Circling The News

Although the Getty Fire started near the 405 Freeway, firefighters were worried that with wind, it would travel to the ocean, via Pacific Palisades.

(Editor’s note: During the Getty Brush Fire, much of Pacific Palisades was under mandatory evacuation. The fire was first reported on October 28 and was contained on November 5. Thousands of people were forced to flee, 10 homes were destroyed and 15 residences were damaged. Below is a report of that evacuation in Pacific Palisades, which was a comedy of errors: if a fire had made it to this town, would have killed hundreds as they tried to flee. Instead, residents were stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. An effective evacuation for the Palisades has never been planned.)

Destruction: 12 homes burned, five damaged    Size: 656 acres  Containment: 15 percent.

People say, “But I don’t see any flames.”  Think of the ground as a campfire or a fireplace. Until the embers under the burn wood/brush are entirely out, the wind could blow them to an unburned area and a new fire started.

“All it takes is one ember, one ember to head downwind and start a fire,” Los Angeles Fire Chief Ralph Terrazas said at a 2:15 p.m. news conference today.

Science magazine in a 2017 story “In California Fires, a Starring Role for the Wicked Wind of the West,” explains “California’s biggest and deadliest fires have been propelled by Santa Ana winds, which can gust to 100 mph. That wind speed makes smothering fires nearly impossible, said Chief Daniel Berlant, assistant deputy director the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire).

“’In many cases, it’s all we can do just to try to control the path of the fire, trying to keep it away from people and homes,’ Berlant said. ‘Stopping a fire when wind is 50, 60, 70 miles per hour is almost not possible.

“’These fires burn into anything that’s in their path,’ he said. ‘A wind-driven fire is like a freight train and stopping a freight train on a dime doesn’t happen.

“Helicopters can’t drop water or flame retardants in high winds, he said, because the gusts blow the liquids away.”

High winds are expected to start tonight around 11 a.m. with the National Weather Service saying some winds in canyons and hills may gust to 70 mph. and the winds may last about 12 hours. By Halloween, the winds are supposed to be mild.

Mandatory evacuations remain in place for a good share of Pacific Palisades north of Sunset Boulevard to Temescal Canyon Road. Residents east of Temescal and below Sunset are in voluntary evacuation area.

Do not wait until the last minute to evacuate. Pacific Palisades only has three ways in and out: Sunset Boulevard, Temescal Canyon Road and Chautauqua Boulevard.

People on Nextdoor complained about the traffic situation when mandatory fire evacuations happened on Monday.

One resident wrote: “Yesterday we tried to evacuate but Temescal was closed: Sunset was closed, and only Chautauqua was open which was like a parking lot. We moved 10 yards in one hour”.

Another wrote: “Can you please explain why southbound PCH was closed diverting all traffic into a mandatory evacuation area making it impossible for residents to evacuate?”

In a Daily News October 29 Opinion piece “Congestion Kills, so Why Do Politicians Make It Worse,” the authors write “When the Camp Fire obliterated the town [Paradise] in 2018, many people were unable to evacuate due to congestion. Eighty-six people died, some of them in their cars as they tried to flee.”

Pacific Palisades has an evacuation route problem, just as Paradise did.

Residents don’t have a lot of different roads to choose from, particularly those evacuating from the Highlands, Paseo Miramar, Upper Marquez Knolls, Castellammare or Sunset Mesa. Most of those roads have one way in, one way out.

No way to navigate the narrow streets because of traffic, and with the speed of fire, people were trapped in their cars in Oakland Fire.

(Editor’s note: In this 2014 story, Station 69 Captains worried about a wind-driving brush fire.)

With Southern California experiencing its worst dry spell on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Pacific Palisades firefighters are preparing for the possibility of a destructive brush fire in the local Santa Monica Mountains this fall.

“It could be this year, it could be next,” said Station 69 Captain Daniel Rodriguez. “No one knows when, but it will happen; and there is so much dead fuel on the hillsides, it will come through like a tornado, quick and hard.”

“When the winds are blowing, all bets are off,” said fellow 69 Captain Mike Ketailly, referring to firefighters’ ability to respond to embers that travel as fast as the winds.

The Oakland fire in 1991 was a deadly example of how an extreme wind-driven fire can wreak havoc. One news site reported, “The winds were so intense, and the area was so dry that within an hour close to 800 buildings were on fire: the fire destroyed one home every 11 seconds. In some places, the temperature reached 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

“Firefighting efforts were constrained by the fact that the affected homes were located on steep hills with very narrow streets. An important factor in the rapid spread of the fire was it was at an interface between developed and undeveloped land.”

Rodriguez calls the Oakland fire an “historical fire” because typically every 20-25 years there is a big fire in similar areas: for example, the 1961 Bel-Air ire (484 homes were lost, 191 damaged), the 1978 Mandeville Canyon fire (30 homes were destroyed including St. Matthew’s Church) and the Topanga/Malibu fire in 1993 (268 homes destroyed).

“Seven years ago, more than 1,000 homes were lost in the San Diego Witch fire,” Rodriquez said. “The number of residential units lost has gotten bigger because if you look back to the 1960s, there weren’t so many homes in the hills. Now they’re intermixed into the undeveloped land. The population density is now three to four times higher than it was. The next time we get a historic fire, the loss will be off the charts.”

In the event of a brush fire approaching the hillsides above the Palisades, could the embers reach the Village? “Yes,” said Rodriquez, who noted that “a wind-driven fire is predictable: it is headed from the mountains to the beach.”

Highlands residents are especially endangered because they have one way out–Palisades Drive–the Lachman Lane fire road is reserved for fire/police vehicles and closed off to residents trying to escape.

“Get out early,” Rodriquez warned residents.

Rodriquez was asked about the person we always see on television with a hose, trying to put out a fire at his house. Not a good idea. In the Oakland fire, Rodriquez said, homeowners did not have water pressure because so many water pipes burst from the fire. Also, many homes had wood-shingle roofs that were particularly susceptible to fire—it took only 10 minutes in some cases for a house to be brought down by the flames.

On the 20^th anniversary of the Berkeley fire, the Berkeleyside paper ran Deirdre English’s story. “We only got as far as the corner. I swung to the left, and saw nothing but dense black smoke and shooting embers ahead. I backed up and tried going to the right. The hillside on both sides of the road was aflame, and burning branches were falling onto the street. We had to run.

“Two other cars containing neighbors also stopped and emptied. Now there were nine of us bolting towards the only way left to escape. It was downhill, down the upwind side of the hill. There was no path, just a steep open field of dry brush. To my horror, the hillside had already erupted into flame not more than 15 feet away. Now that I had witnessed the speed and fury of the firestorm, I know that in moments we could be engulfed.”

In addition to adequate brush clearance, plans for pets, and knowing what you need to load in a car at a moment’s notice, Rodriquez advises, “Don’t get stuck in traffic, especially in a wind-driven fire.”

The 1978 Fire raged in the Santa Monica Mountains above Palisades High School.

On the afternoon of October 23, 1978, a blaze started near the intersection of Sepulveda and Mulholland. Whipped by winds that gusted up to 60 miles an hour, it spread west, through Kenter, Mandeville, Sullivan, Rustic, Temescal and Santa Ynez Canyons. Flames reached 50 to 100 feet, and many people in its path were evacuated. The fire reached the Pacific Coast Highway in about two hours. Sunset Boulevard became congested with traffic, making it more difficult for emergency vehicles.

At the Boy Scout camp, in upper Rustic Canyon, ranger Don Welch and wife Victoria, stayed to fight the fire. They saw their home go up in flames and it was only when they saw their own car explode in flames, did they realize they were trapped.

They submerged themselves in the algae-covered waters of the swimming pool and spent the next two hours breathing through baseball caps on their faces and fending off panic-stricken rats. When they felt the worst had passed, they drove a truck on the narrow road, though tunnels of fire, with the heat so intense that the truck tires exploded.

The fire destroyed 30 homes and damaged 18 others in Pacific Palisades, while burning 6,130 acres. St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, built in 1941 was destroyed, along with the mill building. A guest home was destroyed on the Presbyterian Conference Grounds, the Josepho Ranch was destroyed, the Murphy Ranch, the Will Rogers Get-Away cabin and Boy Scout Camp buildings – although the Main Lodge at the Boy Scout camp escaped the fire.

On “Experiencing L.A.com,” a Pacific Palisades resident wrote “My family’s home came very close to being destroyed in the Mandeville fire. A few things I remember: 1) the speed of the fire. When I got home from High School, I literally thought the fire might be near our home sometime in the next day or two. We were evacuating within two hours; 2) the size of the fire. There is something terrifying about a 50-60 wall of flames several miles wide coming towards you. Trying to defend your home with a garden hose felt like a bad joke; 3) the smell of the fire. I get an awful feeling every time I smell a fire – bad memories of October 1978: and 4) the SOUND of the fire. This was perhaps the scariest thing of all. I still remember the low, loud roar. It was surreal.

“Our family was very fortunate that the winds shifted just was the fire approached our street. Other families were not so lucky loosing not only their homes, but everything inside.”

In the Los Angeles fire archives, it notes that “some Palisades residents complained about the lack of firemen to save their houses.” Many Palisadians were unaware that the 1978 fire was one of three major fires that broke out in a 12-hour period – including one in Agoura and in the Sierra Madre mountains north of Pasadena.

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and City Councilman Marvin Braude praised the city Fire Department for the way it battled the Mandeville blaze. “This fire department, operating under the circumstances of one of the largest brush fires in the history of the city, did an outstanding job,” Bradley said.

Fire officials would criticize city government for issuing personnel cutbacks through Proposition 13 and claimed that the LAFD’s delayed response could be attributed to their shortage of manpower.

The Santa Ana winds had resulted in dropping city power lines, which had sparked the initial brush fires. The City was held liable and eventually paid $8.5 million to twenty-two Mandeville residents and eight insurance companies.

The Agoura fire was started by a 15-year-old who used a lit cigarette wrapped in a matchbook to start the fire.

The 1978 Fire burned 30 homes in Pacific Palisades.

US Postal Mail Carrier Bryan Ramirez was badly injured in an accident on PCH and Entrada.

“We witnessed an accident at Pacific Coast Highway and Entrada tonight [August 8]. It appears that a motorcyclist was trapped under an SUV,” a resident wrote, and added, “it looked bad.”

It was bad. Palisades U.S. Postal Mail Carrier Bryan Ramirez was on his way home from work on Tuesday.

A resident Elizabeth, who has created a gofundme page for him wrote, “A SUV made an illegal U-turn and ran over Bryan on his motorcycle.

“Unfortunately, his right leg was pinned against two vehicles. His leg will have to be amputated from the knee down. He walks for a living, is a mail carrier, this man’s life has changed forever.”

Elizabeth said, “I ask from the bottom of my heart to help with whatever you can, to help cover his bills that he won’t be able to cover because of this tragic accident, so as he recovers, his focus can be on getting better.”

After posting the notice on Nextdoor, Postal worker Julie Garcia wrote “Bryan is my co-worker… he has been delivering mail to residents in the El Medio Bluffs for about two years now. I’m sure his customers think as highly of him as we do at the Post Office! Please consider making a contribution.”

Another person on Nextdoor wrote: “This is so horrible thank you for sharing the Gofundme page. This is horrific.”

A reader sent it to CTN and wrote “this is the accident we witnessed. Please post on CTN.”

To go to the gofundme page, click here.