GOOD DEEDS AMID THE STORIES OF DISASTER AND TRAGEDY, THERE ARE MANY EXAMPLES OF KINDNESS AND CARING NEIGHBORS, STRANGERS STEP UP TO LEND A HAND.

Byline: TROY ANDERSON and BRENT HOPKINS

Staff Writers

Bill Michaelis lost his Canyon Country home to Southern California's voracious wildfires, escaping Sunday night with his wife and two kids in a car loaded with belongings.

When he returned to the three-bedroom house the next day, he found only a smoking hulk.

"It took my breath away -- waves of crying," he said. "Now it's the waves of generosity. Some lady just came up -- I've never met her before -- and she handed me some money."

In the face of the inferno, Southern Californians have witnessed an outpouring of kindness, good deeds and generosity -- acts that are helping hundreds of victims find the strength to rebuild.

Michaelis' church, The Sanctuary in Santa Clarita, has provided support -- so many offers to help that he's begun turning them away.

Now, what seemed like an unimaginable task of rebuilding doesn't seem so daunting, Michaelis said.

"It has been said you don't want to mistreat someone you pass by because they could be an angel of God," said Myra Jolivet, spokeswoman for the American Red Cross of Greater Los Angeles.

"The deeper meaning is that angels appear in many forms and I think that is what we are witnessing -- and, ironically, it's in the City of Angels."

One of those angels appeared to Christie Williams, who took refuge at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego after losing a home she had nicknamed Shangri-La.

Williams said she was approached by an older man who introduced himself as Gabriel, hugged her, reached into his pocket and gave her $100 -- then disappeared.

"Gabriel, my angel!" Williams said Thursday during an interview on "Good Morning, America." "He's one of the many angels here in San Diego today."

Similar acts of selflessness have been witnessed across the Southland.

The Saugus High School football team -- including quarterback Desi Rodriguez, whose family was evacuated as the Buckweed Fire advanced -- jumped into action Sunday, converting the gym into an evacuation center. Local residents and restaurants donated piles of food including cheeseburgers, burritos, gourmet Italian food and cases of water and soda.

Principal Bill Bolde said what touched him the most was the generosity of a woman whose home had burned to the ground.

"As she was signing in, I was listening to her story," Bolde said. "She said, 'What is done is done. My house is gone. I'm here now. What can I do to help you?'

"That's the kind of spirit that amazes you," he said. "The human spirit in time of need often portrays itself in a far different light than it does on a normal day-to-day basis."

An example of that spirit occurred Wednesday when a big rig's brakes failed as its driver was hauling gravel down Kanan Dume Road toward Malibu. The truck slammed into two vehicles on the Pacific Coast Highway, including a Mercury Mountaineer carrying county Firefighter David Wise.

About 200 yards away, a bystander and sheriff's Deputies Edward Harrold and Christopher Chavez saw smoke from the fiery crash and rushed to the scene.

"They all ran to the Mountaineer and pulled the fireman to safety," sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said. "They are going to be put up for the Medal of Valor."

'You can't sit back'

Another hero who emerged during the weeklong siege in the Santa Clarita Valley was Alessandro Llaban, a 31-year-old construction worker from Saugus. He and three others went door to door, rallying neighbors to take up shovels to fight the flames.

"We just put dirt on top of the fire and killed it," Llaban said. "We worked our way from one part of the fire to another until it moved away from our houses.

"I think we saved our whole neighborhood -- about 200 houses. I love my neighborhood. I didn't want my neighborhood to go down with the Santa Ana winds."

Late Sunday, as powerful Santa Ana winds pushed flames toward their neighborhood, off-duty sheriff's Sgt. Gerri McCorkle and her husband, Lt. Mark McCorkle, went door to door, urging their neighbors to evacuate.

The couple then went to the nearby Jump for Joy Ranch on San Francisquito Canyon Road and helped rescue some four dozen horses.

Working until 4 a.m., the couple loaded the horses into trailers and took many to safety at the equestrian facility at the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic.

"It's the nature of our lives," Gerri McCorkle said. "We just jump in when we need to help ... You can't sit back and not do anything when people or animals are in need."

'We will survive'

At Camp Gan Israel in Running Springs, four Hasidic rabbis have been serving firefighters kosher meals while the blazes rage in the San Bernardino Mountains.

"This is a holy place," Josef Broed, a rabbi in the Orthodox Jewish movement called Chabad, told The Associated Press. "God is going to watch over our place, and we will survive."

At Mountains Community Hospital in Lake Arrowhead, nurse Lori Betcher helped evacuate 29 patients as the Grass Valley Fire approached.

Betcher, the obstetrics supervisor in the maternity ward, helped evacuate patients during the Old Fire in 2003, so she knew the drill.

And after getting the patients squared away, Betcher made a pot of chili to feed the crew that remained at the hospital.

"We're still here holding down the fort up here," she said. "We are here to take care of people on the mountain -- and when the people come back, we'll be here to serve them."

Kishore Ramlagan, owner of the 5 Point General Store in Twin Peaks, has kept the store open for emergency service workers and residents.

He has a Subway shop in the store and has let emergency workers come in for free sandwiches and coffee.

"It's not the money, it's more of a community service," Ramlagan said.

'Angels all over'

Amid the hazy chaos of the wildfires, Linda Johnson joined about 50 other volunteers Wednesday at the San Bernardino Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints to pack about 2,000 lunches for evacuees at the National Orange Show Events Center.

A day earlier, the same group made 500 lunches for crews on the fire lines in the local mountains.

Johnson said she will probably volunteer her services for lunches today and beyond. Her church is partnered with the Red Cross, which is overseeing the evacuation center, to provide food to the refugees.

"The fire may be put out soon, but people will still be needing help," she said.

At Fire Station 70 in Malibu, Capt. Robert Haskell said members of the community have offered cookies, sandwiches and lasagna as the firefighters have battled the blazes.

Producer David Geffen's Malibu Beach Inn offered a place for firefighters to rest. Ralphs invited firefighters to take whatever they needed. And a nurse came to the station with $200 worth of sandwiches.

"The cookies and the sandwiches, to us, that means a lot," Haskell said. "We are so appreciative of them going out of their way for us."

Steve Bayer, an American Red Cross volunteer who travels the country to help in disasters, said it's all in a day's work.

"There are angels all over," Bayer said. "There are angels who don't give money, but volunteer 60 hours a week, helping people in hospitals, or helping as Red Cross and Salvation Army volunteers.

"That's what makes it all so beautiful."

Staff Writers George Watson, Selicia Kennedy-Ross and Robert Rogers contributed to this report.

troy.anderson(at)dailynews.com

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CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Lori Betcher, obstetrics supervisor at Mountains Memorial Community Hospital in Lake Arrowhead, carries a day-old infant during an evacuation on Tuesday. After the evacuation, she made a pot of chili for hospital staff members.

Brett Snow/Staff Photographer

(2) After delivering their thank-you packages, Joshua Stern, 4, left, Joelle Faden, 3, and Christian Lopez, 4, with Firefighter John Maass, watch a firetruck demonstration at Station 70 in Malibu.

(3) L.A. County Firefighter John Maass of Fire Station 70 in Malibu accepts packages of cookies and water from teachers, parents and children from the Orthodox Jewish organization Chabad.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer

(4) From left, Rabbis Shalom Harling, Levi Cunin and his brother Chaim Cunin pray on Highway 18 as crews fight a wildfire in Running Springs in the San Bernardino Mountains.

Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press