Santa Ana Winds Whip Fires Across Southland

The first Santa Ana winds of the fall fanned eight brush fires across Southern California on Wednesday, threatening dozens of homes near Chatsworth, Moorpark and in the hills above Redlands.

Driven by winds gusting to 40 mph, the fires closed the Ronald Reagan Freeway, produced tall columns of smoke and flame visible around the Los Angeles Basin, interrupted Metrolink train service and burned at least 4,800 acres. One firefighter was injured in Chatsworth when a rock fell on his head, and flames continued to spread out of control in several areas into the night.

Late Wednesday, fire officials ordered mandatory evacuations in nearby Bell Canyon, Box Canyon and along a portion of Woolsey Canyon Road when winds suddenly shifted and flames lapped upscale homes perched on hillsides. Fire department helicopters made risky nighttime water drops in an effort to save the homes.

David Nenkervis, a 64-year-old actor, said he raced back to his home on Santa Susana Pass Road near the Los Angeles and Ventura county line when he heard about the fire on the radio. At first, smoke prevented him from seeing if his house was still standing. Then, as sunset neared, sheriff’s deputies drove him up the road.

“I saw it burning to the ground. I’m homeless now,” said Nenkervis, reached by phone near his former home. He was still looking for his missing dog, Two Bits, he said. “It’s crazy, but I care more about my dog than my house. I just hope she’s OK.”

Other residents who had left for work in the morning anxiously awaited word in the evening on whether they had homes to return to. Standing on the road into his hillside community, Abraham Shipe, 61, was begging for information about his home in the Box Canyon area north of Chatsworth while also trying to reach his girlfriend. He had not spoken to her since leaving the house at 11 a.m.

His house looked like one a friend had seen smoldering on television, Shipe said, but he could not be sure.

“Everything was beautiful when I got out of here this morning,” he said. “Now I’m not sure what’s going on.”

Fire departments had been warning for months that the near-record rains Southern California experienced last winter had led to thick growths of brush, creating conditions for a severe fire season. Several of the most destructive wildfire seasons on record have come after winters of heavy rain, including in 1993, when hundreds of homes were lost in Laguna Beach and Malibu.

But although firefighters had been bracing for the hot winds of fall, they scrambled to respond to fires stretching from rural Somis in Ventura County, down through the northern foothills of the San Fernando Valley and out to San Bernardino County.

The most serious fire struck about 2 p.m. north of Chatsworth and burned more than 3,500 acres. It was only 5% contained late Wednesday. It started south of the Ronald Reagan Freeway near Topanga Canyon Boulevard, then jumped the freeway and raced north into a canyon area where small shacks and large mansions dot hilly chaparral. At least one home and several outbuildings were burned.

The fire threatened 70 homes on the shoulder of the Santa Susana Pass, burning at least one as well as the garage of a second, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. But officials said late Wednesday that the number was likely to rise. Authorities said they had trouble protecting some of the homes in remote canyons because the brush wasn’t adequately cleared and trees were overgrown.

Firefighters fought the flames by ground and by air. As helicopters dropped water on the dry brush, firetrucks navigated narrow canyon roads. In at least one case, firefighters rushed into a home where embers had set the attic on fire. The home appeared to be damaged but not gutted.

“It’s pretty bad here. There’s a lot of smoke, and ashes are falling,” said Marvin Boles, who lives in the Box Canyon area, where firefighters had called for voluntary evacuation.

Even so, Boles said, he and some of his neighbors were staying put as they watched the orange glow of the fire in the distance.

“I’m never leaving. I’ve been here 15 years,” said Boles, adding that spectators had come to watch the flames jump through the canyons. “These rocks above us are filled with people. They’ve all come here to see what’s happening.”

Roger Cohen, 68, also decided to stay put -- even though the evacuation order surprised him.

“I’ve been here 25 years; this is the first time they have done that,” he said in a telephone interview. “The flames -- you can see them right up the hill -- they just keep flaring up. There is a lot of smoke.

“We’ve been through this many times before,” he added. “Chances are we’ll stick it out.”

Others were not taking any chances.

John Vinciguerra, 35, voluntarily evacuated his townhouse complex on Santa Susana Pass Road about 3 p.m. He scrambled to leave after watching from his second-floor window as the fire climbed a nearby hillside.

“I wasn’t scared, but I just wanted to leave to be safe,” he said. “I’m more concerned about tonight when ... the wind is about to shift.”

With embers flying, residents rushed down the canyon roads in cars filled with possessions. The area is known as horse country, and horse trailers jammed the roads as owners moved out their animals.

“I just packed up my Suburban and I left,” said Patricia Escobar, 48, sitting in her SUV with her two dogs, cat and hamster.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky took a helicopter tour of the area late Wednesday and described the experience as surreal. He said the fire was moving at a rate of 1 1/2 mph with little wind pushing it, raising concerns among fire officials about what would happen if forecast winds of 30 to 40 mph picked up overnight.

Yaroslavsky said officials were “girding for the fire to head into communities” along the Ventura Freeway, and that if it jumped that highway, “we’re at another level of risk.”

By late Wednesday night, more than two dozen people were camped out at Canoga Park High School, one of two evacuation centers the Red Cross set up for the Chatsworth fire.

Box Canyon Road resident Jessica Pringle, 38, said she fled her home when flames burned within 40 feet of her back door. “That really scared me,” she said. “I’ve never seen flames that close.”

Pringle’s husband, John, 69, had left a half-hour earlier to pick up his 13-year-old son, Tommy, from school. The family was reunited at the shelter.

Other fires began earlier in the day. Shortly before noon, a blaze broke out in the hills around a subdivision west of Moorpark College in Ventura County. It charred about 30 acres of brush and briefly threatened homes before being brought under control. No mandatory evacuations were ordered, although several residents left as embers and thick columns of smoke rose into the sky.

Another brush fire charred about 25 acres in rugged Coyote Canyon north of Camarillo in Ventura County. That fire, which started about 2 p.m., was controlled by about 4 p.m.

“Firefighters also spent part of the afternoon battling a 25-acre blaze near Lake Elizabeth in northern Los Angeles County.

In Riverside County, a fire that started about 12:30 p.m. in San Timoteo Canyon, about five miles south of Redlands, destroyed many chicken coops. The coops could house 70,000 to 90,000 chickens, but officials said they were not sure how many died. The blaze briefly threatened about 200 homes.

Late in the evening, two blazes were reported near Cabazon near the Morongo casino.

Meteorologists said the winds began early Wednesday in the typical Santa Ana pattern: Air circulating clockwise around a high-pressure system over Nevada descended rapidly from the high desert, moving through the canyons and into the coastal valleys of Orange, Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

“It’s a classic Santa Ana, arriving right on schedule,” said Bill Patzert, a climatologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge.

Temperatures soared past the 90-degree mark throughout the area. The hot, windy weather is expected to continue today before a gradual cooling trend through the weekend.

The parching winds frequently exacerbating the dangerous fire conditions that follow a dry summer, Patzert said. Some of Southern California’s highest temperatures and worst brush fires occur in September and October.

Times staff writers Fred Alvarez, Gregory W. Griggs, Eric Malnic, Lance Pugmire, Joel Rubin, Bob Pool and Steve Chawkins and Times photographer Mel Melcon contributed to this report.