Torino Ranch lodge patrons survive scare

Wednesday, July 17, 2002 | 11:19 a.m.

The Torino Ranch in Lovell Canyon sits today like an emerald, a gem of green natural beauty in the blackened ashes of the Lost Cabin Fire.

But for a few hours Tuesday night, it didn't look like the ranch would come through the fire unscathed.

For those who live at the Torino Ranch lodge, flames threatened to trap them -- or worse -- and then burned so close they could hear the crackle as night descended on the canyon.

Ranch owner Brett Torino watched in painful silence as the flames leaped over the ridge before sunset Tuesday. "It's a sick feeling," he said. "Helpless. I've always feared this day."

The remote ranch welcomes 350 children each July and August who have fatal diseases, or are too poor to afford summer camp. They canoe in the lake. They watch the dragonflies, the birds and the butterflies.

Torino doesn't charge the children anything, and 18 new bunkhouses were waiting for overnight campers.

"If it goes away," Torino said of the 168-acre ranch, "it will never be replaced."

Torino and others had planned to leave the ranch Tuesday night, but as Clark County County Fire Department spokesman Bob Leinbach followed Torino's SUV as they drove away from the ranch, firefighters stopped them on the 10-mile road leading to State Route 160. Leinbach's vehicle carried a Las Vegas Sun reporter and a Las Vegas ONE television crew.

Flames were roaring down Lovell Canyon, yards from the ranch, and if they crossed the road, we'd be trapped in flames.

"Say your prayers," Leinbach said to the reporters.

The ranch house had power and a phone for less than an hour. Once the flames leaped across Lovell Canyon Road, we were trapped.

After the ranch lost power, a U.S. Forest Service tanker hooked itself up to pass 3,000 gallons of water on to a county fire truck for distribution. But the pump failed. Firefighters found a plug of dead leaves inside and removed them.

Another 2,000-gallon tanker truck sprayed water on nearby trees. The twin rotor Vertol helicopter dropped two 1,500-gallon loads of water as the flames approached the ranch's gate.

After 6 p.m. the fire had crossed the road. Water poured from a 5-inch hose, but not onto the flames. It was after 8 p.m. that the hose leak was fixed.

By then firefighters had shot magnesium flares into the unburned juniper and pinyon pine forest in front of the ranchhouse. Wildland Deputy Fire Chief Stan Lake from Riverside, Calif., said the only way to save the house was to burn the dry brush and the fir trees on the mountainside.

The flares fired into the forest, flames exploded into the sky.

Then the winds shifted. Big trouble. There were eight 50-gallon drums filled with gasoline and diesel fuel stacked east of the ranch.

About 8:30 p.m. winds whipped to 45 mph and an eerie orange glow from the flames lit the inside of the lodge.

People who weren't firefighters were counted and told to stay inside the white cinderblock house with the red tile roof as flames raged. It was the safest place, and 10 county firefighters with about 40 others at the ranch were prepared to foam it down in case the blaze roared over us.

It was the team effort and the coordination that saved the ranch -- and the people -- Leinbach said.

By 10 p.m. the road was opened and people were able to get back from the ranch.

Back at the base camp in a gravel pit southwest of the mountains, firefighters stayed on alert.

The 19-member Arrowhead hotshot crew from Inyo, Calif., arrived about 4:30 p.m. Superintendent Brit Rosso said he was ready to go after three days off and traveling to Southern Nevada.

"We'll just hold and hover," Rosso said as the flames leaped uncontrollably.