Neighbors on Christmas Tree Lane battled California wildfire two buckets at a time

By Chad Terhune

ALTADENA, California (Reuters) - As embers began raining down on Altadena last week, Jason Salit sent his wife and two college-age children away.

The 60-year-old technology consultant vowed to evacuate too if the Eaton Fire escalated. "I don't want to die here either," he assured his wife and their children. "I'm going to stay here and see what I can do."

His next-door neighbor and friend of 20 years, Billy Malone, wasn't sticking around. But the 63-year-old restaurant supervisor and his wife, Nina, didn't get far as they drove down the hillside before dawn Wednesday on Jan. 8.

Within minutes, a burning car rolled by with an elderly man trapped inside. The couple and another bystander dragged him out seconds before the car exploded. Malone drove the man to a nearby shelter, and he and his wife went to stay with friends.

Salit sprayed a garden hose on his house and yard on Santa Rosa Avenue. The idyllic street, known as Christmas Tree Lane, is a historic landmark and draws thousands each year to see the towering deodar cedar trees decorated in lights.

Salit feared floating embers would set the tree canopy ablaze. Shortly after 5 a.m., his hose went dry, extinguishing any hope he had of fending off a raging firestorm.

As defeat set in, Salit headed inside and sobbed. He walked through his house and bid goodbye, filming family photos and other keepsakes on his phone just before 6 a.m. His house is a century-old and had been in his family since the 1950s.

Salit took a deep breath. His house wasn't on fire yet, and he had a backyard pool and two small, white buckets. "Let's give it a chance," he recalls thinking.

His mind raced on how to save his house and a neighboring home that was already burning. "The math was one bucket for my building and one for my neighbor's house. Then it was one for my roof, one for my siding and then one for them," he said.

Salit couldn't save that neighbor's house, but he tried to limit the spread. Still, he was no match for the blaze as it jumped to a metal shed. The fire was just a few feet (meters) away from Salit's backyard garage.

At around 8 a.m. on Wednesday, he was slinging buckets of water on the fire, but the heat was overpowering.

Thirty minutes later, the smoke cleared and blue skies appeared. Salit had no idea it was daytime. "It gave me hope. Maybe somebody will come," he said. For luck, Salit squeezed a small, knitted pickle in his pocket, a Christmas present from his daughter.

An ear-splitting explosion shattered this fleeting moment of peace. A propane tank had shot through another neighbor's house and set fire to a 70-foot (21-meter) eucalyptus tree and a power pole. The tree or pole might crush his car or block his escape if they fell. It was 8:46 a.m. on his phone and Salit gave it 15 minutes.

By 9 a.m., the pole and tree were no longer burning. "All right, I'm back in the bucket business," he said.

BUCKETS NAMED 'SAVING' AND 'GRACE'

The fire raced through nearby houses, leaving entire blocks destroyed. By 11 a.m., the houses behind Malone's backyard next door were fully engulfed, and flames were licking at his wooden garage.

Salit texted his friend the grim news. Malone replied: "Are you still there?"

Yes, Salit told him. Malone grabbed his keys and started weaving his way back to Altadena.

In the meantime, Salit smashed a four-foot (1.2-meter) hole in Malone's fence to gain access to his friend's property right next to his pool. Then he set a ladder there.

For nearly an hour, he climbed the ladder and swung his two buckets through the hole first. Then he squeezed through and doused the flames bearing down on Malone's garage, a children's playhouse and two citrus trees. 

Malone was astonished to see the front of his house intact when he arrived an hour later, at around noon. "Jason singlehandedly saved our house," Malone said.

Salit beamed at the sight of reinforcements. "Thank God Billy came because I was pretty much spent," he said.

Now Salit filled the buckets and handed them to Malone through the fence. In his mind, Salit conjured up names for his life-saving vessels. "I named my buckets. One is Saving and one is Grace," he said. 

Together, those buckets helped beat back the fire, and the situation seemed under control by late Wednesday afternoon. Both Salit and Malone's houses were spared from any major damage. 

Salit took a break and slumped in a chair in his home office. He called his family at around 5 p.m. to share the good news. "I think we're done, and Billy is here."

Then Salit straightened up at the shrill sound of a saw. Next door, firefighters were slicing into the shed that Salit had extinguished earlier. The structure had kept smoldering, and Salit and Malone assumed firefighters wanted to let more air in so it would burn out faster.

The fire crew left and the shed erupted in flames 10 feet (3 meters) high, just feet (meters) from Salit's garage. "Jason saved our house, and now we're trying to save his," Malone said.

Malone's wife and two more neighbors joined in a bucket brigade that lasted two more hours. Into the night, Malone and Salit patrolled the block on the hour to detect any threats. At 3 a.m. on Thursday, Salit ran across the street to douse a fresh brush fire. A police officer driving through shined a flashlight in his face. "Are you OK?"

For either man, not really. "We're safe, but no we're not OK," Malone said. "At my friend's house across the street, that is where my daughter did her very first egg hunt in his yard. There is nothing left. That is the history of our family." He marveled that most of the cedar trees survived, while homes did not.

Salit said "mornings are brutal for me. So much is unsettled. You look outside and it's like a horror show all over again."

They find solace and humor in each other as they live side-by-side with no power or running water. They joke about repurposing the buckets to refill toilets so they can flush. And Salit has even bigger plans for the plastic tubs.

"I love these buckets," he said. "I want to bronze them."

(Reporting by Chad Terhune in Altadena; Editing by Mary Milliken and Sandra Maler)