Life on fire line is netherworld of danger, courage

Hundreds and sometimes thousands of feet above our homes, where smoke stings, there is a netherworld of hellfire where men and women risk their lives so we may sleep.
In temperatures well into triple digits, firefighters across Riverside and Orange counties battle flames that can reach 100 feet into a smoke-choked sky.
They persevere on crumbling cliffs with as much as 70 pounds of equipment dragging them down. They breathe ash so thick from the ironically named Holy fire that the noonday sun be