Chief Hewitt was born and raised in Southern California. Within two weeks of his graduation from Duarte High School in Los Angeles County, near the San Gabriel Mountains, Hewitt was on the Oak Grove Hot Shots team. That was the first step in his career goal of becoming a firefighter. From the age of 5 or 6, Hewitt knew that is what he wanted to become.

At 6:30 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 24, Vitaliy Sukhorukov, 41, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was driving his black 2017 Nissan Sentra westbound on Highway 74, 5 miles west of McGaugh Road, when for unknown reasons he made an unsafe turning movement and ran onto uneven dirt terrain. His vehicle collided with the hill causing damage to the…