I found this on the Associated Press website, in the US news page. It's apparently the last in a series of 5 articles "portraying courage in wildfire's way."
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CONCOW, Calif. (AP) — Beneath swirling smoke, Capt. Darryl Sanford sees light at the end of the hallway — faint and orange, from the fire outside.
It means a window. It means escape.
He pushes the woman toward it. Beverly Brooks is fading fast, her emphysema aggravated by the smoke and sheer terror of being trapped in a burning house. Sanford is getting lightheaded himself.
He herds her into a bedroom and slams the door behind them to buy time. Yes, there's a window. The sill is high, about four feet up. It has a 4-foot-wide picture window in the center, bracketed by two sliding sections, each about 2 feet across.
It will be a heave to get Brooks out. Sixty-seven years old and just 4-feet-11, she's a heavyset 145 pounds. But Sanford figures he can help her squeeze through one of the sliding windows, if first he can get her across the huge bed in the way.
He'll have to try. Every other exit has been sealed by the wildfire rioting outside. Ten minutes ago, Sanford told Brooks he'd try to save her house. Now, with fire in the kitchen, attic and living room, they're desperate to save themselves.
Brooks is no longer talking. She leans against the bed, gasping.
``We've got to go out that window,'' Sanford yells.
No sooner does he say it than flames fill the window.
Their escape route is gone.
``Jesus help me!'' Sanford cries.
He steps across the mattress to the window, slides open the left side and peers out. Wind-driven flames are eddying off the roof, circling down toward the ground and shooting back up along the outside wall.
Maybe they can make it after all, Sanford thinks. They'll surely get burned, especially Brooks in her nightgown. But it beats staying put.
He clambers back over the bed and seizes Brooks' shoulders. But she has gone limp, collapsing against the edge of the bed. He can't get her out without her help. Even if he can drag her across the bed and push her out the window, she'll land in burning grass, unable to save herself.
There are no more options.
Sanford stands paralyzed. A firefighter does not leave someone behind. Yet if he doesn't leave her, two people will die here, not one.
``C'mon. We gotta go. We gotta go.'' He grabs her shoulders again. She doesn't move.
He cannot abandon her. He must not.
Suddenly the room brightens. The heat soars, and pain sears Sanford's face. This is flashover, when a room's materials, heated to the ignition point, spontaneously burst into flame. They are about to be cooked.
Sanford is no longer thinking. He is reacting. With a bounding step across the bed, he launches himself headfirst toward the window, diving through the screen like a swimmer into surf.
He lands on hands and knees in the flaming grass. Immediately, his fingers start burning through his leather gloves. His back and arm are blistering beneath his fire-retardant shirt. He bounces to his feet and runs. Under torching trees, across the burning lawn, he runs.
Back at the engine in the driveway, firefighter Will Krings is frantically trying to reconnect a hose. Just a few more seconds, he thinks, and he'll be able to break a front window and lay down some water to help Sanford and the woman escape — if he can find them.
Now a silhouette wavers against the orange at the corner of the house. Sanford is streaking toward him, like an ember spit from the fire. His eyes are wild, his cheeks crimson. He fumbles off his gloves, and Krings can see the fingers are already blistering.
``Where's the lady?''
``I had to leave her.''
Sanford stares blankly. Krings stares back, unable to think of what to say.
Sanford breaks the silence.
``I'm burned. I need water.''
Krings pours bottled water into Sanford's cupped hands, then drives them both part way down the hill, where they wait out the fire in a black spot already burned over.
Rushed by fire truck, ambulance and helicopter to a hospital 20 miles away in Chico, Sanford is treated for second-degree burns on his back, face, fingers and elbow. Burned red into his back are the letters ``C'' and ``F,'' branded there by the ``CDF Fire'' logo on his T-shirt as he sprinted through the flames.
By 7 a.m., less than four hours after his narrow escape, he's back at the fire station, lying on his bunk. All he wants to do is sleep, but he can't. The fire scorched his corneas, and it hurts too much to close his eyes.
———
The wildfire, done with Beverly Brooks' house, races southwest along Nelson Bar Road and toward Oroville Lake.
Norm and Lesta Williams flee in their pickup truck and motor home, driving past flaming houses and trees. Their own home survives, surrounded by fire engines. Just 200 feet away, the house that Norm's parents built in 1910 burns to the ground.
By midmorning, the wind has faded and the fire is losing power, burning through grass and brush more sparse than the timber and thicket that stoked its early-morning rage. By Wednesday afternoon, just 24 hours after it started, the fire slows enough to let firefighters rein it in again — this time for good.
The triple-digit heat sinks into the 90s on Thursday, then into the 70s on Friday, Sept. 22. Autumn has arrived, and firefighters turn to mop-up, dousing spot fires and mending bulldozer-flattened fences.
Officials tally the numbers of the Concow Incident: 1,845 acres burned, 1,558 personnel assigned, 16 homes destroyed, 48 homes saved.
And one life lost. Beverly Brooks is buried in Yankee Hill Cemetery, a mile from home. Her son Barry, hoping to erase the awful memories, pays a wrecking crew to cart away every last bit of rubble.
The county files charges against Jim Stewart, the backyard bulldozer operator, claiming that the dozer's blade or tread struck a rock to spark the fire. Stewart, facing possible liability for $4 million in property losses and firefighting costs, insists he didn't do it.
By and large, Stewart's burned-out neighbors don't blame him. Many direct their anger at the firefighters instead.
Rumors fly that firefighters' own back fires caused much of the damage, an assertion vehemently denied by fire officials. Some residents complain that more wasn't done to protect houses. The firefighters shrug and point to homes they did save, including pine-draped bungalows that by all rights should have burned.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection investigates Brooks' death and the fire-shelter deployment.
In a preliminary report released Feb. 8, investigators suggest that Engineer Tony Brownell should have notified supervisors before setting the back fire that blew up and pinned him and his crew beneath fire shelters.
Brownell draws a different lesson. Chastened by his close call, the man known for his aggressive firefighting says he'll be less likely to defend a marginal home next time.
``I think I'd just leave,'' Brownell tells investigators. ``I don't know, maybe we were too much at risk.''
As for Capt. Darryl Sanford, the agency's top fire official says it appears Sanford went beyond the call of duty to stay as long as he did while fire engulfed Brooks' house.
``We don't expect our firefighters to give their lives for this kind of thing, and I don't think anybody else does,'' says Glen Newman, CDF's deputy director for fire protection. ``We have to teach people to give us a defensible space. They can't expect us to do the impossible.''
Honored by the American Red Cross as a ``Real Hero,'' Sanford says he doesn't feel like one.
His burns are healed now, but that fiery night on Stagecoach Lane haunts him. Trusting that God makes things happen for a reason, he tries not to beat himself up over it. He knows there will be a next time. There always is.
On Nelson Bar Road, new homes are going up where the old ones burned down. Along Stagecoach Lane, the pasture is green again. Flowers soon will fill the field, and by July the weeds will be 3 feet tall.
They will be brittle, brown and ready to burn.
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CONCOW, Calif. (AP) — Beneath swirling smoke, Capt. Darryl Sanford sees light at the end of the hallway — faint and orange, from the fire outside.
It means a window. It means escape.
He pushes the woman toward it. Beverly Brooks is fading fast, her emphysema aggravated by the smoke and sheer terror of being trapped in a burning house. Sanford is getting lightheaded himself.
He herds her into a bedroom and slams the door behind them to buy time. Yes, there's a window. The sill is high, about four feet up. It has a 4-foot-wide picture window in the center, bracketed by two sliding sections, each about 2 feet across.
It will be a heave to get Brooks out. Sixty-seven years old and just 4-feet-11, she's a heavyset 145 pounds. But Sanford figures he can help her squeeze through one of the sliding windows, if first he can get her across the huge bed in the way.
He'll have to try. Every other exit has been sealed by the wildfire rioting outside. Ten minutes ago, Sanford told Brooks he'd try to save her house. Now, with fire in the kitchen, attic and living room, they're desperate to save themselves.
Brooks is no longer talking. She leans against the bed, gasping.
``We've got to go out that window,'' Sanford yells.
No sooner does he say it than flames fill the window.
Their escape route is gone.
``Jesus help me!'' Sanford cries.
He steps across the mattress to the window, slides open the left side and peers out. Wind-driven flames are eddying off the roof, circling down toward the ground and shooting back up along the outside wall.
Maybe they can make it after all, Sanford thinks. They'll surely get burned, especially Brooks in her nightgown. But it beats staying put.
He clambers back over the bed and seizes Brooks' shoulders. But she has gone limp, collapsing against the edge of the bed. He can't get her out without her help. Even if he can drag her across the bed and push her out the window, she'll land in burning grass, unable to save herself.
There are no more options.
Sanford stands paralyzed. A firefighter does not leave someone behind. Yet if he doesn't leave her, two people will die here, not one.
``C'mon. We gotta go. We gotta go.'' He grabs her shoulders again. She doesn't move.
He cannot abandon her. He must not.
Suddenly the room brightens. The heat soars, and pain sears Sanford's face. This is flashover, when a room's materials, heated to the ignition point, spontaneously burst into flame. They are about to be cooked.
Sanford is no longer thinking. He is reacting. With a bounding step across the bed, he launches himself headfirst toward the window, diving through the screen like a swimmer into surf.
He lands on hands and knees in the flaming grass. Immediately, his fingers start burning through his leather gloves. His back and arm are blistering beneath his fire-retardant shirt. He bounces to his feet and runs. Under torching trees, across the burning lawn, he runs.
Back at the engine in the driveway, firefighter Will Krings is frantically trying to reconnect a hose. Just a few more seconds, he thinks, and he'll be able to break a front window and lay down some water to help Sanford and the woman escape — if he can find them.
Now a silhouette wavers against the orange at the corner of the house. Sanford is streaking toward him, like an ember spit from the fire. His eyes are wild, his cheeks crimson. He fumbles off his gloves, and Krings can see the fingers are already blistering.
``Where's the lady?''
``I had to leave her.''
Sanford stares blankly. Krings stares back, unable to think of what to say.
Sanford breaks the silence.
``I'm burned. I need water.''
Krings pours bottled water into Sanford's cupped hands, then drives them both part way down the hill, where they wait out the fire in a black spot already burned over.
Rushed by fire truck, ambulance and helicopter to a hospital 20 miles away in Chico, Sanford is treated for second-degree burns on his back, face, fingers and elbow. Burned red into his back are the letters ``C'' and ``F,'' branded there by the ``CDF Fire'' logo on his T-shirt as he sprinted through the flames.
By 7 a.m., less than four hours after his narrow escape, he's back at the fire station, lying on his bunk. All he wants to do is sleep, but he can't. The fire scorched his corneas, and it hurts too much to close his eyes.
———
The wildfire, done with Beverly Brooks' house, races southwest along Nelson Bar Road and toward Oroville Lake.
Norm and Lesta Williams flee in their pickup truck and motor home, driving past flaming houses and trees. Their own home survives, surrounded by fire engines. Just 200 feet away, the house that Norm's parents built in 1910 burns to the ground.
By midmorning, the wind has faded and the fire is losing power, burning through grass and brush more sparse than the timber and thicket that stoked its early-morning rage. By Wednesday afternoon, just 24 hours after it started, the fire slows enough to let firefighters rein it in again — this time for good.
The triple-digit heat sinks into the 90s on Thursday, then into the 70s on Friday, Sept. 22. Autumn has arrived, and firefighters turn to mop-up, dousing spot fires and mending bulldozer-flattened fences.
Officials tally the numbers of the Concow Incident: 1,845 acres burned, 1,558 personnel assigned, 16 homes destroyed, 48 homes saved.
And one life lost. Beverly Brooks is buried in Yankee Hill Cemetery, a mile from home. Her son Barry, hoping to erase the awful memories, pays a wrecking crew to cart away every last bit of rubble.
The county files charges against Jim Stewart, the backyard bulldozer operator, claiming that the dozer's blade or tread struck a rock to spark the fire. Stewart, facing possible liability for $4 million in property losses and firefighting costs, insists he didn't do it.
By and large, Stewart's burned-out neighbors don't blame him. Many direct their anger at the firefighters instead.
Rumors fly that firefighters' own back fires caused much of the damage, an assertion vehemently denied by fire officials. Some residents complain that more wasn't done to protect houses. The firefighters shrug and point to homes they did save, including pine-draped bungalows that by all rights should have burned.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection investigates Brooks' death and the fire-shelter deployment.
In a preliminary report released Feb. 8, investigators suggest that Engineer Tony Brownell should have notified supervisors before setting the back fire that blew up and pinned him and his crew beneath fire shelters.
Brownell draws a different lesson. Chastened by his close call, the man known for his aggressive firefighting says he'll be less likely to defend a marginal home next time.
``I think I'd just leave,'' Brownell tells investigators. ``I don't know, maybe we were too much at risk.''
As for Capt. Darryl Sanford, the agency's top fire official says it appears Sanford went beyond the call of duty to stay as long as he did while fire engulfed Brooks' house.
``We don't expect our firefighters to give their lives for this kind of thing, and I don't think anybody else does,'' says Glen Newman, CDF's deputy director for fire protection. ``We have to teach people to give us a defensible space. They can't expect us to do the impossible.''
Honored by the American Red Cross as a ``Real Hero,'' Sanford says he doesn't feel like one.
His burns are healed now, but that fiery night on Stagecoach Lane haunts him. Trusting that God makes things happen for a reason, he tries not to beat himself up over it. He knows there will be a next time. There always is.
On Nelson Bar Road, new homes are going up where the old ones burned down. Along Stagecoach Lane, the pasture is green again. Flowers soon will fill the field, and by July the weeds will be 3 feet tall.
They will be brittle, brown and ready to burn.
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