EISPIRATEN

Julius Goff, severely burned after taking refuge in a hot tub, says he didn't ignore a mandatory evacuation order but instead stayed behind to warn 10 neighbors who did not receive the order to leave.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other authorities held them up as examples of irresponsible behavior. They were the butt of jokes. But one of the two Big Tujunga Canyon residents who jumped into a hot tub to escape the raging Station fire says they are being unfairly judged.

Julius Goff, who suffered serious burns, told The Times that he did not ignore a mandatory evacuation order but instead stayed behind to warn 10 neighbors who did not receive the order to leave. By the time he reached his own house, with plans to get his housemate and get out, the fire had surrounded them.

Trapped, the men ran screaming through 50-to-100-foot flames to what they saw as their best hope: the only pool of water within reach.

Later, Goff watched in tears from a hospital bed as they were repeatedly castigated on TV. Then he learned that everything he owned was lost in the fire.

"I'm not some idiot who ignores the evacuation order," Goff said Sunday as he surveyed the piles of debris and ash, which are all that remain of the two-story house. "I got a 10-year-old son. I don't want to die."

Goff's account of trying to step into the void when authorities failed to reach all of his neighbors comes amid other questions about how the fire was fought in the Angeles National Forest. Reinforcements from Los Angeles County were scaled back early in the battle, and federal officials now say they are investigating the actions that allowed the blaze to rage out of control. The fire, which began Aug. 23 above La Cañada Flintridge, became the largest in recorded county history and killed two county firefighters when their truck plunged off a mountain road.

Goff, a 50-year-old single father who lives on Social Security, moved into the canyon community of Vogel Flats seven years ago. An elderly resident offered them a free room in his house on Stonyvale Road in exchange for help maintaining the place.

Goff said that when firefighters from Orange County arrived in Vogel Flats the morning of Aug. 26, he was one of two residents asked to show them around as they recorded the number of people in each dwelling and where propane and water tanks were located. Although a voluntary evacuation order was in effect, Goff said fire officials told residents they thought the fire might bypass their community.

"They said don't worry, we are going to put a truck in front of every house," Goff said.

Even so, Goff was concerned about his neighbor, Trevor Pullen, who has been in a wheelchair since a motorcycle accident six years ago. He went to Pullen's house and advised him to leave. When Pullen's caregiver called to say she was stuck at a checkpoint, Pullen met her to escort her into the canyon. Then she and another aide loaded Pullen, his chair and three dogs into two vehicles, which sped off.

"This guy saved my life," Pullen said Sunday.

By this time, it was nearly noon and flames had appeared on a ridge above the strip of cabins and homes. Sheriff's deputies started banging on residents' doors, telling them to get out immediately. When Goff headed down the road to check on other neighbors, he said the deputies tried to stop him.

"I said, 'But there's more people down there, aren't you going to get them?' " Goff said. "They said: 'We're leaving.' "

Members of the Incident Command say they did the best they could without putting the lives of firefighters and deputies at risk. At an emotional meeting with Tujunga residents last week, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Deputy John Tripp said the terrain was too dangerous to make a stand in Big Tujunga Canyon, and officials had no choice but to order crews to pull out.

On Monday, Los Angeles County sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore emphasized how unpredictable the fire had been.

"Sometimes the evacuation orders were given, and you needed to respond instantly," he said, adding that he was relieved to hear Goff was recovering.

Goff said that when he saw sheriff's deputies and fire crews leave, he made the decision to head deeper into the canyon. He knew his neighbors were still loading their vehicles, unaware that the voluntary evacuation had become urgent. He told them to drop everything and go.

At his house, Goff found the garage and a boat parked in the frontyard already on fire. He kicked open a chicken coop to let the birds out and ran inside the house. Goff's son was safe with his sister, and his landlord was away on a hunting trip. But their new housemate -- a man he knew only by his first name, Peter -- had not evacuated. He found him in tears.

"We've got to get out of here," Goff recalled telling Peter. The fire's heat was melting the window frames. A moose head hanging in the living room burst into flames.

"I'm panicking now," Goff said. "I figure we're dead."
For a minute, he considered emptying out two big meat freezers and hiding inside. Then he remembered the hot tub.

Goff grabbed a pair of jeans, ripped them in half and soaked them with water from a water heater so they would have something wet to put over their faces.

Peter grabbed their landlord's dog, Roxy. Huge flames were racing across the yard as they ran for the tub.

"All I could do was scream, it was so hot," Goff said.

As they scrambled across a footbridge, the slats broke and Peter fell. Goff pulled him back up and the two men jumped into the water. There they lay on their backs, with Roxy on Goff's chest, for about an hour and a half.

When the worst of the flames had passed, the men saw two U.S. Forest Service trucks driving down the road. The local firefighters had come looking for them, Goff said, and they were bringing body bags. The two men stumbled across the yard and were hauled into one of the vehicles, which reversed all the way back to the nearby ranger station.

"After all the other firetrucks pulled out, these guys saved my life," Goff said, tearfully.

A Sheriff's Department helicopter flew through thick smoke to bring them to hospital, authorities said.

When Schwarzenegger addressed a news conference the next day, authorities were battling to persuade residents in a number of areas to heed mandatory evacuation orders. Underlining the risks that holdouts could face, Schwarzenegger said: "People got burned and really badly injured because they did not listen."

Goff was still on a lot of pain medication when he heard what was being said. He wandered into the street and walked up to a police officer, demanding to speak to the governor. The officer gently directed him back to his hospital room.

Asked about Goff's case Monday, Brittany Chord, a Schwarzenegger spokeswoman, said: "The governor's No. 1 priority is the safety of all Californians, and he takes the evacuation orders very seriously in any emergency situation."

Goff has not heard from his housemate, Peter, since the man checked himself out of the hospital. Goff left the hospital about two weeks ago. His legs are still bandaged, and he constantly shifts his weight from foot to foot to lessen the pain. At night, he is plagued by terrifying nightmares.

Some neighbors say Goff is owed an apology.

"This man is a hero," said Bronwyn Aker, who lives up the road.

"He saved 10 lives."

alexandra.zavis@latimes.com

Three weeks before the fire, the Forest Service issued a memorandum directing its Southern California managers to trim expenses by reducing the use of reinforcements from municipal departments and the state.

RichardK wrote:I think this paragraph says it all:

Three weeks before the fire, the Forest Service issued a memorandum directing its Southern California managers to trim expenses by reducing the use of reinforcements from municipal departments and the state.

In previous interviews, before the Forest Service stopped releasing information, Angeles Forest Fire Chief David Conklin told The Times that costs never influenced his decisions on reinforcements.

Zé wrote:jeebus

Superintendent who helped save Mt. Wilson Observatory is raising funds to preserve it

As the Station fire raged, Dave Jurasevich slept at the facility, working with firefighters to protect the site. Now he's seeking donations for repairs and to improve fire protection there.

By Baxter Holmes

November 12, 2009

Every morning for 19 days, Dave Jurasevich awoke on Mt. Wilson to sunrises darkened by smoke and ash.

Every night, the superintendent of the Mt. Wilson Observatory slept at the site he hoped to protect. He was too worried to catch more than three or four hours of rest a night. When he did sleep, he bedded down on a mattress on the floor of a small office. He was usually hungry. Firefighters slept in the next room.

Overhead, the night sky glowed hot as the Station fire raged closer.

During those days and nights that Jurasevich, 59, stayed at the observatory in August and September, the fire tore through the Angeles National Forest, burning more than 160,000 acres and becoming the largest wildfire in L.A. County history.

The observatory was seriously threatened three times, he said, but he stayed to help protect a "priceless" structure replete with scientific history.

Now, Jurasevich speaks to community groups about his experiences during the fire and asks for donations to help repair the damaged grounds and improve fire protection. The nonprofit observatory receives most of its funding through private sources, grants and a few site fees.

He sprinkles his presentations with anecdotes: How ash fluttered like snow when the fire began; how he was evacuated from the observatory twice before deciding to stay; how shortly after he recovered from double pneumonia, smoke from the fire gave him bronchitis. His voice still fades from time to time.

He says he will never forget the day the fire began, Aug. 26, 2009.

"That's a date that is forever burned into my mind," he said. "It will stay with me until the day I die."

Jurasevich, who has been superintendent for three years, was not alone atop the 5,800-foot peak in the San Gabriel Mountains. His assistant, an electrician and the manager of the high-tech telescopes stayed with him, as did several dozen firefighters, including some elite hotshot firefighters assigned to protect the building.

Early on, a fire chief asked him to rank which buildings to save. More than 40 structures sit on the 40-acre site.

"I wanted to draw a cloud around" it all, he said, "but I couldn't."

Founded in 1904, the Mt. Wilson Observatory has been the birthplace for landmark scientific discoveries, including astronomer Edwin Hubble's finding that the Milky Way is not the only galaxy in the universe and that the universe itself is continually expanding.

Shortly after the fires began, it was clear the observatory might be threatened. It was evacuated twice, but when Jurasevich returned the third time, he decided to stay to help firefighters around the grounds.

Once his decision was made, the fire's ferocity made it too dangerous to leave.

"If we're worried, concerned, there's nothing we can do," said Enlee Lin, Jurasevich's wife of 19 years. "Like all the soldiers in Iraq, all the families here, it's a general feeling: There's nothing you can do about it, just know he is doing his job."

Lin watched the fire from their Alhambra home and tried not to think about him being there. Their two children -- Aaron, 14, and Rachel, 16 -- were a welcome distraction, but at night, she would wait for her husband to call.

During the day, the firefighters cut fire lines and set backfires. Jurasevich helped where he could. Some nights, when it was clear, he would take the firefighters up to the 60-inch telescope and show them planets and constellations.

Jurasevich said he was never in danger. If the flames had engulfed the observatory, he could have taken shelter in the corrugated steel dome that houses the 100-inch Hooker telescope.

The office where he slept was not far from the dome.

In the end, no structures were damaged.

"I'm not a brave man," he said. "I never feared for my life. I knew that dome was a safe haven if that fire ever got to us."

baxter.holmes@latimes.com

canoeman wrote:I wonder why no one is making a big deal or investigating the fact that the fire crew from that station where the fire started, had burn permits for for controlled burns that day at that location.

MtnMan wrote:

canoeman wrote:I wonder why no one is making a big deal or investigating the fact that the fire crew from that station where the fire started, had burn permits for for controlled burns that day at that location.

What are you talking about? Where did you get that info?

Bill wrote:I am sure mistakes were made, but just as firefighters and commanders sometimes get more credit than they deserve, it also seems easy to blame them when things don't go well. Easy for people who don't know what their talking about to spout off!
The fire service is better than most at learning from their mistakes. If you allow public opinion to dictate tactics, you get nothing but indecisiveness, and second guessing.
JMO

MtnMan wrote:Fires of this magnitude will smolder for many months.

It's nothing out of the ordinary, and is very rarely a threat for re-ignition to large unburned areas- as most smoldering areas will be in the interior of the perimeter of the fire- (where less work is done during line construction since the threat in these areas is minimal with most other surrounding areas having already mostly burned).

canoeman wrote:I live on the northern border of the station fire and I never saw one forest service truck until the fire was out.just dozer contractors and municipal fire fighters.
I could see the fire from alimony ridge, there were no crews fighting the fire in sulfer springs.
there were just helicopters, see my fire pics on this forum, no crews on that fire line.
they were letting it burn unimpeded.

Bill wrote:I am sure mistakes were made, but just as firefighters and commanders sometimes get more credit than they deserve, it also seems easy to blame them when things don't go well. Easy for people who don't know what their talking about to spout off!
The fire service is better than most at learning from their mistakes. If you allow public opinion to dictate tactics, you get nothing but indecisiveness, and second guessing.
JMO

Bill wrote:I am sure mistakes were made, but just as firefighters and commanders sometimes get more credit than they deserve, it also seems easy to blame them when things don't go well.

cougarmagic wrote:

Bill wrote:I am sure mistakes were made, but just as firefighters and commanders sometimes get more credit than they deserve, it also seems easy to blame them when things don't go well.

I'm usually one to say there are two sides to every story, things are complicated, etc. It's just - say there is no 'fault' - how can they learn from this if they don't admit there is anything to learn? To put out a report that basically shrugs and says NOTHING different could have been done feels like a slap in the face. I always had this sense of security, that there were so many fire roads, so many homes nearby, so many hikers, and such a fantastic wilderness area right here, surely no fire would ever get out of control like this.

Maybe the brush was too thick, the weather perfect for catastrophe - they could still say well, now we know - any future fire in the Angeles will get every resource possible on it the second it's detected. They could have said that we need more controlled burns, or the system for controlled burns needs improvement. Instead, they just said "Yep, we did everything by the book, gosh darn it! No idea what went wrong!"

I think there's something wrong with "the book".

And Bill, I'm not ranting at you - or anyone else on this board (cause you are the only people who really "get" this love of the mountains....)- but the next person that tells me this was "natural" is gonna get a knuckle sandwich. A fire this big, this complete, is not natural or healthy or necessary in any way. It should have been suppressed, and we need to figure out how to do that in the future if we're going to save what's left of these places.

cougarmagic wrote: no one did anything wrong! the BRUSH is to blame