Coach Road in Poway, San Diego County was lit up like no place he had seen in 16 years on the job.

"Fire everywhere," Falarski recalled. "Hundreds of houses threatened, gazebos and decks going up. We might be able to save one house, but the house next to it would be going up in flames."

Falarski's team moved from house to house, winning some, losing some. They were lucky: No lunch, no dinner, sore feet, blisters, headaches -- the easiest inconveniences of fighting fire.

They reached the house on Sandhill Road about 7 p.m.

"It was on a cul-de-sac. We backed in. We always back in, in case we have to escape quickly. When we looked behind the house, there were flames running up the hill. We deployed our hose line to the back. The main objective was to make sure the deck didn't become fully involved, because if the deck became fully involved, we probably would lose the house."

The battle went on for an hour. While his teammates, Andrew Kim, Ray Torres and Gary Agvin, paid out hose and doused other parts of the property, Falarski, who is 6 feet tall and weighs 200 pounds, threw about 100 gallons per minute.

The Hansen family, who own the home, had left that morning, but were watching from a distance. While the fire crew clambered around the backyard, Jim and Maureen Hansen were two miles away, at the home of their grown daughter, Jenny, joined by their son Chris. As the night wore on, the Hansens took turns scanning the television, then stepping into the backyard to look across the canyon.

Then another of their sons called. Michael, a law student on an exchange program in Buenos Aires, had been searching the Los Angeles Times website for clues about his house, and came upon the image of Falarski fighting to save it.

"Our house is on latimes.com and it doesn't look good," Michael told his parents from Argentina.

"The conditions you saw in the picture," Falarski said, "that probably lasted about 30 minutes. The main thing going through my mind is, 'I don't want to lose this house.' "

And then?

"We saved that house. . . . I think all 10 made it on the cul-de-sac. The street over might have lost three or four houses. But I'm not sure." It was Tuesday morning before Falarski and his teammates had a chance to eat and sleep. They had breakfast at Poway High School, then lay on the grass at a park in Escondido. Then they rejoined the fight.

So when is this assignment going to end?

"Could be two weeks," Falarski said. "Could be three."


christopher.reynolds@latimes.com

October 28, 2007

They had drilled on this situation dozens of times, and if anyone remembered the training, it was rookie firefighter Jason Carl. Ninety-two days out of the Orange County fire academy, on a smoky slope in Santiago Canyon, Carl was reaching for the one thing he'd been told he should never need: the flimsy emergency shelters known as shake-n-bakes.

He tore the small package open, unfurling the foil shelter in the scorching wind. He stepped on its edge, curled it around his back like a shroud and dropped to the ground.

For nearly 20 minutes, he sucked short breaths of air from beneath the fire-retardant shelter, his arms and legs splayed wide to seal its edges to the ground.

Carl, 26, of Huntington Beach, was among a dozen Orange County firefighters trapped Monday by a wall of flame on a steep bank off Santiago Canyon Road. Behind them, their canvas hoses lay burned and useless.

The firefighters had been ordered onto the hill, on the north side of the road, to extinguish spot fires spilling over from the south side. If the Santiago fire jumped the road, it could barrel toward an elementary school and hundreds of homes, then roar through the tinder-dry Cleveland National Forest into Riverside County.

They laid hose up the hill, but when they opened the nozzle, no water shot out. While they tried to connect new hoses, a wave of flames leaped the road and came up behind them.

Carl said his captain, Doug Dodge of Placentia Station 34, called them together and ordered them to try to hack out an escape route. They were standing in a fairly large area that had burned, and it just might work.

It didn't. The flames were moving too fast. The captain called the firefighters together again and ordered them to deploy the shelters. The foil pockets mushroomed, and down they fell.

"I didn't really feel it was life-threatening," Carl said. "We trained on it so much."

But down on the ground, he realized that "this was a little different."

As the heat grew more intense, "I kept telling myself, 'This is like being inside a sauna,' " he said.

Carl couldn't recall whether the flames passed directly over him or to the side. He does remember blessedly cool drops of water trickling under the lip of the shelter after helicopters dumped two loads of water on the stranded men.

Dodge and a second captain kept them calm, Carl said.

"Once we deployed, we were in the shelters talking to each other, and they were talking to the chief down on the road below us on the radio the whole time," he said. "We just kept doing roll call, making sure everybody was there and everybody was OK."

Finally, Carl heard the chief on the radio call "all clear" to his captains, who instantly relayed the message.

They whipped off the shelters and walked down the hill. "The adrenaline was still pumping," Carl said. After a quick medical evaluation, they were released for the night. Tuesday morning, Carl was back on duty.

A fellow firefighter showed him a Los Angeles Times photograph of his crew shrouded against the flames. Carl recognized himself as the third silhouette from the right.

"It really helped give me some perspective. When you're in the shelter, you don't have any idea what's going on outside. . . . It showed me where the flames really were."

Carl went back to the scene the next day. The crumpled shelters lay like muffin wrappers on the blackened earth.

--

janet.wilson@latimes.com

The Cleveland National Forest encompasses 460,000 acres (1900 km²) (720 sq. mi.), mostly of chaparral, with a few riparian areas. It is the southernmost National forest of California. It is administered by the United States Forest Service, a government agency within the United States Department of Agriculture. It is divided into Descanso, Palomar and Trabuco regional districts and is located in the counties of San Diego, Riverside, and Orange.

The Cleveland National Forest was the site of the beginning of the Cedar Fire, the largest wildfire in California history.

If this fire reaches the forest from the south, they might as well let it burn.  Very difficult terrain and totally parched brush.  But at least no homes there!  The Cedar Fire!!  I remember it from about 3 years ago.  Just as everyone had given up on containing it, it rained!!  That's what we need, but fat chance!  If that fire reaches the forest, it will not be stopped.

Check out the link to the 'Cedar Fire'.  It was Bad and we were lucky. 

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Just got the word that Homeland Security has arrived!!  God help us all!!!  Michael Chertoff??  Just give us the money and we'll take care of the rest!!  NOT another Katrina!

As you may remember, tonight was the night of the big dinner party!  Well, since the wind has died down a little, it's still on!!  Outdoors!  Things seem to be improving a little here and hopefully tomorrow will be much better!  Our cabin is still standing so we will see how that goes.

I'm not a wimp!  I consider myself a pretty tough guy!  Two tours in Viet Nam , blah. blah..  But I have been crying the past few days watching these people lose their homes and all that they owned!!  It just kills me to see such a tragedy!!  Mrs Serious and I have opened our home to anyone in California who needs shelter!!  We have already contacted the Red Cross.

OH Crap!!  The fire in Orange County has gotten HUGE!!  BAD..............!!

Just when it looked like the winds had changed and the fires were starting to lay down....  Nope!!  The Santa Ana winds are howling again and the firefighters are running for their lives in several locations!  I am at least 20 miles away and the sky is red!!!  Looks like another day  of homes being lost and lives being threatened.  Looks like there will be a day 4 update too......

Cool story!!  Two firefighters came up to a house that was burning but had no water!!  The homeowner had left his garden hose out and connected , so they used it to put out the fire!!!  GREAT tip for homeowners!!  They have also been using pool water! 

I'm keeping a close watch on this fire in Orange County... the Santiago Fire.

It looks really bad in San Diego County!  500 homes lost and 400,000 people evactuated!  Pray for them... not me!

I hope tomorrow is a better day here.  Nite.......!