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Shortly after 3 a.m., the worst possible thing happened. "The hair on the back of my neck stood up," Captain Parr recalled of the ferocious Santa Anas, which swept through the canyon like a blowtorch. "The fire became a monster. A giant 100-foot wall of flame vaporized everything in its path. It was pandemonium." He assembled his crews farther north on Wildcat Canyon Road. A thick black curtain of smoke spread ash for miles. It hurt to breathe. Visibility was gone. Cars plowed into one another. Power lines split open and crashed to the ground. Houses exploded. Trees incinerated in a matter of seconds.To listen to the news back then, it seemed all of Southern California was on fire. In San Bernardino County and north, in the Simi Valley and Ventura area, where ranches and horse farms abound, the fierce winds triggered another 13 fires. Coming off a record- setting hot October, the area was parched and dry. Thousands were forced to evacuate as flames scorched acres and acres of land. The federal government declared Southern California a disaster area. In the smoky red skies were images from wartime: military reconnaissance planes roared overhead and low-flying helicopters left trails of bright pink fire retardant in their wake. Firefighters were called in from Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico and Colorado, but even with all that added help, the fires still burned out of control.
Back on Wildcat Canyon Road, Captain Parr split his crews. He sent four fire engines farther north in the canyon and four down Muth Valley Road. "At that point we weren't trying to fight the fire because it was just raging," he said. "A hundred fire engines wouldn't have been enough. The crews were there to rescue people." They put an elderly couple, who had no transportation, in one of the officials' cars. A mile down Muth Valley Road, Parr's crews were blocked by a wall of flames. "It's getting really ugly," his troops reported. "We're getting trapped." Parr ordered them to turn around and get out. "There was nothing else we could do," he said. "We had to save the people we could and not die ourselves. I had an uneasy feeling we didn't get to everyone down the road."
Deputy Knight had the same sinking feeling. Around 3:30, he headed down Muth Valley Road but could get only to the first house, where the homeowners were also loading animals. Knight helped squeeze all three of their horses into a two-horse trailer. But he couldn't make his way to the next property only a few hundred feet away. "The fire was solid," he said.
At 3:15 a.m., the phone woke the Reddens. It was their neighbor, Joe McLean, alerting everyone in Lake View Hills Estates. Outside, towering flames were closing in. "The fire was huge," Larry recalled. "It was like nothing I'd ever seen." The retired firefighter urged everyone to stay put. "It was moving too fast," he said. He'd been taught to take cover inside a structure and wait for the main body of fire to blow over, but Laureen and her parents wanted to leave. "I was panicked and thought there was no way we'd survive here," she said. She grabbed her purse, and together they loaded their three dogs and five cats into two cars. Laureen's parents followed in their own two cars.
Another neighbor, Stan Penn, a casino owner, woke his brother, Mike. By then, fire was all over the hillside. "I'm goin' now," exclaimed Stan. He put his bulldog, Ace, in his car and sped up the road. Mike called 911, but "I knew there was no way anyone was coming," he said. He grabbed his laptop and left ten minutes later.
A stream of cars maneuvered through the black smoke toward the community's security gate. The McLeans made it out first, and barreled 80 m.p.h. down Muth Valley Road. Stan Penn, close behind, also made it out and got all the way to Wildcat Canyon Road. But he was the last of the group to make it that far. Less than a quarter-mile behind Penn, Natalie Corbett, who was housesitting in the neighborhood, hit a tumbling power line and flipped over in her Bronco. Flames swept over the car. Sure that she was going to die, Corbett closed all the windows and tried to go to sleep.
A minute later, as Steve Shacklett followed in his 33-foot motor home, a wall of flame overtook the road. Mike Penn was behind the massive motor home as it attempted to turn around, then got stuck. "There was no other way to go but back," Mike said.
At the gate, Larry Redden saw the blaze coming toward them and advised everyone to turn around and go home. Laureen tried calling 911, but her cell phone didn't work. "Don't bother," Larry told her. "They've written us off. There's no way they can get to us. We're on our own."
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