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Chapter 1 The Hanly Fire From the Eyes of a Teenage Firefighter

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The year was 1964. As an odorous and toxic smoke clouded Santa Rosa’s airspace, a wildfire, propelled by warm, dry, and unrelenting 70 mile per hour “Diablo Winds”, raced into Knights Valley, down Franz Valley, and into Mark West Canyon. A few miles away, the City of Santa Rosa stood directly in its path.

It was a warm and windy early Tuesday morning on September 22. I should have been preparing for class at Santa Rosa Junior College, but along with friends, twins Jon and Clive Endress and Allan Miller, I had decided to help fight the fire that was threatening our city. We had not actually seen the flames as yet, and certainly had no idea of the fires magnitude, but I have to admit that I was more than a little frightened. I don’t know how my friends felt, but none of us showed fear, and we knew absolutely nothing about fighting fires. We threw shovels in the bed of Jon and Clive’s rusty old 37 Chevy pickup and headed to Carter’s Rincon Valley Feeds for burlap sacks. Off we went down Middle Rincon and onto Brush Creek Road. As we approached Wallace Road, we saw the first of the flames, and wildlife, mostly deer and rabbits, frantically running in all directions to escape the flames. We joined a group of volunteer firefighters that had kept the burn to the west side of Wallace Road. Backpack sprayers, shovels, and burlap sacks were the tools of choice, or I should say, probably the only tools available. Being young and fresh, we rushed to put our tools to work, but the freshness soon wore off as we worked our way down Wallace Road with a feeling of little accomplishment. The fire continued to burn, but the vegetation along the road was not high and the flames were six feet at best. With a powerful northeast wind, there seemed little danger of the fire jumping the road, but the fire was growing and accelerating rapidly up the hill to the west. We threw our tools in the truck and prepared to vacate the area just shy of Riebli Road.


Hanly Fire Volunteer Firefighters, 1964

Before departing, I gazed into the fire. There, surrounded by flames, was a doe with her two fawns. They appeared lost, and made no attempt to run. They were about to burn! I stood helpless with a sadness and heartache never experienced before. The mother was looking directly into my eyes, and I was looking directly into hers. She appeared to have tears in her eyes, and I know that I had tears in mine. Her babies were looking at me too. The mother could not speak, but her eyes said it all. Help us, please help us! But I couldn’t help, and I could not stay to watch these beautiful animals suffer such a painful death. I left a piece of my heart on the side of the road that day. That defenseless mother and her beautiful babies would never be forgotten.

Communication was poor in 1964. We had a transistor radio tuned to KSRO for updates on the fire. The situation had become extremely ugly. Fueled by rugged vegetation and tall timber, and propelled by relentless winds, the fire had raced up the hill to become an unpredictable and uncontrollable raging inferno. At unbelievable speed, the fire was headed directly towards the County Hospital and Lomitas Heights, a new upscale residential subdivision at the north end of town, and of particular interest to Jon and Clive. Their older brother had purchased a home there and was presently out of town. We headed directly to his home. Al took the truck to Thrifty’s to get batteries for the radio, but I, along with Jon and Clive, grabbed every hose and sprinkler available. We soaked everything from the landscaping to the ridge of the roof. From the roof we could see everything. A massive one hundred foot wall of flames, capable of taking out our city, was rapidly approaching. The hospital was ready to evacuate, and most of the residents of the subdivision had left. Behind the hospital and subdivision of homes, the professionals, several hundred strong, and from all available agencies, prepared for battle. The fire engines and water trucks were strategically placed, while the bulldozers and scrapers cleared the vegetation from behind the structures. It was damn frightening!

It was dusk and the day was ending, but there would be no sleep. The fire had now made contact with the line of defense. The battle was on! The fight did not seem fair, and the fact is that it wasn’t. The flames were relentless and could be detained no longer. The heat was unbearable, and in less than an hour our heroes had been forced to retreat. To stay longer would have been suicide. We remained on the roof for minutes longer to watch the first of the departure, but we could no longer tolerate the heat, and we too were forced to retreat. It appeared the massive flames would soon burn our beautiful city to the ground.

Hugh Codding, the county’s largest developer, and Mayor and City Councilman of the sixties, had recently built a home on the upper lot of Lomitas Heights. How ironic that the home of Mr. Codding, builder of hundreds of homes and all of Santa Rosa’s major shopping centers, would be the first to burn. This fire was not going to discriminate. But in a matter of seconds, and from a distance out of harm’s way, we witnessed a miracle. Instantly, before a single structure could catch fire, that powerful and tormenting northeast wind had suddenly ceased. Miraculously, the fire had been redirected away from our city by a welcome and gentle southeast breeze. I don’t know whether it was an act of God or just Mother Nature being kind, but we had truly witnessed a miracle. Our firefighters had become our heroes! They had heroically deterred the fire long enough for a miracle to happen.

On the seventh day, at the north edge of town and directly across from the Journeys End Mobile Home Park on Mendocino Ave., the fire had quietly come to rest. The City of Santa Rosa had been spared!

Hanly Fire Facts (Sonoma County Mutual Aid – Marin County Fire History):

 The fire was appropriately named the Hanly Fire for it began on Saturday, Sept. 19, 1964 on the Hanly Ranch on the south side of Mount Saint Helena.

 The fire was caused from a deer hunter’s carelessly tossed cigarette.

 The temperature was hot, approximately 100 degrees, with powerful dry winds to 70 M.P.H.

 The fire was only one of ninety-four fires that burned in Napa, Lake, Sonoma, Mendocino, Solano and Humboldt counties between Sept. 18 and Sept. 28, 1964. Few of these fires exceeded 100 acres in size.

 52,700 acres had been devastated.

 The historic Tubbs Mansion in Calistoga was burned to the ground along with 84 homes, 24 summer cabins, and numerous farm buildings.

 Miraculously, not one human life was lost.

Stop The Burn

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