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• The Publisher’s Notebook
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The Malibu Contract: Fighting Wildfires
It is no solace to those who lost their
homes in the Corral Fire to hear that the county fire
department regards it as one of the more successful firefights
in Malibu’s history because “firefighters were able
to save 98 percent of the threatened 2314 structures in those
areas.” The fire claimed 4582 acres, and 55 homes were
lost. Although one can quibble with some of the assertions in
the 17-page report on the Corral Fire released by Fire
Chief Freeman last week, especially that 10,000 Malibuites were
evacuated (to where on a closed Pacific Coast Highway?), we
must take ourselves firmly in hand and agree that the
department did an extraordinary job of containment once the
wind cooperated. At no time can any fire be held in check when
hurricane-force winds blow. Part of an unwritten contract that
we all sign when we move to Malibu is that we are at
nature’s mercy. Whatever the technology, or the
resources, we have no control. When I first arrived in Malibu,
I was initiated into the rite of the wildfire story. I was
told about the Newton-Hume-Sherwood fires of December 1956 in
the Malibu hills that took more than five times the toll of
Corral—35,000 acres and 250 structures were
destroyed, including several of the buildings on the ranch
I had purchased to be able to raise livestock. I heard about
the Liberty Canyon Fire, one of three fires in December 1958,
set by arsonists in the Malibu hills where 25,000 acres and 42
structures were destroyed. Then there were the Wright and
Clampitt fires, Newhall to the Pacific Ocean over two mountain
ranges, in September 1970. They claimed 135,000 acres, and 226
structures were destroyed (Chatsworth through the Malibu
hills).
But those were just stories. I got my first
real taste and smell of wilderness gone berserk in the Kanan
Fire of October 1978, when 25,000 acres and 230 structures were
destroyed. That fire raged from the Malibu hills to the ocean
at Broad Beach in two-plus hours, and is an example of what the
Corral Fire could have become but for the tremendous
preparation of the firefighting forces on hand last Nov. 24.
Next came the Dayton Fire in October 1982, going from
Chatsworth to the Pacific, but this time at the Malibu
Colony—42,000 acres and 85 homes were destroyed. Then
there was the great loss of homes in the Old Topanga Fire of
October 1993, with 16,500 acres and 385 homes burned on both
sides of Malibu Canyon from Topanga to the ocean. If a
wildfire starts and does not cause devastation in its first two
to three hours, that is purely the result of chance. Fire crews
need time to assess burn conditions and get equipment where it
belongs. If the winds are raging out of control, crews cannot
be dispatched on what could be suicide missions. Chief Freeman
notes in the April 17 report that the Corral Fire burned in an
area that has been tragic for firefighters twice in the last 50
years. In 1958 and 1996 firefighters were trapped and burned.
No structure is worth the loss of lives—firefighters or
civilians. In 1993, when flames licked at my barns and corrals,
structures around the bend that were located in a box canyon
burned out completely. The fire crews that were bivouacked on
my ranch, successfully setting backfires, said there was no way
to go into that box canyon and come out alive. I then asked
myself what if there were circumstances when that might be said
about my home? It would not be easy to accept, but the Malibu
contract dictates that I would have to concur.
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