Personal Stories Drawn From the Fire Lines : THE SOUTHLAND FIRESTORM: THE BATTLE GOES ON : Rambla Pacifico: ‘It Was So Hairy That I Just Recited the Lord’s Prayer’

There are stories that you report as a journalist and then there are stories that you tell--to family, friends, maybe to your grandchildren one day.

Covering and living through disaster leaves its mark. What follows are some of the stories that Times reporters, photographers and editors usually reserve for the spoken word. They are personal. They reveal some of the fear, the close calls, the human connections that do not usually make it into print.

I was taking pictures of firefighters on Rambla Pacifico, with fire working up the hillside on two sides, threatening homes. I thought I’d better get out of there.

Suddenly, the sky turned black.

Within five minutes, we were in the middle of a firestorm. I was standing in the road and the winds about knocked me off my feet. The air was thick with blowing embers. I went over by the engine company and tried to take pictures, kneeling down next to firefighters trying to save their truck.

It was so hairy that I, frankly, just recited the Lord’s Prayer. I was wearing a baseball cap and it was scorched. I went to my car and looked at some homes that had been intact. Suddenly they were on fire.

I took pictures of one house, then turned around and realized that the cab of the fire engine, from Montebello, was on fire. It was next to my car. I saw one of the firefighters, Rocky Lopez, going for a fire extinguisher and I asked if he had another one for me.

So he went on one side and I went on the other. Between the two of us, we put the fire out.

We waited around there for a bit, but I wanted to get my film to the office. So I got back into my car and turned on Las Flores. Another firestorm met me there.

One of the things that happens during these fires is boulders get thrown on the road. It was like driving a gravel driveway, only here the rocks were several feet high. Then suddenly the oil pressure in my car dropped. I had ripped the bottom of my engine, driving over the rocks.

So I started gliding downhill. I didn’t want to stop, not in a firestorm. But then I saw a lot of houses on fire. The heat was tremendous, and I felt very nervous about driving through with a bum engine, so I just backed up a little bit and sat there for half an hour.

I felt if I just kept my head about me, I was essentially safe. The fire was blowing past. I was safe in my car. It was miserable, but I had enough oxygen and I would be OK.

Then I got out and took pictures of homes burning. I got back in my car, started it, and just blasted through. Farther down the road, my engine quit.

By this time, I was near some homes that hadn’t burned, so I parked it. A firefighter asked me if I had just come down the hill, and when I told him I had, he got out a map and asked me to describe what it was like up there.

When I asked him if he could give me a ride, he told me I was only 100 yards from the coast. I had no idea where I was. I grabbed my cameras and walked around the corner, at PCH and Las Flores.

That’s when I saw Mike Meadows from our staff. A condo was on fire, so we took more pictures. Then Mike was driving along and I missed a shot.

I saw a guy running out of his house with a surfboard. I would have loved to have had that picture.