Hannah Fry
Los Angeles Times
(MCT)
安德烈亚斯·弗兰克（Andreas Frank）从他的山脊顶部拉古纳·尼格尔（Laguna Niguel）的第二个故事中看着，下面的山坡开始闷闷不乐。
那是5月11日，他的搭档Kamal Al-Faqih正在后院烧烤排骨，为他们的侄子的高中毕业派对做准备。
Frank banged on the window and pointed toward the smoke in nearby Aliso Woods Canyon.
六分钟后 - 下午2:49- 火焰已经长大，跳到了滚动山坡上的相邻山脊。他打电话911。在那之后，地狱的大小不到10分钟。
弗兰克说：“起初它只是在峡谷里燃烧，但是当风开始时，它就起飞了。”
The couple decided to leave before the flames got closer to their home on Coronado Pointe. They grabbed photos and DVDs with sentimental value and headed for safety while they could still make it out.
经过the time the fire was fully contained six days later, 20 homes, many with sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean, had burned to the ground, and 11 others were badly damaged. Images of the multimillion-dollar houses in flames transfixed viewers across Southern California.
The flames were fast and intense, wind-whipped and fueled by drought-dry vegetation. They raced through the rugged canyon terrain, flew up hillsides, their heat causing electric car batteries and propane tanks in apartment-sized garages to explode.
消防队员不得不动态贝科做出决定use the fire was moving so quickly. One firefighter described it as akin to a “fog of war”; it wasn’t even clear how long they’d been battling the blaze.
The fire was first reported to the Orange County Fire Authority at 2:43 p.m. A man at the South Orange County Wastewater Authority’s Coastal Treatment Plant called in a small blaze — just 50 feet by 50 feet — that was burning in Aliso Woods Canyon.
他告诉消防人员，“动力杆开始着火峡谷”。他说，根据《泰晤士报》审查的911电话的编辑记录，有一条电源线。
十五分钟后，拉古纳海滩消防营负责人Crissy Teichmann向OCFA广播电台报告说她已经到达了治疗厂附近的火灾现场。它已经长到半英亩，正在中等刷子燃烧。
她说，他们将很难让手工赶出火。该地区的道路通道有限和崎terrain的地形。根据《泰晤士报》审查的归档无线电电话，蒂希曼要求空中支撑。
三分钟后，她广播着该市警察局正在撤离该牧场，这是拉古纳海滩的高档度假胜地和高尔夫球场。
下午3:45之前，橙县消防局在Twitter上发布了一场3英亩的植被大火，被称为沿海大火，在峡谷燃烧。
最初的攻击围绕在峡谷的平坦部分停止火，那里的风和地形并不那么极端。机组人员与地面上的火焰作斗争，直升机掉了水。
但这还不足以停止火焰。大火跳了起来，艾丽索溪（Aliso Creek）开始在靠近拉古纳·尼格尔（Laguna Niguel）房屋的山坡上燃烧。
Fixed-wing aircraft dropped retardant on the vegetation backing up to the homes to keep the fire away. Firefighters stood ready to defend the neighborhood.
发言人肖恩·多兰,奥兰治县火Authority, described the first tense efforts this way: “Despite the air tankers and helicopters aggressively hitting the spot fires on the hill, the steep slope, strong sustained winds, dry vegetation on the canyon walls and extreme thermal heat created a relentless ember cast.”
It “jumped over not just the retardant lines,” Doran said, “but also the neighborhood’s defensible space and the pre-deployed OCFA hose lines and firefighters…”
It was time to evacuate.
A helicopter hovered above the neighborhood making announcements over a public address system that the fire was approaching. Deputies went door to door to homes near Pacific Island Drive and Coronado Pointe, warning residents to leave.
The ocean breeze that cools the subdivision during warm summer days was fanning the flames. The fire was making a rapid climb toward homes at the top of the ridge, fed by vegetation left bone-dry by California’s years-long drought.
“Once the fire hit the base of the hill below the homes it was like an arrow that just shot to the top,” said Orange County Fire Authority Chief Brian Fennessy.
Residents stuffed as many belongings as they could in their cars and fled as the flames licked their backyards. Some left with just the clothing on their backs, overwhelmed by the swirling ash and heat that threatened to overtake their tony neighborhood.
At 4:41 p.m., a man called 911 to report that he was watching the flames charge toward his home from a camera on his property on Vista Court.
他告诉调度员：“大火实际上是在我们的后门。”
大约在同一时间，当局要求额外的罢工小组对Coronado Pointe和Pacific Island Drive做出回应。火警警报开始在科罗纳多·普恩特（Coronado Pointe）的三座房屋中大放异彩。
The county sent out a mass notification to people’s phones in the evacuation area at 4:55 p.m.
Crews radioed to report the first homes in the neighborhood had caught fire.
Twenty miles away. at the Orange County Fire Authority headquarters in Irvine, Safety Officer Sean Colgan pointed his truck toward Laguna Niguel. As he drove, he could hear the chaos crackle over the radio.
“We’ve got another structure. I need more engines. I need help. I need air support.”
当他在下午5:30到达附近，灰烬下雨，浓灰烟像低云一样悬挂。至少有十二栋房屋着火了。
Crews scrambled through the neighborhood trying to keep flames from jumping from one stately structure to the next.
“When I drove in, it was like watching something out of Universal Studios…” Colgan said. “I mean, just smoke, fire, debris, facades falling in front. It was utter chaos.”
Homes on both sides of Coronado Pointe were engulfed. The flames illuminated them from the inside, casting a bright, orange glow. The smoke was so thick firefighters could barely see, Colgan said.
30英里 /小时的沿海风将余烬散布在附近，将它们吹入阁楼通风口，并将它们埋入屋顶材料深处，在那里他们闷烧并着火了。烟从通风口和烟囱中倒出。
Fire trucks lined the street with hoses spewing water in all directions.
Firefighters positioned themselves anywhere they could to try to get the upper hand. Some stood in doorways, shooting water through blown out windows as flames raged inside.
Others dragged heavy hoses into threatened houses and shot water out of second story windows to get a better angle on a fire next door.
科尔根说：“我们不得不将人们撤离，因为我们有建筑物向消防员崩溃。”
While some focused on homes that were fully engulfed, firefighters also sprayed down adjacent properties to prevent embers from igniting them.
Helicopters charged overhead to drop water. Aircraft dusted the neighborhood with pink fire retardant.
“Everybody’s screaming for more water and more lines,” Colgan recalled. “They’re doing everything they can, using every tactic they can think of.”
When one strategy wasn’t working, the crews would brainstorm and try something else. Decisions were swift, as firefighters desperately tried to triage the fire’s spread, Colgan said.
奥兰治县消防局的安全官杜克·华雷斯（Duke Juarez）说，他的眼睛因余烬飞过空中而烧死。
华雷斯的主要任务是确保消防员安全。但是他还进入了燃烧的房屋，以确保没有人留下。他说，如果可以的话，他会在出门的路上抓住一些个人物品。
Around 6:30 p.m., Juarez watched as smoke poured from the roofline of Lynn Morey’s five-bedroom rental. The inside of the house was thick with smoke, and the heat on the second story told Juarez what he needed to know. The attic was burning.
“Once I went upstairs, it was like an oven,” he said.
不久，整个房屋都被吞没了 - 前院的一座立面和一些石头作品是曾经宏伟的财产的唯一残余物。在出门的路上，华雷斯抓住了一个银色框架，其中包含莫雷婚礼和苹果台式计算机的照片。
这张照片是在2017年拍摄的，莫雷（Morey）和她的丈夫基思（Keith）站在俯瞰海洋并交换誓言的山坡上。
他说：“在出门的路上，我在想，‘我真的可以抓什么？’我看到了照片。”“然后我看着一个肩膀，看见一个带电脑的办公室。”
The homes burned until the early morning, casting the neighborhood in an angry glow. Some who’d gotten to safety watched the news as flames consumed their houses.
莫雷（Morey）呆在附近，距离山坡的距离距离，想知道她的家是否仍在站立。大火到达她的邻居时，她一直在跑腿，无法进去抓住任何物品。
The next day, she returned to her devastated street and saw what was left of her home: The interior was completely destroyed. The second story and roof were gone. The charred remnants of her car sat inside the garage. The once white shutters that framed her windows were blackened from the relentless flames.
A firefighter handed her the photograph. She clutched it — a memory of one of her happiest days — as she took in the destruction in front of her.
It was May 12, her late sister’s birthday.
Morey said she saw the saved photograph as a sign her sister, who had lived in the home with Morey, was still looking out for her.
“I think she brought this as a gift,” Morey said, looking at the memento.
After two decades on the job, Juarez said, it never gets easier watching people lose not only their belongings but also the memories they made inside their homes.
He said he only wishes firefighters could have done more.
The morning after the blaze tore through, firefighters sprayed down the still-smoldering contents of homes up and down the street. Residents walked tentatively through the neighborhood to see whether their home survived the night.
Many cried. Some stood solemnly, vowing to rebuild.
Investigators are working to piece together the fire’s origins. Southern California Edisonissued an initial report向州监管机构说，“据报道的大火时间，有电路活动发生了。”
Residentsfiled a lawsuitin Orange County Superior Court in May claiming the fire was sparked by the utility’s “negligently operated, repaired and maintained electrical equipment” and failure to clear brush around the equipment.
The graduation party for Frank’s nephew was rescheduled, but his home was spared. And on this day, he couldn’t help but feel a little guilty.
“It’s horrible. It just seems so random when you look at which houses survived and which didn’t,” he said. “I’ve never seen such destruction before.”
This story originally appeared inLos Angeles Times。
©2022洛杉矶时报。访问latimes.com。Distributed byTribune Content Agency, LLC.
