Topanga Canyon Fire
Doug Sherr
©
Copyright 2019 by Doug Sherr
|
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California
is burning. California is always burning. Decades ago I fought a fire
in the Santa Monica mountains This story is dedicated to a
helicopter pilot; without him I couldn't have written this story.
Topanga
Canyon connects the Pacific Ocean to the San Fernando Valley, where
the Valley Girls roamed. The Santa Monica Mountains rise to the east
and hills that stretch to Malibu define the western side. Water
trickles down the creek bed providing enough moisture for a variety
of mature trees and bushes that keep the canyon cool on desert-hot
summer days. In the midst of the urban horror of LA, the canyon is a
rural outpost that mixes the best of Appalachia and Carmel: In the
early 1970s, impoverished hippie artists of great talent lived in
shacks and raised goats next door to famous rock and roll musicians
and actors who argued with their agents while drinking goat’s
milk. Charlie Manson’s first murder happened on Old Topanga
Canyon Boulevard and Will Geer, Grandpa on the Waltons, had an
outdoor Shakespearean theater, Theatricum Botanicum, at the other end
of the canyon.
Near
the middle of the canyon was a small group of buildings and a grocery
store; it was the hippie equivalent of a strip mall. A little
short-order joint, The Center Restaurant, which the locals called the
Deadly Diner, was open. It served intense coffee, amazingly greasy
food and had a pool table to occupy the customers who weren’t
reading Variety. This was the
main meeting area for the
residents where jobs were found, consumables were purchased out back
under a stand of eucalyptus trees, and gossip was invented on slow
days. Back in the 1920s, the canyon was a summer retreat for people
who lived in the sweltering LA basin. Many of the buildings strung
along the boulevard and up the side roads were the leftovers of these
summer cottages. Some were well maintained and some looked like they
were going to collapse from fatigue. No one seemed to be in a great
hurry to do anything. A few fancy cars cruising by reveal that money
is hidden up the steep side roads, but beat-up pickup trucks and the
occasional brave little Volkswagen camper painted with love and peace
art show that some people are just hanging on. Topanga demonstrated
that California Dreamin was a reality. The best
description of
the canyon for me was that the LA County American-LaFrance firetruck,
Number 69, had a grill ornament from a Volkswagen van.
The
laid-back atmosphere hid the reality that there is a serious price to
pay for ‘livin the dream’. The creek that trickles down
the bottom of the canyon has wrecked autos that date back to the
twenties and thirties lying at odd angles and jammed against trees,
carried there by an intense current that dropped them where they
were. When the big winter storms come, the little trickle of water
becomes a raging river. Hillsides collapse and boulders the size of a
school bus can block the canyon for days. Then comes the summer when
it never rains and the lush hillsides are brittle brown and waiting
to burn.
On
a point of land at the end of the canyon a thousand feet above the
sea sat the Moon Fire Temple. Louis Marvin built the domed structure
that had a hole in the top so that the full moon would shine down
onto the fire pit. Every full moon he threw a party for anyone who
wanted to come. Louis was a vegetarian activist who would load his
dromedary into the back of his Cadillac limo, drive into the valley,
and parade the animal in front of McDonald’s restaurants to
protest eating flesh. The first time I visited the temple, the
dromedary walked up to me, stared into my eyes and gave me a kiss. It
must have been the first time she had looked anyone straight in the
eye. Height has its advantages. We became friends and she introduced
me to the vegetarian dog. While I never did get close to the
watch-peacocks, the Black Angus bull tried to mount my newly acquired
Norton motorcycle. The source of Louis’ money was a matter of
conjecture, but he supported a number of people and gave to all the
local causes and never seemed to have a job. I did hear him talking
on the phone once as he was speculating in precious metals. His voice
had the clipped preciseness of a businessman and not the quiet hippie
drawl that he used the rest of the time.
It
was the second summer I’d lived there and the main conversation
at the Deadly Diner was about fires. I learned that the reason there
are so many swimming pools in Southern California is not for the
pleasure of a refreshing dip on a hot day, but to provide thousands
of gallons of reserve water to fight fires. I was living with a
talented artist named Judy, whose tool inventory included a full
complement of fire-fighting tools. I prepped the 3-inch gas-powered
pump and checked the hoses and nozzles. The pool held 30,000 gallons
of water, but the roof was wooden shingle so that was not a large
amount to keep the house safe. The mattocks and McLeods were mounted
near the door in the garage.
Up
on the Tippett ranch on the ridge of the Santa Monica Mountains, two
young boys were playing with matches. A little fire started, but
before they could run for help, the fire raged across the ridge top.
It then jumped the canyon burning back up to the area where there
were houses. Within minutes the residents of the canyon were getting
their gear ready or rushing home before the canyon was closed to all
traffic.
Everything
written about large fires is true: they are horrifying and beautiful;
they are mindless and exhibit cunning; in a few minutes they destroy
lives that have taken years to build. Hippies, actors, musicians,
mechanics, producers, and goatherds were all out lugging their tools
and getting ready to defend their homes. There was a time, at the
beginning, when the mood was excited: when people were primed for the
action. That disappeared quickly when the scale of the walls of flame
showed that this was a big one. I tested the pump and laid out the
hoses. For the moment, the fire was consuming the opposite ridge and
had turned back down the hilltop burning the bushes that the initial
rush had passed over. The first organization to respond was the local
fire station with the VW emblazoned truck. Sirens told us that
firefighters from Malibu and the valley were coming as quickly as
they could. There is always that immediate governmental need to
control a situation that causes the fire and police personnel to try
to keep “civilians” out of the way. When the monstrous
scale of the fire became evident then everyone was welcome to battle
the inferno.
Fire
management breaks down into several different tasks: cool the fuel,
make a break to remove flammable materials, fight fire with fire. The
fire companies ran hoses from all the available hydrants and the
pumping trucks provided pressure to the tentacles of hose that snaked
off in all directions to dampen the fire itself. Lines of workers
side-by-side raked away underbrush in advance of the fire and
chainsaws screamed as large bushes and some trees were felled to
create breaks that everyone hoped would be big enough to prevent the
fire from spreading. I’ve been in the furnace area of a steel
mill and the fire room of a huge steam engine and that is the level
of heat you feel on a fire line, but unlike the controlled, man-made
infernos you just can’t step back for a break or go for some
water; the fire in front of you is trying to kill you and everything
behind you and it knows no fatigue.
It
is a beautiful thing to see people who amble through life or live in
the privileged world of big-time entertainment dig in the dry dirt
hour upon hour to protect their neighborhood. Unlike steel mills and
steam engines, the wild fire doesn’t blow a whistle announcing
that it is time to go home. When you absolutely can no longer work on
the line you stagger back and find some water and a little food, but
you know that there is no one to take your place out there and the
longer you are away the more the fire has gained. Down at the Center,
the diner and the Old Post Office café laid out food and
endless pots of coffee. Somehow, there was always a funny story to
tell to break the tension, but then someone would yell that the fire
had taken off in a new direction and the blackened workers took a
last pull of coffee and worked back up to the front line.
That
night Federal fire-fighting units joined the battle. They were
arrogant, dismissing the local professionals and the canyon residents
who were still on the line. I heard one Federal officer tell a group
of locals who were crusted with black soot that they could all go
home because the professionals had arrived. They looked at him with
red-rimmed eyes and quietly suggested a variety of creative sexual
practices that he might enjoy as they trudged back to the fire-line.
I also heard one LA County Fire Marshall, in a tired voice, say that
if the Feds were half as good as the locals, then they might have the
fire out by dawn. As soon as the Feds realized the potential of this
fire, they got down to business and worked with anyone who could
handle a tool. In key areas, the Feds lit backfires to deprive the
main blaze of fuel. Setting a fire to fight a fire is dangerous work.
Being stupid when fighting a fire is more dangerous.
I
found a young federal firefighter who was dragging a hose to work
down into the bottom of the creek bed. I jumped in behind him and
wrangled the hose as we inched our way down.
The
fire had moved so fast that only the most volatile grasses had burned
in the initial pass through the area. The fire was working back and
consuming the bushes and smaller trees while the larger trees were
now near the critical ignition temperature. Running a hose down into
the creek was a dangerous thing to do, but it was a key area in
holding the fire from coming back up the canyon to endanger the
majority of houses and small commercial buildings just below the
Center. It seemed that we were doing some good, but we had put
ourselves in a stupid position. The heat was like facing a wall of
blast furnaces and we were not wearing proper protective gear. The
firefighter turned to me a few times and we talked through a rough
plan of escape if it looked like we might be trapped. The roaring and
crackling of the fire was much louder down in the creek bed and we
had to shout to be heard. The slope on either side of us was too
steep to climb out if we had to, so going back about thirty yards to
a climbable slope was our only path out. The danger was that burning
scraps would fly over and light the trees behind us. We’d be
surrounded and dead soon thereafter. It happened a few minutes later.
A
Eucalyptus tree exploded in front of us sending burning branches over
our heads lighting some trees behind us. We were in a dome of fire;
the only place that wasn’t burning was the immediate area we
were in. The canvas cover of our fire hose was smoking and about to
burn. We started to move back as fast as we could playing the water
stream on our own hose and trying to open a little hole through the
wall of flame in front of us. We were losing the battle. Then a blast
of unbearably hot air almost knocked me down. I was afraid to
breathe. At that moment the heavens opened up and a helicopter
descended through the roof of flame blowing out the fire for a
hundred feet or so around us. The blast of hot air from the rotor was
ferocious, but it was our only chance. We dropped the hose and
started running as the copter moved with us blowing back the flames
and clearing the way. In a minute we were up to the road and safe.
The helicopter pulled away to pick up another load of water to drop
on the fire. We slumped down on the hot asphalt and gasped for
breath. That pilot had risked his life to fly down into a solid sheet
of fire to rescue us. Later I worked my way up to the staging area
where the helicopters were loading water and found the pilot. He had
flown in Vietnam and he said that you never abandoned your guys on
the ground. He had seen what happened to us as he was returning for a
water refill. I hugged him and he said if he’d known I was
going to do that he might not have saved us. We laughed and he said
his break was over and he was going to do some more drops. He told me
to be careful.
The
fire seemed to be contained and I headed home to check on the house.
The hillside where we lived had not been threatened and it seemed
that the fire might be out by morning. I had been on the line for
fourteen hours and I was beat. Greg, Judy’s twelve-year-old
son, had been standing by with the pump and hose at the house: He was
young, but he could handle it. I took a long shower and fell into
bed. I didn’t fall asleep immediately because my mind was still
fighting the fire. As I started to relax and ease towards sleep, the
ridge about half a mile away on our side of the canyon erupted in a
sheet of flame; the fire had jumped the canyon. I groaned and crawled
into my fire-stained clothes and headed back to the fire line.
When
I got back down to the highway one of the local firefighters came
running towards me. He said that a D-9 Cat, the largest caterpillar
tractor normally used in construction, was stalled up on the main
firebreak near Louis’ Moonfire Temple. They had to get an
injector part up there quick, but they didn’t have a truck
available and the road was blocked; he knew my Land Cruiser had a
good chance of making it. I had installed a Corvette engine in the
Cruiser and it could climb outrageously steep hills. I grabbed the
box and roared off. I made it half way up the trail to the spot where
two trucks blocked the road. I drove off the road and with four
rooster-tails of dirt flying from the tires the Toyota chewed up the
hill to the Cat. The driver was an older man who was calmly drinking
from his coffee thermos as walls of flame hundreds of feet high
flared two hundred yards from him. I asked him if I could help, but
he said he’d have her running in a couple of minutes. I looked
up the road towards the temple and saw a scene of biblical quality.
Out of the fire surrounding the trail came a large blond-haired man
leading Louis’ bull and the dromedary with the other animals
right behind. He didn’t have them blind-folded, they were
following him as if it were a normal day. The man was Bob Peno, Bob
was often out of step with the law and living on the edge, but at
that moment he was operating in a state of grace. I asked him if
Louis was OK and he said that he couldn’t get him to leave. I
jumped in the Toyota and drove up the trail. The Corvette engine
started to stumble and I thought that there might not be enough
oxygen for the big carbs so I spun the rig around and faced it
downhill. I ran up to find Louis as flames shot up on either side of
the road. Louis was walking around saying, “This is far out;
this is really far out!”
From
the top of his hill it looked as if the whole world was burning. I
asked him to come down with me, but he refused. He had a thousand
gallon water tank up there because he had to have all his water
trucked in. I told him to sit under it and open the valve if the fire
overran the place. I said if he kept the flow up he might not be
boiled like a lobster. He gave me a fierce look and I changed that to
a potato and he smiled. I ran back down the road and the Toyota
started easily. As I was driving back I came up to a couple walking
down the road as if they were out for a stroll. I stopped and offered
them a ride. The man jumped in front and his blond companion climbed
in back. They were going up to check on Louis, but Bob told them that
someone was already doing that so they were walking back to their
house, which was the only other dwelling up there. I looked back at
the woman and I stared at her for a moment. I asked her if she knew
who I was. She said she did. Seven years before, in Chicago, she’d
been the secretary to a partner of mine in a small company. We had a
dual-signature bank account and because I was out of the country on a
project she’d forged my name on the company check. There’s
a lesson in that.
Dawn
is a time when you expect things to be better, but in fires and
storms at sea dawn can be a real disappointment. The fire raged on,
but I had no energy left and I went back home. I woke up feeling
exhausted and went out to see how the fire was progressing. Much of
it was contained, but the main road would be blocked for days. I took
another shower that I didn’t really need and went back to bed.
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