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Man who refused to leave home during La Tuna fire said he did not threaten firefighters

Firefighters battle the La Tuna fire in the Verdugo Mountains on Friday, Sept. 1, 2017. (Photo by Mike Meadows, Contributing Photographer)
Firefighters battle the La Tuna fire in the Verdugo Mountains on Friday, Sept. 1, 2017. (Photo by Mike Meadows, Contributing Photographer)
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Aaron Funk waters down the hillside behind his parents' home as a plane makes a drop in Sun Valley neighborhood, north of Los Angeles on Saturday, Sept. 2, 2017. The wildfire just north of downtown had grown to the largest in city history, Mayor Eric Garcetti said. (Paul Rodriguez/The Orange County Register via AP)

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Flames came down around Dave Ferrera’s La Tuna Canyon home Saturday as he scrambled around his property to douse the small fires igniting everywhere.

Fueled by triple-digit heat, wind and dry brush, the flames could not be stopped and he called out for help. The firefighters who had been there earlier in the day hadn’t gotten to the flames above in time, he said, so the blaze just chewed its way down the canyon and wrapped around his home, the one that sat on 10 acres at the end of La Tuna Canyon Road.

“Propane bottles were blowing up, windows broke, I was limping around. It was awful, like a war zone,” Ferrera, 40, said Monday.

A war zone caught on camera from above as news choppers watched Ferrera below on Saturday.

In those minutes before a water-dropping helicopter came and put out part of the fire in front of his house, a shirtless Ferrera said he was frantic.

He ran up and down his property shouting into his cellphone, then going inside the home, where he said he would try to catch his breath in the air conditioning. He was on the phone calling 911, asking for help, he said. Then he came back outside to use a shovel and rake to throw dirt on the fire that had fast approached his front porch.

While his main house was later saved, his office from where he runs his e-Bay business had burned down, storage units were gone, a tenant’s trailer was destroyed, his cars were burned and one cat died, all because of what he said was a false narrative: that he was armed and made threats, Ferrera said.

“I lost the whole thing because they came up with an imaginary claim,” Ferrera, an eight-year resident of the area, said. “I lost everything because somebody made the assumption I was barricading myself, that I was armed.”

On the fourth day after the La Tuna Fire burned up to 7,003 acres of dry brush on hills and canyons, destroyed four homes and three structures, and sent six firefighters and a volunteer to area hospitals, residents and crews alike were just catching their breaths.

Map: What we know about the La Tuna fire

At least 30 percent of the fire had been contained, and no visible flames could be seen from Sun Valley, Burbank or Glendale, where closed roads had been reopened and evacuations lifted. But the La Tuna fire, one of the biggest of its kind in Los Angeles’ history, prompted Mayor Eric Garcetti and Gov. Jerry Brown to call for a local and state of emergency. The cause of the blaze is still under investigation.

During a news conference at nearby Hansen Dam on Monday, Los Angeles Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas said there was still work to do up in the Verdugo Mountains.

“There is no active fire yet,” Terrezas said. “But that could change with the wind. Fire operations are not over. There is still a lot of work to be done.”

A day earlier during a news conference, Terrazas referred to Ferrera.

“Because of that person, we had to divert a lot of our resources, and it took a long time,” Terrazas said. “When we say, go, go.”

Ferrera said he is just beginning to assess his losses. But he was angry that he was being portrayed as someone who took up firefighting resources when all he wanted to do was save his house and the structures around it. He said he also believed more could have been done earlier.

LAFD spokesman Brian Humphrey said it was important for people to be prepared for fires because firefighters have limited water supplies. Still, if Ferrera wanted to meet with the Fire Department management, it could be arranged, Humphrey said.

“We would be happy to do so,” Humphrey said. “We’re glad he survived and is well and we’re sorry he’s upset.”

Ferrera said he wanted to make clear that while he told a group of firefighters who had been at his home earlier that day that he wanted them to leave, because they were sitting on his roof and not using water, he never threatened them.

“It was all dramatic crap,” he said of what he heard of how he was portrayed. “It sucks to have been made a villain.”

Staff writer Brenda Gazzar and City News Service contributed to this report.

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