GIVING THANKS TO THOSE IN THE LINE OF FIRE.

Byline: Dennis McCarthy 

The Stokes Canyon neighbors stand on streets covered with fire hoses and ashes, waving goodbye to weary men whose names they do not know, but who mean more to them right now than just about anybody else in their lives.

Without the courage of the men in these firetrucks, these people would be in a Red Cross shelter or motel somewhere right now, or staying with relatives - letting the shock wear off as they take stock of their lives and what's left of their possessions, deciding where they go from here.

Instead, they are back in their neighborhood, waving goodbye to firefighters from all over Southern California rolling up hoses and pulling out for home in their trucks after winning another one.

Waving goodbye to them, and walking back inside homes most of these people thought they would never see again.

Having dinner at the kitchen table, and sitting in easy chairs and on couches that never felt so comfortable. Looking at picture-covered walls and coffee-table keepsakes that make them smile and remember how lucky they are.

And, for that, they want to say thank you today. Say it loudly and publicly.

Thank you to all the firefighters who put their lives on the line to save not just the structures, but the memories that have been nurtured and thrived inside these homes over the years.

Thank you to the overlooked Public Works crews who worked deep into the night and days clearing fire roads so the firetrucks could make it up them to stay one step ahead of the rapidly moving blaze.

Thank you to the Red Cross, the Highway Patrol, the Sheriff's Department, LAPD, work crews, and all the support groups that came together to beat the Calabasas Fire of '96.

Without any of them, the final lines being written on this latest firestorm to hit our area may very well have had a different ending. A much more tragic one.

Simple words, thank you. So simple that sometimes they get lost in the shuffle, Simona Kreitzman says, walking back inside the Stokes Canyon home she had said goodbye to only a few days earlier.

A home she and her husband bought on a lot in Van Nuys 15 years ago, had dismantled in three pieces and transported to Stokes Canyon so they could rebuild it from the ground up in a different area, living a different lifestyle.

She knows all about thank yous and goodbyes, this woman. Since 1989 - when she began actively traveling all over the world to help in disasters as a volunteer for the American Red Cross - victims of just about every malady Mother Nature can throw at us have been saying thank you to her.

She's stood in the rubble of earthquakes, on the muddy, washed out streets of floods and hurricanes, in the ashes of fire - and had just about every nationality of people thank her for coming, and wave goodbye when she leaves.

And now, it was her turn.

Simona had just returned home from three weeks in Puerto Rico where she helped people pick up their lives in the aftermath of Hurricane Hortense - people with little to start with, and less when the winds and rain finally stopped.

Their faces were still on her mind Monday afternoon as she stood in the middle of her own street with her husband, Roy - fleeing her own disaster.

Taking one last look over her shoulder at the dark black and red smoke slowly blanketing her home until it disappeared.

``I turned around and saw the flames at our house, saw it disappear in the smoke, and I waved goodbye to 15 years,'' Simona said.

``I left thinking there should be no human being on this street, that no one could survive this inferno. But when I looked back, they were there - 15 firetrucks of men lined up, making a stand.

``I kept thinking that they were crazy, that they should run for their lives because no human being could stop all these flames.

``But they did. They came, they fought for us, and they won.

``How much better can you do than that?'' Simona Kreitzman asks.

You can't.

All you can say is thank you and wave goodbye.

MEMO: Dennis McCarthy's column appears Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday.