1993_11 Insight November 1993

              Southland scorched
by series of firestorms
By Davin A. Hutchins
StaffWriter
The billowing layers of smoke are
gradually    dissipating.    Weary    contained the blaze by Monday.
firelighters from all over the Western
United States are storing their boots   of fire engines from across the state
and helmets, packing up their gear to   queued up at the Altadena command
In addition, the Altadena scorcher   their sorrows wiih companionship and
sum moncd 2,901 firefighters from Cali-    a couple of beers,
fornia, Arizona, Utah, Montana and       Carter Ward, president of the
Idaho composing a task force ihat fully    Malibu-Ventura Homeowners Association, lamented ihc loss of homes in
As early as Saturday moming, miles   his neck of the woods.
"Half of Malibu is burnt to a cinder,"
embark on a long journey homeward.
The once smoldering fires that spread
unbridled are now contained.
But the memory of the wildfires in
southern California will remain etched
in the minds of Los Angeles area residents for years to come.
In seven lightning-quick days, 14
center for demobilization, leaving the
US. Forest Service's airpowcr to extinguish the remaining flares.
Fire Marshall KenJohnson and Captain Dennis MacDonald of the
Stanislaus County Fire Department
were among the thousands of exhausted
he said. "Dick Clark and Dwight
Yoakam lost their homes. Jack
Nicholson's house was spared but he
skipped town."
Ward said the fire blazed around his
S3 million dollar gentlemen's ranch,
torching a bam and two cabins. Luckily, his home was spared largely due to
fires erupted across the Los Angeles,   journey home.
men awaiting- inspection before their   his decision to stay put.
Ventura, Orange, Riverside and San
Diego counties-and a charred wasteland in iheir footsteps.
All 14 blazes— six of which are
linked to suspected arsonists—gutted
more man /UUstruclures, scorened over
170,000 acres and inflicted half a billion dollars in estimated damages.
Three wildfires in particular confounded firefighters, cursed
homeowners and decimated real estate
throughout southern California— the
fires in Altadena, Green Meadow-
Malibu and Laguna Beach.
Firestorm in Altadena
Clearly, the most unwieldy fire for
embattled firefighters was the scorcher
that erupted in Altadena. What reportedly began as a campfire started by
transient Andres
Huang in Eaton Can- HHH|
yon.roaredintoan engulfing blaze that
wreaked havoc on
housing tracts in La
Canada Flintridgc and
the Altadena and
MacDonald said the Stanislaus
County team wi tncssed the inferno from
the mouth of the beast, leaving behind
row after row of ashen, hollow shells of
happy hearths that once were.
There's just a lot of destruction out
there," said Johnson.
"The sheriff was nice and straight
with me and said I needed to get out,"
said Ward. "I stayed even though he
said the fire was coming. I've lived
here for fifteen years. Everything I
have is in that house."
Dcvasation in Laguna Hills
Residents 30 miles down the coast
of bum ing wood.
"I woke up and the
first thing I smelted
was smoke," said Brittenum, a meat
grinder at The Hat restaurant in downtown Pasadena "I looked out the window and all I saw was thick, black
smoke so I phoned the police."
Briuenum's call was one of many
placed that day to area police officers,
local firefighters and the U.S. Forest
Service already bracing for the fire that
would eventually inch its way into the
Los Angeles National Forest and singe
over 151 homes.
"It's very dramatic to see Ihat fire
come down from the mountains and
destroy homes," said Brittenum.
Brittenum said ashes blanketed the
ground and seeped throughout Ihc ventilation ducts at in the restaurant, but
that didn't stop business from booming
Green Meadow-Malibu Scorcher inLagunaBeachdidn'lhaveihcluxury
Altadena had no monopoly on de- ihat Ward had to remain in their homes,
struction, however. On Friday, fire offi- AnarsonfirekindledoffiheSan Diego
cials had contained only 75 percent of Freeway and Laguna Canyon Road
the fires blackening the Santa Monica spawned the most catastrophic blaze.
Mountain Range. which resulted in Ihe incineration of
Along the foreboding route where over 300 homes and the evacuation
PortrcroRoad meetsLakcSherv.ood, a most of the city's residents,
ketchup-and-mustard streak of Although the flaming sea was fully
firetrucks whizzed by as Ventura contained in only three days, it ravaged
County sheriff's deputies deflected all the 6,680 acres of landscape without
vehicles away unless they were manned prejudice, marring prince and pauper
alike. Whether it was
| the garland of million-
dollar vacation homes
on the Laguna Hil Is skyline or the modest El
Morro Beach Mobile
. loiircrancaiongHigh-
way 1, little remained
but scorched earth and
rubble.
In the early moming
hours of Saturday,
while Laguna residents
rummaged   through
their former homes like
|     zombies in a nuclear
wasteland, neighbors
donned in flourcsccni skin-tight suiis
jogged by like nothing had happened.
Orange County firefighter Andrew
Newcomer said this year's wildfire was
unequivocally the worst blaze he had
ever scene at Laguna Beach.
Parked along Laguna Canyon Road
1500-gallon water lender unit, he
'I stayed even though the fire
was coming. I've lived here for
uic  Miiaucna  ana      *\p __, j   . -  «
Pasadena foothills,    niteen years, i^rything 1 have
Pasadena resident / J y>
is in that house.
**S3S  —Carter Ward, Malibu Beach
r beset
by duty-minded fircfighici
ranch owners.
Behind the lines, helicopters
skimmed across the smoldering mountain tops as television crews fed live
feeds via satellite for the world to witness Ihc nature's fury.
"We're hoping the Santa Ana'sdon't
kick in again tonight," said Marin reflected on a documentary that aired
County Batallion Chief Rich Testa, in ihe L.A. area aboul ihc fire hazards
"And if the cool marine layer blows in in Laguna Hills only ihc week before,
from the ocean, we might get the upper "I knew somcihing like this would
hand on this thing." happen up here eventually," he said.
Testa described the strategy Newcomer was perched on the Laguna
firefighters were using to contain the Hills keeping an prudent eye oul for
spreading flames before nightfall. Af-    suspicious  glows   even   though
ter evacuating residents and ranch animals from the plots of land bordering
the foothills, fire crews uses bulldozers,
as   out-of-town   and   Pasadena   chain saws and shovels on the rugged
firefighters stopped by to chomp down
on The Hat's "world famous pastrami."
One of those local firefighters. Captain Ron Rapp of the Pasadena City
Fire Department, oversees the troupe
of firemen in the building adjacent t
The Hat. He said his fire team wii
nessed the blaze on the front lines,
fighting back the flames and embers
that ignited shake-roof houses almost
as far south as the 210 Freeway.
To paint a picture of the amount of
sheer manpower used to vanquish just
one of the 14 Southland fires, Terence
Murphy, public information officer at
the Altadena command center, said it
terrain to "cut the fuel line" or clear
away a strip of trees.
Apparently the strategy worked.
firefighters had extinguished the fires.
Down ihc canyon a spell, another
tcam of firefighters from Sacramento
kept a watchful eye over the smoking
horizon. Battalion Chief Wcs Schultz
said four of his dispatch teams— each
with 5 engines and 19 men— were
After working around the clock for four   called on and in three days time, he and
his learns had fought blazes all over in
La Canada, Pasadena, Altadena and
Orange County.
Schultz, a blaze battling veteran,
uttered a simple phrase revealing a
seasoned firefighter familiar with the
days,2,000fircfighterscompletelycon-
tained the blaze by Sunday, after it
parched over 42,000 acres and decimated 68 buildings.
Pumpkin orange Caltmns trucks barricaded access through Decker Canyon
and MulhoUand roads, where another   caprice of nature,
fire beyond the mountains ravaged es-       "I don't imagine we'll be leaving
tales in Malibu. anytime soon, "he said. He had no idea
Late Friday night, Neptune's Net how true his words would ring. On
was considerably packed compared to Tuesday, Nov. 2, another vicious fire
other weekend nights. Local residents belched from Topanga Canyon, a new
tookl6^fireengines,13helicopters,9 gathered at the fish-and-chips bar just blaze fueled by the Sania Ana winds,
air tankers and 2 air attack planes to offPacific Coast Highway to wash away leaving Southland residents wonder-
contain the Altadena Naze. ing in disbelief if any end is in sight.
An elevated view of the ghost of the El Morro Beach Mobile Home Park. A small Irrigation ravine saved
Jenny StrfTenVINSIGHT
A fire truck races down Oak Grove Road near the Altadena fire command center.
•Altadena- 5,700 acres and 151
structures destroyed
•Green Meadow/Malibu- 42,000
acres and 68 structures destroyed
•Laguna Beach-16,680 acres and
366 structures destroyed
•Altadena-5,700 acres and 151
structures destroyed
•Throughout southern California-
140,000 acres and 700 homes
destroyed
Sacramento Battalion Chief Wes Schultz
Facing page, top: A chimney, a carbon Ford
Mustang and a surname is all that remains In
this Laguna Beach homeTDavIn Hutchins
Bottom: Sweltering flames muddy the sky over
Green Meadow ranches VJcnny; Steffens
Special thanks to Karen Toth
for her creative input.
A traitor In El Mono Beach Mobil* Horn* Park