Fires

Becky Kassouf and her husband lived in near seclusion only 15 minutes off the 210 Freeway, tucked along a pine-lush stream in a traffic-free, smog-free nook of Los Angeles County that even an Oregonian would envy. All for roughly $350 per year. Long before the Station fire destroyed their Big Tujunga Canyon cabin, the couple knew they had a rare deal. "It was a beautiful, wonderful thing," said Kassouf, 57. Theirs was one of 26 cabins built by the U.S. Forest Service in the 1930s that burned Aug. 29 when the massive Station fired roared westward.

Winds and low humidity stoked flames on the northern front of the huge Station fire Monday, while the western flank from La Cañada Flintridge to Acton remained quiet. "I feel very good with the progress made today," U.S. Forest Service incident commander Mike Dietrich said early Monday evening. "I would like to see more. We'll continue tonight and go after it tomorrow." The 157,200-acre blaze, the largest in the recorded history of Los Angeles County, was 56% contained. Winds blowing 30 to 40 mph energized the fire in the Pleasant View Ridge area of the San Gabriel Wilderness, north of Mt. Waterman.

Mike Campbell sat and watched the flames. The 76-year-old Zimbabwean farmer desperately wanted to help. But you can't fight a fire with a walking stick. So the fierce, proud man who had spent so many years fighting for his land was forced to stand by as his family used green branches to fight the blaze burning toward his daughter's home. "It's a terrible feeling when you stand there, helpless. I can't really move very fast," said Campbell, who never really recovered after being beaten by thugs loyal to President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe's election violence in June 2008.

As skies cleared and the Station fire's threat to Tujunga ended, Cathy Ouellet cautiously ventured back outside Saturday, taking her two young sons to a local park. "Maybe the air isn't great," Ouellet said as she wrangled her fussy 2-year-old. "But the kids wake up early, and we couldn't go out at all last week." Residents went through their daily rhythms, happy that a sense of normalcy was returning to the area that took the brunt of property losses in the 154,000-acre blaze.

For those who have lost homes to wildfire, experienced terror in the face of approaching flames or suffered injury, the psychological effects can be deep and long lasting. Such was the conclusion of five Rand Corp. researchers who studied hundreds of evacuees after a firestorm ravaged large sections of Southern California in October 2003, destroying more than 3,700 homes and forcing an estimated 100,000 people to flee. Now, as wildfires again rage across Southern California, a co-author of the study recommends that fire evacuees be aware that mental problems can linger long after flames have been doused.

The relentless Station fire has scoured nearly 242 square miles of the Angeles National Forest, burning through not just picnic areas and campgrounds, but the raw, solitary beauty that has long been a refuge for a sprawling city. Ridge after ridge is a ghostly gray, laid bare of vegetation from the plunging foothill canyons to the Mojave Desert. Only scattered islands of trees are un-charred -- in the deepest draws and in remote, rocky cornices on a few high ridges. "What I saw was a pretty complete burn," said U.S. Forest Service spokesman Stanton Florea.

Fighting the Station fire has cost at least $43.5 million, and federal fire officials say the 154,000-acre arson blaze in the Angeles National Forest is likely to be one of the most expensive fires in the country this year. Although the federal government may foot 80% to 90% of the bill for fighting the fire, which broke out in national parkland, the state's expected multimillion-dollar share will hit at a time when California is in the grip of a fiscal crisis. And the most dangerous part of the fire season is still to come.

The little boy with the Creamsicle hair is beginning the first grade. He'll be in Room 15, the note from the teacher advises a few days in advance. "Please get a good night's sleep the night before school starts and eat a healthy breakfast," the letter reads. "I always eat a healthy breakfast," I remind my wife. "I don't think she was talking to you," Posh says. "Sometimes I eat two healthy breakfasts," I say. "You're not listening," she says. More and more, my lovely wife uses the same tone with me as with the kids.

The Station fire was bearing down on Altadena and Sierra Madre; fire command staff was mourning the death of two comrades and worrying about visibility conditions that had grounded jet tankers; and most folks hadn't slept more than four or five hours in days. But none of that stopped mobile human relations specialist Christopher Jefferson from producing the "Thought for the Day," a reminder to "exercise tolerance" and "respect people whose abilities, beliefs, culture, race, sexual identity . . . are different from your own."

The Gold Creek Ranch edges the Angeles National Forest north of Sunland, a 160-acre estate with high hills and open fields, where a 3-foot-tall wooden statue of Buddha rests under an oak tree and residents do yoga on flat rocks next to yucca plants. "It's a spiritual place," says Nicholas Bowrin, 47, who has been staying at the ranch for a little over two years. The ranch's owner, 77-year-old Jack Johnson, said the "property is my life." "I'm 23 miles from Hollywood and Vine right now, but I'm at the end of the world," Johnson said Thursday afternoon at the ranch, after fire licked at the private retreat.