Combustive City Council Meeting Dominated by Fire Concerns

• Residents in Wildfire Areas Voice Complaints about Access, Response, Safety and Aid for Victims

BY BILL KOENEKER

Tempers flared and emotions exploded when fire victims came to the Malibu City Council meeting this week to address concerns in the aftermath of the Corral Fire that consumed 53 homes and destroyed dozens of other structures.

Complaints about the lack of alternative access on Corral Canyon Road, fire department response and questions about post-fire assistance reverberated—occassionally loudly—through the council chambers.

Malibu Battalion Chief Reginald Lee recapped the Canyon and Corral fires for the council and credited air support in both blazes as critical to keeping losses at a minimum.

He said the Corral Fire was different than the Canyon fire because it started closer to homes.

Explaining the losses, Lee said the strategy in fighting Santa Ana wildfires is strictly defensive. “We are relying on your home and brush clearance as protection. In a wind-driven fire, we would need a single engine for every house. We cannot do that,” he said.

Council members asked Lee about how out-of-town companies get their information about local streets and homes and other topographical information and were told that firefighters use Thomas Brothers guides.

Councilmember Ken Kearsley suggested the city would be willing to figure out a way to provide GIS or GPS information systems as he said is done in Honolulu. He noted, “The guys in our neighborhood did not know anything.”

A Ramirez Canyon resident told the council how maps and an evacuation plan were put together by the residents in his canyon and then handed out to fire department personnel after the accuracy of the maps was confirmed by a fire captain.

Lee said because the last three fires in Malibu started close to the coast, fire officials are rethinking the deployment of assets. “The staging has been to have equipment on both sides of the hill. We try to overwhelm the fire before it gets to valuable assets. We are rethinking where we want to put our equipment,” he said, given that these fires started in Malibu and not in Agoura or Calabasas.

Councilmember Pamela Conley Ulich ticked off a list of what she said were problems she had heard about, including that there were more firefighting personnel than beds and that an engine was leaking water. “Can we help you get better equipment? How can we expedite new engines?” asked Conley Ulich, who said she was told that paramedics at Zuma headquarters have no washer or dryer.

Some of the harshest criticism was heaped on the city for what several residents said was a lack of alternative access on Corral Canyon Road because of the potential for bottleneck on the one-lane bridge over Solstice Creek.

“We are very upset,” said Beverly Taki, a Corral Canyon resident whose home was spared. “We had to beg the city to meet with us. Nobody came to us. We wrote our own evacuation plan.”

Taki said the city had made promises about an alternative route, but never followed through.

Other canyon residents agreed. “There was no alternative access. We could not get through the RV Park or BeauRivage,” one said.

Initially, council members disagreed, then questioned city and fire officials about what actually happened and learned that the fire department was not aware of any agreement with the RV park, but thought that was up to the city.

It was also revealed that the gate to BeauRivage, an alternative route, was not opened until 8 a.m.—hours after most residents were forced to evacuate.

However, Lee noted that evacuees’ vehicles were pulled along the side of the road and impeded firefighter access to the area. As for the bridge, he said, “There were no problems,” but reiterated that bystanders impacted the staging area.

Taki also took aim at the mayor and Councilmember Ken Kearsley for what she said were misstatements made to the media.

Mayor Jeff Jennings admitted that he initially made a disconnect between the steelhead trout restoration and bridge replacement along Corral Canyon Road, denying construction was underway.

“I made a mistake. During the next several interviews, I tried to correct that,” he said.

Barovsky defended Kearsley and said there was fire near him. Kearsley said he ignored the mandatory evacuation orders and stayed with his home “while fire was at my doorstep.”

Taki said she had driven past Kearsley’s home in Sycamore Park and saw no evidence of fire.

Barovsky stood by her comment and said, “There is a lot of emotion, but the personal attacks do no good. How does this get us anywhere? Mistakes were made. We do need a better plan for access.”

Kearsley said he thought it might be advisable to study whether there was another route out of Corral Canyon.