256 Homes Destroyed as Flames Burn 180,000 Acres

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 27 – The worst series of brushfires in Southern California history — including four which joined in one blazing perimeter from Newhall to Malibu — burned out of control Saturday. Two men died, 180,000 acres were blackened. 256 homes were destroyed. Uncounted thousands fled their homes.

Firemen contained three smaller blazes in Ventura County and portions of fires within the City of Los Angeles late Saturday night, but the major fires continued to rage unchecked through the brush-covered canyons and hillsides of seven Southland counties into the early morning hours today.

From the air the coastal plain resembled a scene of war — with towering looms of smoke rising two miles high into a sky swept by hot, dry, desert winds.

Few Southern Californians were out of sight of a major blaze, and many gathered on porches and yards all across the basin, looking toward the flames and smoke as toward a giant fireworks display. Fires burned out of control in six counties. In addition to the four along the Los Angeles — Ventura County line, there were 10 other conflagrations.

Firemen blamed the fires on the fiercest Santa Ana condition in recent history — unseasonally early, unusually strong, almost totally devoid of humidity. The winds turned small sparks into disaster for anything downwind.

The winds swept from the canyons to the sea. And so did the fires they pushed.

Three started Friday as small fires: one in Newhall, another near Calabasas, a third near Thousand Oaks.

The Newhall fire burned west around the fringe of Chatsworth, destroying 35 homes, then burned west through Santa Susana Pass into Ventura County, burning 20 more as it blazed along both sides of Simi Valley toward Moorpark.

Flames moved to within a quarter-mile of Moorpark, forcing the evacuation of Moorpark College, northeast of the town, but gradually diminishing winds enabled firemen to halt the blaze’s steady advance.

The fire was stopped by a large, dry river bed east of Moorpark and by sprawling, green olive and orange orchards on the north.

The fire which began near Calabasas moved south to Malibu, burning 100 more homes. Early Saturday the Newhall fire met the Calabasas-Malibu fire. Later Saturday it burned west and merged with the 4,000-acre blaze near Thousand Oaks, which destroyed five homes.

By midday Saturday it was one huge fire — stretching from the Golden State Freeway at the foot of the Ridge Route south to where film celebrities’ homes burned on the beaches at Malibu.

It was the worst single fire since the Bel-Air blaze of 1961 burned 484 homes, causing damage estimated at $25 million.

But the Newhall-Malibu fire was only one of a group of fires which struck Southern California along with Friday’s sudden Santa Ana wind. Among the worst of the others:

— A fire which began in Mint Canyon spread Saturday across 22,000 acres in the subdivision-studded hills and canyons between the San Fernando and Antelope valleys, burning eight homes. It reached within four miles of joining the north end of the Newhall-Malibu fire before burning back in the opposite direction, north, toward Bouquet Canyon. County firemen said they hoped to contain it this morning.

— Five homes, some of them in the $40,000 class, burned as flames encircled the north side of Ventura.

— A blaze in the Cleveland National Forest raced across 29,000 acres in Eastern San Diego County.

Altogether, the fires other than the Newhall-Malibu blaze burned almost 60,000 acres.

But the worst blaze — the one which still held the most dangerous potential — was the crescent of fire which reached from the sea to Newhall.

“We have every piece of civil defense equipment from Monterey to the Mexican border on the lines,” said County Fire Capt. Hal Hill.

“Fire departments from all over the southern part of the state — San Marino, Palos Verdes Estates — are volunteering to help.

“There have been worse single fires. But this is the worst series of fires we’ve ever had.”

The fire killed a young man tentatively identified as Fred Raymond Bedford Jr., 21, of Chatsworth, in a ravine near Chatsworth. His body was found after the fire had passed. (A second body — the victim of the Mint Canyon fire — was found in a burned cabin at Solamint. He wasn’t immediately identified.)

Reaching from the mountains to the coastline, the fire victimized rich and poor, rancher and suburbanite, with haphazard impartiality.

Cabins were lost in the hills and, at Malibu, actress Angela Lansbury lost her beachfront home. In Chatsworth, the Spahn ranch burned, leaving members of the Manson family again homeless.

At midday Saturday the fire moved into Topanga Canyon on the south, crackling through green chaparral on steep-sided slopes.

By Saturday night, flames had spread to Las Flores Canyon, about three miles from Topanga, but posed no immediate threat to homes there.

Scores of persons in the small community of Topanga stood on their doorsteps and watched as a faint orange glow near Las Flores Canyon, about four miles north, grew brighter.

Tom Murphy, 25, an Inglewood junior high school teacher, packed his car after sheriff’s deputies drove through the canyon roads at 10 a.m. and told residents to leave. He waited with his wife and child at a Topanga gas station, hopeful the flames would retreat and permit him to return home.

Many of the canyon’s several thousand residents, themselves a cross-section of Southern California society, fled toward the sea.

Some were hippie families in Volkswagen vans whose packing chores were limited to calling the dog.

Others were the owners of luxurious ranches, in station wagons crowded with possessions, pulling palominos in horse trailers.

Horses, terrified, broke loose from corrals and cantered away from danger. Later, wandering along blocked-off Pacific Coast Highway, they were caught and tied to gates and postboxes to be claimed by their owners.

Some residents stayed behind to protect their homes, despite word from sheriff’s deputies that they should evacuate.

Playing garden hoses on rooftops, they faced Santa Ana winds at times strong enough to rock a car or knock a man off his feet. In some cases they lost, and 30-foot flames devoured their homes. Others won.

The winds were strong enough to pluck burning shake shingles from a burning home’s roof and hurl them, still afire, hundreds of yards onto other homes farther downwind. In open country it did the same with chunks of burning brush.

From the air, pilots could see the main front of each blaze — and, downwind from it, bright bursts of fire where windblown embers and scraps had started smaller fires.

In the Simi Valley, the fire blazed on both north and south slopes of the east-west valley. Ventura County firemen fought to hold the fire from the floor of the valley, one of the Southland’s newest bedroom communities.

As the fire swept west, across the valley floor, residents of Virginia Colony prepared to evacuate, then — for the time being, at least — were spared when winds died down.

One-hundred-year-old oak trees in Santa Susana Pass blazed out of existence in seconds. Oil field wells and tanks caught fire. At times the visibility in the Simi Valley was cut to a hundred yards by the blowing smoke.

The winds were so strong and terrain so rough that aerial tankers couldn’t be used to advantage. The spot fires ahead of the main fires were able to get started, making the task of firemen one of valiant attempts — and almost constant retreats.

The weather outlook remained grim. The Santa Ana was expected to last several days, though the winds are expected to diminish in force today.

Santa Ana winds are a flow of hot, dry air from the inland deserts out to sea. A high-pressure area over the high deserts sends air rushing out to fill low-pressure areas off the coast.

“It’s just like water running downhill,” said forecaster Frank Ernst of the U.S. Weather Bureau. “It’s air running from higher altitudes to lower elevations, and from higher pressures into lower pressure troughs. As it channels through the canyons it compresses and gets warmer.

At dawn Saturday the humidity was 4% on top of Mt. Wilson. At Vetter Lookout in the Angeles National Forest it was 3% — almost nonexistent.

Gov. Reagan — who had earlier helped fire fighters defend his own Malibu ranch from the menace of the brushfire — issued a statement from his Sacramento office urging Southern Californians to employ “a good-neighbor policy” in helping fire victims.

He urged deer hunters to use extreme caution — deer hunting season opened Saturday — and reminded alI residents to be wary of high fire hazard conditions. He said the federal Office of Emergency Preparedness has authorized federal funds and manpower for fire fighting.

The Red Cross maintained seven evacuation centers during the height of the fire Friday, and kept three open all that night. One of the centers, located at the Malibu Civic Center, assisted 100 families Friday evening who had lost their homes.

Mayor Sam Yorty announced Saturday that a public works disaster center had been set up in the Van Nuys City Hall to assist victims of the fire.

The center will be open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. It is located on the fourth floor of the Van Nuys City Hall, 14410 Sylvan St. The phone number is 781-2207.

By DIAL TORGERSON