Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Firefighters hose down the smoldering remains of the Hiatt house on Clifton Avenue as night approaches.

Fire in the Hills

Firefighting army battles wind, steep terrain and 50-foot flames

By Clarence Cromwell

Three families lost their homes, hundreds of residents fled or were evacuated and fire departments around the county rushed 50 engines to Los Gatos when a wildfire possibly sparked by downed electrical lines burned 15 acres in the mountainous region southwest of downtown.

The fire snarled traffic for hours, left 4,500 PG&E customers without electricity and offered a spectacle for crowds of viewers, who lined every downtown street within view of the hills.

The houses that burned were at 115 and 125 Wood Road and 100 Clifton Avenue. Another home at 138 Wood Road sustained minor damage. A house at 98 Fairview Place lost its roof when embers floated up the hill from the main blaze. Flames also devoured three accessory buildings in the fire area.

Fire inspectors believe a falling branch caused power lines to arc and ignite the grass and brush along Highway 17 a few hundred yards north of the Cats Restaurant. From there, the fire burned uphill, fueled by heavy brush and hot, dry, 14 mph winds, with gusts up to 36 miles per hour. The northwesterly winds blew flames away from the downtown, toward a rugged, heavily wooded residential area.

The main fire started in brush along the highway near the Cats Restaurant. A 911 caller reported the flames at 3:53 p.m. The California Department of Forestry responded with a fire engine and a helicopter. The CDF called for backup and eventually got 200 firefighters and 50 fire engines. Every fire department in the county sent equipment.

Four CDF helicopters buzzed over the downtown crowds on water-carrying trips between the fire and Vasona Reservoir. Six tanker planes bombarded the fire with orange clouds of fire retardant.

"They're a lifesaver," said Capt. Don Jarvis of the Santa Clara County Fire Department, explaining that the fire would have been much worse without the choppers and the planes.

Jarvis said the fire moved quickly because of the steep, overgrown terrain, strong winds, high temperature and low humidity.

Between 500 and 700 residents were evacuated from the hilly fire-area streets, including Wood Road, Broadway, Fairview Plaza, Manzanita Road and Wadsworth Avenue. Most of them were able to return to their homes by 11:30 that night. Some, like Sandi and Karen Allen, had to wait on the Civic Center steps until late at night to learn from police whether their houses had been burned or saved.

Police told Sandi Allen to clear out as the fire closed in. She called her mother, Karen, who also lives at 135 Wood Road, and they spent the afternoon visiting a friend on University Avenue. "It's hard to sit and wait," Karen Allen said.

About 240 evacuees were elderly residents of the Los Gatos Meadows, most of them driven by ambulance to the lawn of Los Gatos High School. Some went to hospitals or to The Terraces retirement community, but most ended up at the First United Methodist Church of Los Gatos. The seniors didn't return home until the next day.

Red Cross volunteers set up a 100-cot shelter in the small gym at Los Gatos High School for those without a place to spend the night, but none of the cots were slept on.

The Toll House Hotel put up three evacuated families overnight for free. Two of the families had lost their homes in the fire, and one family wasn't allowed to return.

CDF crews, who fought in the hottest part of the blaze, didn't reach Wood Road in time to save the first two houses that burned.

CDF Firefighter Coleen Lanright-Lopez said the roof was burning at 115 Wood when her engine arrived at the fire. Before that roof finished burning, the house just up the hill at 125 Wood Road was completely engulfed, with flames leaping 50 feet in the air.

Lanright-Lopez said there was little hope of saving 115 Wood.

"Once a shake roof is going like that, there's not a lot you can do," she said.

Lanright-Lopez rescued some photos and other mementos in a cedar chest from one room of the house and then tried to stop the fire from spreading to 121 Wood Road. That house was spared any damage, although it stood a stone's throw from some of the fiercest flames of the day. The job required three CDF fire trucks and crews: engines 1765, 1782 and 1763.

A few minutes after 7 p.m. all that remained of the house at 115 Wood Road was a foundation, a few flame-licked timbers, two chimneys and water pipes squirting ineffectual geysers.

Up the way, Milpitas Engine No. 1 saved the house at 135 Wood Road. Flames engulfed the trees on a nearby slope and threatened to jump to the small house with wooden siding. When the engine arrived at about 5 p.m., firefighters scrambled on to the roof with a hose, chopped down vegetation and lit a back fire to burn away brush on the slope behind the house.

"We've got to save this one. I don't want to lose this one," Capt. Bob Lee told the crew as they worked.

Fire crews also battled to save homes on Clifton, where one house burned to the ground but another was rescued.

After the yellow house at 98 Fairview was damaged, four Santa Clara County engines, one of them still hooked to a hydrant, stood ready to douse flames or embers. Firefighters feared that the wind would pick up and push flames into the backsides of the historic Victorians along Fairview. After they put out the roof fire, winds died and the blaze came under control. Fairview was spared, except for the one roof.

Traffic along Highway 17 nearly came to a standstill for most of the afternoon, after fire officials closed lanes to make way for fire trucks. At one point, all lanes of the highway were closed for an hour in both directions. Traffic also became backed up in downtown Los Gatos and in Saratoga but didn't stop fire trucks from reaching their destinations, Jarvis said.

More than 200 firefighters responded to the call on rigs from every fire department in the county. Of the 50 trucks on the scene, 33 battled flames. The Santa Clara County Fire Department sent 10 fire trucks, including some from Los Gatos and Saratoga.

The remaining 17 trucks stood by, in case of a dramatic shift in the wind.

"We would much rather go overboard than come up short," Jarvis said. "We went overboard in this case, but it paid off for us."

Additionally, 114 police personnel provided crowd and traffic control in the neighborhoods surrounding the fire area.

Los Gatos Police fielded 13 sworn officers, 22 other police personnel and 41 volunteers of the Disaster Aid Response Team. The DART volunteers evacuated endangered streets and kept the curious out of hot areas.

Other law enforcement agencies helped with crowd and traffic control, including 30 county sheriff's deputies, four Highway Patrol officers and one San Jose police officer.

Numerous PG&E customers lost power during the fire. First, 1,700 customers were blacked out when the fire caused power lines near Highway 17 to shut down. Buildup on the lines from smoke and fire debris probably caused circuit breakers to open, PG&E spokesperson Scott Blakey said.

Later, PG&E crews shut down circuits serving another 2,800 homes to make it safer for crews to fight the fire. Most of the power was restored by 11:30 that night. A few dozen customers waited until about 3 a.m. for power, Blakey said.

Blakey said Aug. 8 that a PG&E investigation was under way and that there was as yet no evidence that PG&E lines caused the fire. "There is no line down," he said.

Hundreds of downtown shoppers and residents filled the town square and stood on the Highway 17 overpass to watch the flames progress up the hill.

In neighborhoods closer to the fire, residents watched the smoke anxiously, turned sprinklers on full blast and wetted roofs with garden hoses. Planning Commissioner Sandy Decker spent hours hosing down the site at 45 Glenridge where she's building a house.

"We've been at it for hours because it's under construction," Decker said. "I wouldn't want to be a contributor to [the fire spreading to] anybody else's house."

A fire that started across Highway 17 near College Avenue wasn't related to the larger wildfire, Jarvis said.

Fire officials suspect arson in the smaller blaze, which started at about 5 p.m. in brush near College Avenue. The fire burned grass and a tree, and a fire crew put it out within 10 minutes. Three white males were seen fleeing the area in a metallic green sport utility vehicle. One of the men was described as being in his 20s and wearing a gray T-shirt and blue shorts.

The Aftermath

As soon as the big fire was extinguished last week, families returned to the charred hillside to take stock of what was left, clean up their property and prepare to rebuild.

Andrew and Susan Holcomb, who lost their house at 115 Wood Road, returned to the house the night of Aug. 7 and found only a cinder block foundation where their house had been. Andrew Holcomb described the scene as "surreal."

A few knickknacks turned up among the ashes, but not many. And the Holcombs recovered a cedar chest of photos and other keepsakes that a firefighter rescued from the house before flames consumed it.

Andrew Holcomb said he tried to save his house by hosing down the roof, but his water pressure gave out. At first, it appeared the flames would miss the Holcombs' house anyway, but then the wind changed.

"The hardest part was when I saw the house ignite when I was at the bottom of the hill," Holcomb said. The Toll House Hotel invited the Holcombs to stay for two free nights after the fire.

Don and Linda Hiatt of 100 Clifton Ave. returned from a funeral for Don's brother just in time to find their 104-year-old house in flames. The Hiatts got a twilight look at the remains of their house when the fire was out, neighbor Esther Grant said. Only a river-rock foundation and a couple of chimneys remain. Two cars were reduced to charred metal, their tires, windows and interiors melted away.

The next morning, the Hiatts returned to assess the damage with their insurance agent.

Andrew Southern, the owner of the house at 125 Wood Road, was sent to Good Samaritan Hospital for chest pains as the fire consumed his house, said Santa Clara County firefighters and Johnson's neighbors. Johnson was discharged from the hospital the following day, hospital employees said, but they couldn't release information about his condition upon leaving or the time he left because of hospital confidentiality policies.

Even at the homes firefighters managed to save, there was work to do. Karen Allen and Ann Millard spent much of the next day getting rid of brush that fire crews cut down to protect their house and sweeping up dust and soot from their roof and side-yard deck.

News crews continued to swarm to the area. A half-dozen television crews parked their vans at the top of the private drive leading to the Southern and Holcomb houses.

Although no flames were spotted during the day Friday, firefighters remained in the area to keep a lookout and snuff out hot spots.

Michelle Alaimo and Shari Kaplan contributed to this story.

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