Heroes: Meet Wildfire Super Soaker Jeff Reeves

It had become something of a joke over the years among the residents on Blue Ridge Drive, a swath of manicured suburbia carved into the scrub-brush brown canyons of Yorba Linda, California. Whenever the hot, dry, fire-fanning Santa Ana winds kicked up, which they do every fall, Jeff Reeves would go dashing off to the equipment yard of his construction company and get the 2,250-gallon water truck he uses to keep concrete moist at work sites. He'd park it in front of his house, the side sprayers and the high-pressure water cannon primed and ready to go.

"I can empty 2,250 gallons in five minutes and fill it up again five minutes after that," says Reeves, 49, a blue-collar, no-airs kind of guy, partial to sleeveless T-shirts and white plastic sunglasses. "And it only cost me $60,000. Fire engines cost half a million bucks."

Photographed by Vern Evans
Jeff Reeves in his Southern California neighborhood after the wildfires.The neighbors liked to tease him about it, but Reeves was certain they secretly felt better having the truck, with its faded American flag decals, sitting by the curb. They knew, as he did, that sooner or later one of the wildfires that whip through northern Orange County could be carried by the winds to their doorsteps.

But on the blue-sky Saturday morning of November 15, Reeves hadn't bothered to retrieve his truck. There had been fires in the region, but not close to Yorba Linda. He went to coach his youngest son's soccer team, fire the furthest thing from his mind. Finsh reading the story here...

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