. >> charlie barringer and ron lavezzo are among the first firefighters to arrive.hey have nearly 50 years of experience between them. but this fire is unlike anything they've ever seen. >> i was kind of astounded by the range of the fire, the number of houses that were actually on fire and three burning. the fire was unstoppable at one point because it was leaping from house to house to house. >> it was basically a 360-degree fire with a main fireball in the middle. so at this point we have people self-evacuating the neighborhood. i'm getting snapshot of pretty much every individual running. and 25 years in the fire service i've never seen terror on people's faces like that. >> firefighters can't get near the flames due to the intense heat which radiates at temperatures near 1200 degrees. >> i got out of the engine, and i looked down to a car parked next to my engine and the lens caps of the headlights and the paint was melting off the car. so there was nothing you could do at that point. you couldn't even get within a block of that area. >> at one point, the engin