For Firefighters, It Was a Wednesday From Hell : Inferno: Winds. Dense brush. Limited resources. These factors conspired to create blazes of unstoppable fury.

The blazes came in waves and from everywhere, spreading havoc over such a vast area that firefighters had no way of winning until the roaring winds of the Santa Anas began to fade.

Even in Southern California, where brush fires come with the change of seasons, Wednesday was a day from hell. All of the worst things that could happen--from the winds to the warped minds of arsonists to a transient's runaway campfire--came together to create one of the most destructive days in a region that regularly deals with destruction. Of the 14 fires that raged through the region, 11 started Wednesday.

As the danger of fire receded, if only slightly, this weekend, fire officials were assessing what happened on that day when it seemed as if nothing could stop the flames. What worked and what didn't? What might have been done differently?

For firefighters, the battle to protect life, their first priority, was a great success. No one died in Wednesday's firestorms, which officials said is a testament to the prompt evacuations of neighborhoods from Ventura to San Diego, from Laguna Beach to Riverside. The grim lesson about the need for speedy evacuation had been learned from the Oakland hills fire two years ago, in which 25 people died.

Despite the deployment of more than 8,000 firefighters, drawn from as far as Mendocino and Lake Tahoe, the toll in property loss was staggering, with more than 500 structures damaged or destroyed and nearly 100,000 acres burned before the day of devastation ended.

Some firefighters made brave stands, successfully beating back the flames with shovels and axes, water hoses and air support. But many other times they were no match for the fury and could only retreat to a new line of defense.

They were often handicapped by the steep, brush-choked terrain, and by narrow, winding roads that were nearly impassable.

Weak water pressure in many areas left firefighters without any alternative but hand-to-hand combat with a fast-moving enemy.

Their old nemeses--weak building codes, wood shake roofs and houses enveloped by foliage--allowed the flames to leap unchecked from block to block.

Bureaucratic tangles kept some air tankers on the ground.

And the sheer speed with which fires exploded across the Southland caused a logistics nightmare and overtaxed the firefighting ability of the entire state.

"You wouldn't think that the state of California would run out of resources," said Paul Beckstrom, a deputy chief of the state Office of Emergency Services. "We were stressing the system as much as it's ever been stressed."

A Tinderbox

The potential for calamity was clear. The welcomed rains of winter, followed by the usual dry summer, had turned Southern California's bumper crop of brush into a tinderbox. All it would take was a match.

Certainly the Los Angeles Fire Department knew the danger was there last week. Each day the department calculates how dry and combustible the grass and brush are. On Tuesday, the readings signaled what Capt. Steve Ruda called "a potential day for disaster."

Ten city fire engine companies immediately were shifted into the brushiest areas of the San Fernando Valley.

The first fire, however, broke out in neighboring Ventura County early Tuesday afternoon near the 15th and 16th greens of Los Robles Golf Course in Thousand Oaks. Had the winds not been blowing, this deliberately set fire would have been easier to handle. But the Santa Anas had already kicked up to 20 m.p.h. Five acres had been consumed by the time firetrucks arrived. Even in the early going, it was obvious there was going to be trouble.

By nightfall, 400 firefighters from Ventura and Los Angeles counties were on the lines and 900 acres were burning. Near the exclusive neighborhood of Hidden Valley, flames came within a few feet of million-dollar homes.

Steadily, inexorably, the Ventura County fire marched toward the Pacific Ocean. That blaze alone would have been enough to occupy a major portion of firefighters throughout Southern California. But in only a few hours, the skies would be filled with flames and smoke from Ojai to San Diego.

After Ventura County called for more outside assistance, the state's mutual aid system kicked into action. Within minutes, an emergency coordinating center--the war room used to fight fires over a broad area--was set up on the second floor of the county Fire Department's new gray, two-story headquarters in East Los Angeles. A dozen staff members scrambled in from surrounding offices, not knowing that this was only the first fire of many that would need tracking in the next 24 hours.

Fires Before Dawn