Raging wildfire threatens 12,500 homes in LA suburbs

The two firefighters were killed when they drove off the side of a treacherous road in the Mount Gleason area, south of Acton, around 2:30 p.m., said Los Angeles County Deputy Chief Mike Bryant. He did not release their identities or other details.

“This accident is tragic,’’ Bryant said, choking up as he spoke yesterday evening. “This is a very difficult time for LA County Fire Department and the men and women that serve day in, day out.’’

The fire had churned through more than 42,500 acres of chaparral and forest, from the edge of metropolitan Los Angeles up to pine-clad ridges and down toward the Mojave desert. More than 12,500 homes were under threat and 6,600 under mandatory evacuation. Eighteen residences were destroyed, fire officials said, mostly in the Big Tujunga Canyon area.

The fire was 5 percent contained, they said, and at least temporarily eased off the foothill communities from La Canada-Flintridge to Altadena on its southern flank.

Much of yesterday turned into a blistering hot waiting game for firefighters, who were trying to determine where the fire would move next. Rather than battling the flames in the sheer granite canyons of the interior, with heavy vegetation more than 40 years old in many areas, they feverishly cut fire lines near threatened neighborhoods.

“In this rugged, steep terrain, with this brush as thick as it is, we are having difficulties establishing containment lines where we can make a stand,’’ said Captain Mark Savage, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Fire Department. “This fire is still very much out of control.’’

The flames were about 2 miles from Mount Wilson yesterday afternoon. Hand crews were clearing brush to protect the historic observatory and critical transmission towers for local television and radio stations. Fire officials expected the fire to reach the 5,710-foot peak above Pasadena in the evening.

More than 2,800 fire personel from around the state converged to battle the Station fire, with 12 helicopters and eight air tankers.

They had hoped that the day would bring cooler, more humid air. But the red-flag fire alert was extended through today, as the fire grew in all directions and sent a column of smoke high into the air - mushrooming into a towering pyrocumulus cloud that could be seen all over Southern California.

The fire grew to more than 19 miles long east-to-west and 16 miles north-to-south - even without much wind.

“This is so unusual. Those other large wildfires were driven by winds. When the winds stopped, the fires stopped,’’ said Los Angeles County Fire Captain Mark Whaling.

At a news conference yesterday morning, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger urged people in fire evacuations zones to get out - noting that three residents in Big Tujunga Canyon who tried in vain to save their homes were seriously burned.

“There will be people who don’t listen,’’ the governor said at the fire command post in Lake View Terrace. “Move as soon as [firefighters] say to move.’’

A sheriff’s official said roughly half the residents under evacuation orders in the Acton area, on the north slope of the San Gabriels, had refused to leave.

Scott Wright was one of them. Up a dirt road high above Soledad Canyon, he and his family were watching the line of fire on the ridge about 1:30 p.m., when the wind suddenly picked up. The smoke tilted ominously down toward them. The flame started lashing its way down the canyon, as timber popped and cracked.

Wright, 50, moved his gardening machinery and trailer away from the brush, near the house. His dogs paced around the driveway nervously under the blackening sky.

“If anything happens, I’m jumping in the pool,’’ he said.

His daughter, Angelina Rini, had what fire officials would call common sense: She was out of there.

But her 11-year-old-son, Joseph, wanted to stay.

“You’re coming with me,’’ she commanded - with finality.