NEW BLAZE HALTS TRAINS FIRE IS THIRD ONE THIS WEEK TO HIT SANTA CLARITA VALLEY.

Byline: Staff and Wire Services

AGUA DULCE - A third fire erupted in the Santa Clarita Valley this week, closing more roads and shutting down the Metrolink train service as thick smoke blanketed parts of the valley.

About 25 acres of brush and polyvinyl chloride piping gathered in a dry creek bed burned Wednesday in an area often used for mining near Soledad Canyon Road, just south of Agua Dulce Canyon Road.

``It's basically burning in a construction area,'' said Los Angeles County Fire Inspector Mike Brown. ``It is dangerous, but it's not in an area that we are concerned with.''

The Quarry Fire was reported at 2:16 p.m. as a 1-acre blaze, but flames quickly spread in numerous directions, prompting county fire officials to call in more crews and the closure of Soledad Canyon and Agua Dulce Canyon roads.

``We are using various air attacks,'' Brown said. ``It helped that we had some resources from the Leona fire standing by. We did require their assistance.''

Flames broke out on both sides of a Metrolink train track in Agua Dulce, and authorities closed rail service between Via Princessa in Santa Clarita and Acton, said Francisco Oaxaca, of Metrolink. The service was expected to remain closed for rest of the afternoon.

Buses were being used to accommodate passengers, Oaxaca said. The commuters most affected by the closure were those traveling to and from the Antelope Valley.

Charred fire hoses, an incinerated pickup truck and ashes where houses used to stand testified to the ferocity of the brush fire that raced up Bouquet Canyon.

The inferno of heat and smoke destroyed three homes within 200 yards of each other - despite the firefighters working around them - but spared two others.

``I lost everything,'' said Kendra Supple, a teacher at Holmes Middle School in Northridge, who the day after the fire was wearing shoes and socks borrowed from one neighbor, and shorts borrowed from another.

Supple was at work, but her boyfriend was at home when the flames raced through. Neighbors brought over five horses to shelter in Supple's corral, thinking the flames would bypass her property. Instead, the flames jumped Bouquet Canyon Road and ignited it.

``I kept the horses watered down and safe and protected,'' Supple's boyfriend, who goes only by the name ``Dakota,'' said disconsolately Wednesday, sitting at the edge of the burned house's dirt drive. ``I couldn't even get to the house to get anything out.''

On Wednesday, a day after the destruction in Bouquet Canyon, firefighters worked to keep the flames away from hundreds of tract homes in southwest Palmdale as Southern California's wildfire season continued to worsen.

After exploding Tuesday out of Bouquet Canyon, destroying at least five ranch style homes, the fire burned across dry cattle-grazing land and brushy ridges toward Palmdale subdivisions. Flare-ups continued to break out Wednesday nearer to the town of Leona Valley.

``Everything is in optimal alignment right now for burning,'' Roland Sprewell, Los Angeles County Fire Inspector, said Wednesday.

Overnight, sheriff's deputies drove through the neighborhoods south and west of Elizabeth Lake Road and Tierra Subida Road, announcing through loudspeakers that the area was under voluntary evacuation.

Some residents packed up their cars and got out as a precaution, like 17-year-old Joshua Azura's family, who went to stay with friends in east Palmdale.

``They said we're going to be safe instead of sorry,'' said the teen as he carried cardboard boxes of belongings into his family's front yard. ``It's scary. I don't want to wake up at 1 a.m. with the Sheriff's Department saying we have to get out.''

Helicopters, U.S. Forest Service air tankers and two SuperScooper aircraft dropped water and fire retardant on burning brush from the air. Prison inmate crews and bulldozers dug fire lines.

Fire engine crews kept guard beside clusters of homes, including one with a small herd of buffalo, and a west Palmdale boarding stable from which nearly 100 horses were evacuated Tuesday night.

Fire officials said Wednesday the cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Bouquet Canyon residents suspect it was started intentionally, the same suspicion they have about a fire that occurred eight days earlier in almost the same spot.

Bouquet Canyon resident Tony Siro called 911 Tuesday after a motorcyclist rode up to his home and told him he saw a small fire about a quarter-mile down the road. A blue-green car was parked next to the fire, the motorcyclist told him.

``He'd just seen the car parked there as he was driving by and there was a fire going. He stopped at the first house,'' said Siro, a general contractor whose house was spared.

A suspicious green car was reportedly seen within five minutes of the start of the Aug. 25 fire, which erupted about a quarter mile away and burned 120 acres, officials said.

Tuesday's flames reached the homes of Siro, Supple and their neighbors about 30 minutes after the motorcyclist rode up.

Neighbors across the street weren't home. Somebody broke a window on the house and got out the family's dogs and two parrots. The birds went out in a sheriff's deputy's patrol car.

``It seemed like the wind kept getting stronger and stronger,'' said Siro. ``You couldn't breathe; you couldn't see. Then the windstorm came, and we thought we were doomed. Sheriffs started screaming, 'Evacuate, Evacuate.'''

As the flames and smoke closed in, Siro and his neighbors clustered in an open spot at the edge of his property beside the two-lane road, away from the pine, juniper and elm trees that surrounded his and neighbors' home.

``We stood our ground,'' he said. ``It just seemed like slow motion.''

Asked if he had been scared, Siro thought for a moment:

``Well, I wasn't really scared,'' he said. ``You just have so much emotion going on. I was just running around like my head was cut off. ... I had faith in the fireman. They were all around the house to save it.''

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) A firefighter attempts to douse hot spots along Soledad Canyon Road Wednesday as a brush fire swept through the area. Several out buildings and pieces of equipment at the quarry were damaged or destroyed.

(2) A SuperScooper unloads tons of water on the Soledad Canyon brush fire Wednesday, near the Soledad tunnel.

David R. Crane/Staff Photographer