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Malibu surfside news | November 29, 2018 | 7
Woolsey Fire rewrites Malibu’s history books
Blaze follows
familiar path but
exceeds scale of
any LA County fire
Suzanne Guldimann
Freelance Reporter
Despite a long history of
major wildfire events, there
is no real precedent for the
catastrophic destruction
caused by the Woolsey Fire
in Malibu and the Santa
Monica Mountains.
Nothing comes close to
the scale of the recent disaster,
recorded at nearly
100,000 acres, but the
community has repeatedly
faced and recovered from
wildfire disaster.
The Woolsey Fire followed
a similar route
through the mountains as
historic 1903, 1935, 1956,
1978 and 1982 wildfires.
While the fire has created
exponentially more damage,
in part because there
are more homes in the area,
there have been so many
fires on this path through
the mountains that it has
its own designation: “the
Decker/Kanan Fire Corridor.”
The first fire on record
that traveled this route was
the 1903 fire. Exact numbers
aren’t available, but
newspaper reports from the
era suggest that it burned
most of Malibu, traveling
through multiple canyons,
including Malibu Canyon
in addition to the Kanan/
Decker corridor. Zuma and
Trancas canyons burned in
this fire, and the fire line
reached from Malibu Canyon
to Sycamore Canyon
in Ventura County. There
were few houses in the area
at that time, but the fire
destroyed the ranch house
of Malibu Rancho owner
Frederick Hastings Rindge,
as well as the homes of numerous
homesteaders in the
Santa Monica Mountains. It
also reportedly killed many
thousand head of cattle.
In 1942, when much of
Malibu had been commandeered
by the U.S. Army
to protect the coast during
World War II, soldiers and
Civil Defense volunteers
found themselves facing
not enemy invaders but
two major wildfires, one in
eastern Malibu in October,
a second in November, just
days after the first was out.
Neither fire impacted western
Malibu, but the damage
was extensive throughout
the Santa Monica Mountains,
with Escondido,
Ramirez, Latigo, Corral
and Malibu canyons heavily
impacted.
The 1956 Newton-
Hume-Sherwood Fire may
be the closest parallel to the
Woolsey Fire in Malibu.
Former UCLA librarian
and Malibu author Lawrence
Clark Powell wrote a
terrifying firsthand account
of the 1956 fire. The fire,
which started in Newton
Canyon during 70-90 mile
per hour Santa Ana winds
on Christmas Day, raged
for nearly four days, charring
40,000 acres.
The Powells and their
neighbors, with the help of
two Edison line crew workers,
fought to save their
homes from the firestorm,
armed with shovels and
garden hoses. They were
fortunate, but many were
not. In all, 250 homes and
structures were destroyed;
that was a huge percentage
of Malibu homes in an
era when there were few
houses.
Just like the Woolsey
Fire, the Newton Fire’s
path took it directly through
Malibu Park and Trancas
Canyon.
Powell’s home was destroyed
20 years later, in
the 1978 Kanan Fire, which
followed the same route,
burning through Trancas
Canyon as it spread up the
coast. In 1978, the fire,
following a similar path,
jumped the highway at
Paradise Cove, destroying
much of the mobile home
park, but it was stopped before
reaching Point Dume.
Early fire records are incomplete,
but it looks as if
the only other time Point
Dume burned in the 20th
century was during the
Latigo/Sherwood Fire in
1935, which also followed
the Kanan-Decker Corridor,
burning 30,000 acres
on its way to the coast.
That 1935 fire traveled in
what appears to have been
almost exactly the same
route across Point Dume as
the Woolsey Fire, burning
the west side of the peninsula,
and leaving much of
the eastern end untouched.
The 1993 Old Topanga
Fire spanned 16,516 acres
— far smaller than many of
the other historic wildfires
— and did not follow the
route into western Malibu.
A total of 388 homes were
lost in 1993, and three people
died. One victim died
saving his cat.
In the aftermath of the
1993 fire, Malibu residents
and businesses came together
to form Operation
Recovery, which provided
a survivors support group
and other resources for victims,
including networking
to help families who lost
TOO
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TRASH
HouseholdHazardous
Waste &Electronic Waste
Roundup
Saturday,December 1, 2018
9:00am-3:00pm
Malibu Civic Center
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23519 West Civic Center Way
Malibu
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their homes navigate and
expedite the rebuilding
process. The community
recovered, although it took
time.
Malibu’s fire history reveals
not only a legacy of
disaster and loss, but also
one of resilience. The community
has always come
together to recover and rebuild,
and will do it again.
Someday, the Woolsey Fire
also will be history.
Malibu has experienced
major wildfires in 1903,
1929, 1930, 1935 (35,000
acres), 1938 (25,000
acres), 1943, 1956 (26,000
acres, 100 homes, one
death), 1958 (18,000 acres,
75 homes, 10 firefighters
injured), 1961, 1970
(28,000 acres, 403 homes,
10 deaths), 1973, 1978
(25,000 acres, 230 homes,
two deaths), 1982 (45,000
acres), 1985, 1993 (16,516
acres, 388 homes, three
deaths), 1996 and 2007
(4,720 acres, 53 homes, no
deaths, but 14,000 people
evacuated).
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way to dispose of materials
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