After dark in Lake Arrowhead Village
Some firefighters will sleep at Rim of the World High School Wednesday night, but others will be catching some shut-eye at the recently-remodeled Lake Arrowhead Resort.
"The last couple of nights, we were sleeping on sidewalks, so this is a change," San Bernardino City firefighter Ryan Starling said.
Wednesday night, the Lake Arrowhead Resort was only open for emergency crews and utility workers. The hotel's lobby featured a large flatscreen television showing the first game of the 2007 World Series, but there wasn't much interest among fire crews in watching the Boston Red Sox blow out the Colorado Rockies.
San Bernardino City firefighter Craig Mashburn said his crew rolled up to Lake Arrowhead Monday in time to fight the Grass Valley Fire when the flames were attacking neighborhoods. He said one interesting moment on the job during the past few days was finding a collection of family pictures in front of a destroyed Lake Arrowhead area house. Mashburn said it appeared as if members of an engine company that arrived at the house before San Bernardino City firefighters did saved the pictures despite not being able to protect the house.
Monday, city firefighters were able to protect a home that near Green Valley Lake that was already burning when they rolled up to the residence, San Bernardino City firefightrer Chris Bowen said. The home's eaves were alight when firefighters arrived, but that house was saved.
Six homes near that house were destroyed, firefighters said.
City firefighters said that on Tuesday, the owners of the saved house were able to greet some of the firefighters who worked to protect the house from Grass Valley's flames. Mashburn remarked that another firefighter told him that encounter was the best moment of his career.
-Andrew Edwards