About 3:20 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009, employees of the U.S. Forest Service’s Angeles Crest Station received a walk-in report of a vegetation fire less than 2 miles north of their tiny outpost in the Angeles National Forest.
By 3:31 p.m. the flare-up was described as “3 acres and running” by forest crews working to douse it. Just five minutes later, however, it found fuel in an area of heavy brush and spread to 10 acres, according Los Angeles County Fire Department reports.
That was the beginning of the Station fire, a conflagration that would go on to consume more than 160,000 acres over a 50-day period, threaten 12,000 homes and structures and cost the lives of Fire Capt. Tedmund “Ted” Hall and Firefighter Specialist Arnaldo “Arnie” Quinones of county Station No. 129, who died in an Aug. 30 vehicle crash while fighting the blaze.
On Wednesday, Hall and Quinones will be honored with the installation of memorial plaques at Acton Park during a service held to recognize the decade that has passed since their sacrifice, according to L.A. County Fire spokesman Capt. Tony Imbrenda.
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