Heroes use personal water truck, save 14 homes

Grading contractor Jeff Reeves, 49, wasn’t going to let his personal water truck gather dust while flames licked the homes of his neighbors on Blueridge Drive in Yorba Linda.

Starting at 10:15 a.m. Saturday morning, Reeves took his water truck up and down his street, blasting homes with water. His neighborhood had been ordered to evacuate, but Reeves decided to stay behind. His wife and three kids obeyed the order.

“I was going to protect my house,” Reeves said. “It was a good thing we did because we didn’t have much resources from the fire department.”

Reeves and his close friend, Sam Easterday battled embers that floated from burning houses on the east side of the canyon and caught themselves under the eaves of houses.

“We just kept blasting the eaves every time we saw palm trees on fire,” Reeves said.

Reeves, with the help of Easterday, blasted houses with water on Blueridge Drive until 5 a.m. this morning, saving 14 houses and unloading a little more than 100,000 gallons of water onto the burning homes.

As Easterday was sucking the water from Reeves’s swimming pool using a pump to quench smoldering houses, Easterday received a heartwrenching phone call from his wife.

As his wife was being evacuated from Hidden Hills, Easterday’s house went up in flames within 10 minutes, Reeves said.

“He was over here helping me and he lost his house,” Reeves said.

Easterday left Reeves’s side after the news.

“He was devastated,” Reeves said.

The lone hero continued protecting houses on his street throughout Saturday night, took a 50 minute break at 5 a.m. this morning and was back to work.

Reeves said six homes were destroyed on his street, but they could have been saved if more firefighters were available to help battle the flames.

Reeves will continue to stay on his street and protect his neighborhood, he said.

From OC Register blog: Link