Extinguishing the flames

Deirdre Newman

The senior bus picked up Blanche Fisher from her home on Aviemore

Terrace at 1:15 p.m. so she could perform some errands. When it

picked her up later that afternoon, the driver delivered her a

shocking message.

“He said, ‘Blanche, I think your house is on fire,’” Fisher said.

When she arrived home, her house was still standing, but thick

billows of smoke engulfed her neighborhood.

The fire, which broke out around 2:30 p.m. in Talbert Regional

Park -- county-owned land on the border of Costa Mesa and Huntington

Beach -- burnt about 25 acres, sending ripples of fear through Fisher

and her neighbors in the process. As they stood on the Terrace bluffs

and watched warily, the erratic blaze kept them guessing as it

hopscotched haphazardly through the park.

“It’s driven by the wind,” said Costa Mesa Fire Chief Jim Ellis,

who was directing the crews on scene. “That’s why it hops and jumps

around.”

The fire, which Ellis said began near the power lines midway

between Victoria Street and Coast Highway, grew quickly because of

the dry brush in the park. Although there were a couple of small

fires in the park on the Fourth of July, they were extinguished

before they mushroomed to the magnitude of Tuesday’s fire, Ellis

said.

While there were reports of children on bicycles in the area

before the fire started, Ellis said he had no concrete evidence of

how the park became ablaze. The area is popular with bicyclists of

all ages for the trails bordering the park and its ramps for riding

BMX bikes.

Costa Mesa fire crews arrived on the scene first -- six started

attacking the fire immediately while two drove up to the homes on the

bluff and stood watch in case it climbed up the hill.

Soon four Orange County units and a county helicopter arrived to

battle the blaze. Although two more helicopters had been requested,

they still hadn’t arrived two hours into the fire.

Ellis said access and water supply were the two biggest challenges

facing the firefighters. The ground crews used shovels, picks and

axes to clear the dense brush as blazes would be nearly extinguished

in one spot only to spark up in others.

While the helicopter used water from a marsh area near the Santa

Ana River next to the park, getting it to its desired target proved

daunting, Ellis said.

“Even though we’re surrounded by water, it’s hard to get it

there,” Ellis said.

Fortunately, the crews were able to contain the blaze to the flat

area of the park, while the smoke, blowing northeast, continued to

menace the residents of the Terrace homes.

It took crews about 3 1/2 hours to get the fire under control,

said Battalion Chief Keith Fujimoto. At 8 p.m. there were still

roughly 40 people on scene doing mop-up work, Fujimoto added.

Even though the fire did not directly threaten the residences on

the other side of Victoria Street, the smoke sent ashes through the

front door of Gary Hicks’ condo. Hicks was riveted by the Dodger game

on TV but the ashes distracted him enough to jump on his bike and

race down to the trail to watch the fire’s progress.

“At first, I thought it was a controlled fire,” Hicks said. “But

then, it was like a big wall of fire.”

Despite the prevalence of dry brush in the park, controlled burns

are not allowed in the area because of endangered species, Ellis

said.