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Published on 08/25/1999 All articles from this issue

Friday the 13th brush fire spares LAH homes

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By Joanne Griffith Domingue

Town Crier Staff Writer

For Los Altos Hills resident Ian Earnest, Friday the 13th was a lucky day.

The brush fire that raged through 3-4 acres near his home in the Berry Hill Court/Stirrup Way neighborhood off Page Mill Road just missed him.

"There was 11 feet between me and losing my house I spent about 10 years building," said the 40-year-old Earnest. "Fortunately, I was not at home to see how close it came."

But he did see a videotape recorded by a neighbor. On it, "I saw helicopters dousing my trees," he said. Even with the dousing, Earnest said some trees were still "toast."

The fire began at 3:12 p.m. on Berry Hill Court when a spark from a construction worker's saw ignited nearby brush, said Randall Jones, acting battalion chief with the Santa Clara County Fire Department.

What began as a single-engine fire quickly grew to "roughly six or seven alarms," Jones said. As incident commander, he called in Palo Alto, as well as the California Division of Forestry, which included planes and helicopters.

"We move resources very aggressively," he said.

The flames were out by 4 p.m. "It was a pretty fast knock down," Jones said. "The bigger issue was the houses that were threatened."

After the flames were out, firefighters spent several hours overhauling the area. In the evening, firefighter patrols checked out and walked the area. They also met with citizens, Jones said.

In the morning, the firefighters were back to hand out surveys, Jones said.

"Those guys came through," Earnest said. In fact, he and his wife Heida delivered home-baked cookies and bakery cakes with thank-you notes to the three fire stations in Los Altos.

Earnest said he is concerned about having the town of Los Altos Hills now "live up to their weed abatement obligation."

According to Earnest, the town had not done its annual weed abatement in the open space near his home, so he did his own.

Earnest said he "mowed more grass this year, all the way down into the open space."

Los Altos Hills Mayor Elayne Dauber, who was on vacation, could not be reached for comment.