Tribute to fallen firefighters flounders

By: JOHN HUNNEMAN - Staff Writer | Saturday, November 4, 2006 11:24 PM PST ∞

EL CARISO VILLAGE ---- Carlo Guthrie was in her doctor's office last week when the television news first showed pictures of the burned out firetruck where four firefighters perished.

The men died fighting the Esperanza Fire when the wind whipped inferno burned back over them as they tried to protect a home.

A fifth firefighter, Pablo Cerda, whose burns covered more than 90 percent of his body, died Tuesday evening at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton.

"I asked my doctor if I could be left alone for a little bit," Guthrie said. "I told them I would need a couple of minutes to compose myself."

Must of us will never know the pain and sorrow of the family of a fallen firefighter.

But Carlo Guthrie, now 70, does.

A memorial proposed

Shortly after turning off Grand Avenue in Lake Elsinore onto State Highway 74, also known as Ortega Highway, there is a sign on the right side as you start up the mountain road that reads "California Wildland Firefighters Memorial Highway."

Legislation passed in 1998 officially renamed the mountain roadway cutting through the Cleveland National Forest between Lake Elsinore and the Orange County line to honor firefighters who have died fighting wildfires across the state.

Renaming the highway was part of a three-phase memorial project---- first proposed in 1993 ---- set for the hills west of Lake Elsinore, not far from the site of one of the region's deadliest wildfires.

The other elements in the project included refurbishing El Cariso Memorial Park, just off the highway on South Main Divide Road, and renaming it the California Wildland Firefighters Picnic Area, and the construction of a memorial across the street from the park to the estimated 300 firefighters in the state who, since about 1910, have died fighting wildfires.

A deadly fire

Saturday, July 8, 1959, was a hot, sticky day in Southern California. In the hills above Lake Elsinore, members of the Downey Highway Hoboes, a teen car club, were drinking beer in the seclusion of the thick forest.

Two teens, both 19, decided to leave the gathering after a fight broke out. They loaded an empty beer keg into the back of a pickup and headed down the curvy highway toward Lake Elsinore.

Coming down the hill, the driver lost control of the truck and it flew off the roadway and down a 200-foot embankment, sparking an inferno that became known as the Decker Canyon Fire. One teen died, one survived.

As the fire spread quickly through thick brush and up the steep canyon walls, a call went out across the region for firefighters to come battle the blaze.

A lifelong desire

As a young man growing up in Perris, John Guthrie often volunteered to help the older men fight fires in the rural community.

"He always had wanted to be a fireman," Carlo Guthrie said.

After a two-year hitch in the Navy, Guthrie returned home and signed on with the U.S. Forest Service as a firefighter. In 1954, he was stationed at the El Cariso fire station.

The following year he was hired by the California Division of Forestry, as it was then known, and began working at the Lake Elsinore Station.

On that August day in 1959, Guthrie was a firetruck driver working at the fire station in Old Town Temecula. When the call went out, Guthrie and his crew from Temecula headed north toward the billowing smoke.

Six would die

The Decker Canyon Fire started just before sunset, at a time of day when the ocean winds that blow east from Orange County and plunge down the steep forest canyons begin to reverse direction back up those same canyons.

More than 500 CDF and U.S. Forest Service firefighters were called to fight the blaze, which swept out of the hills and forced the evacuation of Lakeland Village.

Guthrie and his crew arrived and were sent off the main road, about a mile east of El Cariso Village, and into a canyon to start setting backfires.

The shifting winds soon pushed a wall of flame back up the canyon and toward their truck.

With the flames advancing, Guthrie ordered the other firefighters back to the truck.

"He told the crew to get into the truck for protection," Carlo Guthrie said she has been told by others who witnessed the scene. "There wasn't room in the truck for John. He was going to use the fire hose to wet himself down for protection."

However, by the time Guthrie reached for the hose, it had burned beyond use.

The flames rushed over the fire truck, charring it and those inside and outside of it almost beyond recognition.

The six-man crew perished fighting the 1,700-acre blaze ---- several at the scene, the others at hospitals in the days and weeks that followed.

Twenty-seven other firefighters were injured ---- some lost ears, fingers and noses ---- battling the blaze.

John Guthrie, though burned over 85 percent of his body, began walking out of the canyon before others came to his aid. An ambulance arrived to take him the closest hospital, located in Hemet.

Guthrie was the last firefighter to die, finally succumbing to his injuries at a Redland's hospital Sept. 14.

To honor the fallen

In the years immediately following the fire, El Cariso Memorial Park, with picnic tables and benches, was built to honor the fallen. A stone memorial drinking fountain was added with a plaque honoring those "who gave their lives fighting forest fires in these mountains."

For years, wooden markers stood along the highway bearing the names of the men who died fighting the Decker Canyon blaze ---- Slater, Harlan, Johnson, Edwards, Brooks and Guthrie.

In the early 1990s, long after those wooden markers had vanished, some who fought the blaze or knew the fallen began an effort to replace the signs. That work inspired others to form a committee with the goal of building a monument to all who had died fighting California's wildfires.

The effort started well. Over the next few years, the highway was renamed and the small park nearby was refurbished.

The third element of the project, the California Wildland Firefighters Memorial ---- the first of its kind in the state ---- was to feature a monument with a Maltese Cross ---- a firefighters symbol ---- set into a 30-foot circular plaza. There would also be three, 7-foot-tall polished, black granite monoliths carved with the name of all the firefighters who had given their lives while on wildland fire duty.

"The monoliths ... will convey the message of thankfulness and respect for those who have given their lives as well as the ongoing work of California wildland firefighters," a flier describing the project stated.

About $200,000 would be needed for construction, the volunteers estimated.

A groundbreaking ceremony was held Oct. 10, 1996.

The project stalls

Carlo Guthrie was a young mother of two ---- a daughter,4, and son, 3 ---- in 1959. She worked the graveyard shift at a Riverside manufacturing plant to help the family make ends meet.

On the Wednesday following the Esperanza Fire, Guthrie, now retired and living in Riverside, and her son, John Guthrie Jr., sat at a picnic bench near the partially built memorial.

Volunteers had hoped to have the tribute built by 1999 to mark the Decker Canyon Fire's 40th anniversary. It wasn't.

The original $200,000 memorial project budget has been cut in half over the years as fundraising efforts floundered.

Instead of black granite monoliths, the hope now is to complete a small amphitheater with several benches to honor the fallen. There will be no room and no money to engrave any names.

The work sputtered along and, by 2004, the fire's 45th anniversary, most of the land for the memorial had been cleared and a cement retaining wall and walkways had been built by volunteers.

At a ceremony that day, the Riverside Chapter of the Benevolent Fund of CDF Firefighters presented the memorial committee with a check for $10,000 in hopes of moving the stalled project along

"Not much has changed since I was here two years ago," Carlo Guthrie said this week.

Indeed, the only recent addition to the memorial seems to be graffiti.

Still determined

Several of the memorial committee's most active volunteers, including JoAnn Evans, a former Riverside County CDF public information officer, have recently retired.

"We had about $20,000 in a bank account for the memorial seven months ago when I turned all the financial records over to the committee," Evans said Friday. "I'm not sure they've raised anything since."

A lack of awareness of the partially built memorial may be the problem, Guthrie said.

"I'm amazed at how many people involved in firefighting don't even know this exists," she said.

An additional $60,000 is still needed to complete even the scaled-down tribute, Evans said.

Efforts to contact current memorial committee members who Evans identified this week were unsuccessful.

Almost all are active duty firefighters who have a lot on their hands this time of year, Evans said.

Still Evans, Guthrie and several others are committed to seeing the Wildland Firefighters Memorial completed.

"When I saw what happened to those boys (last) week, I made up my mind I was going to do something about this," Guthrie said.

Evans also remains determined.

"We're still going to get this done," she said.

Guthrie said she hopes to meet with the families of the five men who died last month fighting the Esperanza Fire.

"I've been through it," she said, tears glistening in her eyes. "I know what they're going through. They need to be remembered."

Donations to help build the memorial can be sent to the California Wildland Firefighters Memorial Committee, CDF Headquarters, 210 West San Jacinto Avenue, Perris, CA 92570.

Contact staff writer John Hunneman at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2603 or hunneman@californian.com.

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