HOME STANDS UP TO FIRE.Byline: Laurence Darmiento Daily News Staff Writer With chunks of plaster and pieces of insulation scattered on his new carpet from a hole in the ceiling left by a firefighter's foot, Sam Azhderian relaxed at home Tuesday and tried to fathom his good fortune. Less than 24 hours earlier, a firestorm fire·storm n. 1. A fire of great size and intensity that generates and is fed by strong inrushing winds from all sides: the firestorm that leveled Hiroshima after the atomic blast. 2. reaching 50 feet in height had rushed up a hillside in front of his isolated Ridge Route The Ridge Route, officially the Castaic-Tejon Route,[2] is a narrow two-lane highway in the northern Greater Los Angeles Area of the U.S. state of California. home, engulfed the area in a fireball fireball, very bright meteor leaving a trail in the sky that can remain visible for several minutes; often a distinct sound, perhaps caused by very low frequency radio waves, is associated with it. , and then continued on its destructive path down the slope. Azhderian, 74, and his wife Gloria, 71, did not emerge unscathed, for sure. The 40 mph storm of fire burned several horse trailers and other equipment, as well as two mobile homes used as storage space. It also ripped a hole in a roof, causing perhaps $200,000 in damage. But it could have been much worse. Azhderian knows. The real estate broker lost a previous home to a 1967 wildfire. He also lost a mobile home he had lived in on the property to a propane tank explosion in 1989. ``We just barely came out with our lives. We had 21 minutes from the time we first saw the fire until it hit us. We were scared to death. But look at this,'' said Azhderian, with a large sweep of his arm. ``Nearly everything burned but this house, and it was engulfed.'' A Castaic civic leader who just stepped down from the local Town Council, Azhderian said he applied the lessons of his own hard past to ensure he would never again be the victim of a fire. When he began building his 3,700-square-foot stucco stucco (stŭk`ō), in architecture, a term loosely applied to various kinds of plasterwork, both exterior and interior. It now commonly refers to a plaster or cement used for the external coating of buildings, most frequently employed in home two years ago, he said, he made demands his subcontractors called unreasonable: The wooden eaves were plastered over; a side staircase was constructed of steel; and a front deck was made of cement. Even so, the fierce firestorm burned a 6-foot-long hole in his roof after it separated the red tiles that sit atop his Mediterranean-style home. A nearby fire crew quickly extinguished it. ``It probably would have been gone had it been a regular house,'' said Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. County Battalion Chief Mel Hokanson, who helped battle the fire. ``He wanted to stay. We wouldn't let him, but we saved his house.'' Azhderian had one of the nearest brushes with disaster from the blaze believed set Monday by a teen-ager. The fire continued to burn out of control Tuesday in uninhabited terrain north of Castaic. The fire, which started about 12:30 p.m. off the Golden State Freeway The Golden State Freeway is a north-south freeway running through Kern County and Los Angeles County, California. Originally built as U.S. Highway 99, it was re-signed as Interstate 5 in 1964. near Lake Hughes Road Hughes Road is an arterial road in South Mumbai linking Opera House with Kemps Corner. To the left is Malabar Hill. , had consumed more than 11,500 acres of dry chaparral by Tuesday afternoon as it burned into the Angeles National Forest The Angeles National Forest (ANF) was established by executive order on December 20, 1892 as the San Gabriel Timberland Reserve. It covers over 2,600 km² (650,000 acres) and is located in the San Gabriel Mountains of Los Angeles County, just north of the metropolitan area of Los . Embers carried by capricious capricious adv., adj. unpredictable and subject to whim, often used to refer to judges and judicial decisions which do not follow the law, logic or proper trial procedure. A semi-polite way of saying a judge is inconsistent or erratic. gusts of wind and set down on chaparral that had not burned in some 30 years started small spot fires that raced up hillsides turning into small infernos east, north and west of Castaic Lake Castaic Lake is a lake on Castaic Creek formed by Castaic Dam, in northwestern Los Angeles County, California, near the town of Castaic. The 323,700 acre foot lake (399,000,000 m³) is the terminus of the West Branch of the California Aqueduct, though some comes from the 154 mi² . More than 650 firefighters battled the blaze Tuesday, including U.S. Forest Service and Los Angeles County firefighters who were assisted by more than a half dozen other agencies. Even so, many of the firefighters could do little more than watch as the flames reached further and further into wilderness areas, leaving most of the work to water-dropping helicopters and fixed-wing planes. ``It's a lot of waiting interspersed with moments of sheer terror Sheer Terror was an influential and long-lasting American hardcore band from New York City. The band was one of the first to mix shades of heavy metal with a hardcore punk base, pioneering a heavier style of hardcore that would become popular in the following decades. ,'' said Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Jim Gandee. His was among a dozen engine crews guarding several homes on the Ridge Route in case the fire doubled back. Meanwhile, less than a mile or two away, a county hand crew was eating a lunch of ham sandwiches on the side of the road after an unsuccessful morning attempting to set a line around one section of the fire. The crew worked for some six hours before the wind picked up, sending the 30 members scurrying scur·ry intr.v. scur·ried, scur·ry·ing, scur·ries 1. To go with light running steps; scamper. 2. To flurry or swirl about. n. pl. scur·ries 1. The act of scurrying. for cover as a wall of flames ran past their 300-foot line, said Firefighter Specialist Tom Miller. ``Today, it just didn't work, but we will eventually start flanking it,'' Miller said. ``It flared up on us. We had to jump back into the black area where it already burned.'' Firefighters estimated that the flare-ups could mean at least two more days before they have a complete line around the fire. The spot fires carried huge plumes of smoke thousands of feet into the air. A premature dusk darkened dark·en v. dark·ened, dark·en·ing, dark·ens v.tr. 1. a. To make dark or darker. b. To give a darker hue to. 2. To fill with sadness; make gloomy. 3. sections of the Golden State Freeway north of the lake, but that was still preferable to the previous day when flames licked the edges of the roadway, closing it from both directions until 9 p.m. CAPTION(S): 3 Photos Photo: (1--SAC edition only--Color) A fire crew makes it s way through a canyon ahead of flames on Tuesday to establish a fire line. (2--SAC edition only--Color) Ventura County firefighters catch 40 winks after a long night of battling flames near Castaic Lake. (3) A water-dropping helicopter fights a wild fire for the second day in a canyon near Castaic on Tuesday. John Lazar/Daily News |
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