2 Killed, 53 Homes Destroyed by Arson Fire in Baldwin Hills : Winds Drive Flames From Roof to Roof

Fifty-three homes were destroyed, 13 others were damaged and two people died Tuesday afternoon when an arson-set fire exploded in dry brush and swept up a slope into a Baldwin Hills neighborhood.

Roofs simply burst into flame as the wind-driven fire front charged up the brushy Southwest Los Angeles hillside, leaping from house to house as residents found themselves momentarily trapped by the swirling flames under a sky turned black by smoke.

A man and a woman, identified as Robert Allen, 50, and Mary Street, 70, who lived in the 4200 block of Don Carlos Drive, were unable to escape. Their bodies could be seen from the air, lying in the middle of the street after apparently being dragged out of a home by would-be rescuers.

At least four residents of the normally quiet neighborhood were hospitalized with burns. Two of them were said to be in serious condition.

$16 Million in Damage

Four firefighters and two police officers were treated for minor injuries.

By evening, after the fire was contained, Los Angeles Assistant Fire Chief Dave Parsons said the damage estimate was $16 million. Fire officials said nearly 100 other homes sustained minor damage. Gov. George Deukmejian was asked to issue a disaster proclamation.

“We are sure it’s an arson fire, absolutely,” Los Angeles City Fire Chief Donald O. Manning said.

A Fire Department spokesman said that more than one incendiary device was found and that the fire had started at more than one point, but he would not be specific.

An off-duty fireman and other witnesses told authorities that they saw a man and a woman get out of a white automobile to start the fire at the side of La Brea Avenue. There was no confirmation of that report, however.

Flames Leaped 100 Feet

Los Angeles police had a team of homicide investigators on the scene quickly, because of the two deaths.

The flames reportedly roared eastward up the hillside from La Brea Avenue just north of Stocker Street, flashed across the ridge and into the homes along Don Miguel, Don Carlos and Don Felipe drives and Don Alegre Place. Roofs began to smoke, then burst into fire. Then entire houses were engulfed.

The sun was blotted out by the smoke and flames were leaping 100 feet in the air.

Many of the homes are in the $250,000 class and above. The area is heavily populated by middle- and upper-middle-class black families.

“This is the worst fire in the last seven years in Los Angeles,” Manning said. In October, 1978, a series of fires from Malibu to Mandeville Canyon destroyed 230 homes.

A dozen homes were already ablaze when firefighters arrived after the 2:48 p.m. alarm. Their problems battling the inferno were complicated by an initial lack of water pressure, probably caused by homeowners hosing down their properties throughout the area.

Manning said the Fire Department quickly called the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which diverted extra water to the sector.

Although residents on some streets complained that firefighters took some time to arrive, Manning insisted that the first unit was there within four minutes of the alarm and the second arrived within seven.

“If we were literally sitting on top of that hill,” Manning contended, “the homes still would have burned.”

The chief noted that homes with rock roofs burned as well as those with shake roofs because of the intense heat.

The scene was one of pandemonium, with fire trucks and civilian vehicles trying to maneuver past each other on the curving streets. Residents packed their cars with what belongings they could grab and fled.

But the fire moved across the neighborhood so fast that it was there before many knew it was coming.

At Brotman Medical Center, Vivian Schertle, 64, was reported in critical but stable condition with burns over 50% of her body. Dr. Steven Hoefflin, chief plastic surgeon, said she will need several skin graft operations.

Her husband, Milton, 77, was in stable condition with burns on his hands and forearms. He also had minor burns on the face and neck.

Ecra Hill, 69, was in stable condition with burns on her right arm and elbow.

The Schertles had lived in their three-bedroom home at 4251 Don Carlos Drive for 24 years. Milton Schertle said he had changed his shingle roof to a composition roof three years ago to prevent a fire.

“There’s nothing there now, I imagine,” he said at the hospital.

Mrs. Schertle told doctors that she was hosing down the backyard and house when flames suddenly crowned up close around her. She began to run, her hair and clothing on fire.

Her husband, who was coming home from his job in downtown Los Angeles, saw black smoke on the hill.

“The smoke was terrible,” he recalled. “Really thick. I didn’t think I’d get through it. I don’t know how I got home in the smoke.”

As he tried to get out of his car, he said, “the heat blasted out around around me. I saw our house going up . . . our two cars going up. I walked up the street to get away.”

He found his wife at the corner.

On the street, “everything seemed to be burning,” he said. “You could hardly see. Everybody was running in all directions, sort of stunned.”

He said it was not the flames that burned him, but the heat.

“It was coming at you from both sides,” he said.

As he talked at the hospital, he was wrapped in a sheet. Only his face showed. One side of it was flame-red.

The fire was so hot, Manning said, “that I couldn’t walk down the street.”

The more than 200 firefighters battling the flames had to contend with temperatures up to 115 degrees.

It was more than three hours, during which 50 engine companies were aided by four helicopters making chemical retardant drops, before the fire was contained and subsequently controlled.

After nightfall, when a seabreeze moved in to cast an almost eerie coolness over the smoldering neighborhood, officers were going door to door to determine whether any more bodies were in the charred ruins. By late Tuesday, no new victims had been found.

Those forced out by the flames were gathering at a Red Cross evacuation center set up at Dorsey High School, and by late in the day some were still trying to locate family members. Most of the displaced--there was no official estimate of the number--chose to spend the night in hotels or with relatives or friends.

Mayor Tom Bradley, City Council President Pat Russell, County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn and other public figures were at the scene quickly.

Bradley declared Los Angeles a disaster area, a first step toward making stricken residents eligible for federal aid. A spokesman for Deukmejian said the governor probably would sign the document and forward it to the federal government today.

“This is a very devastating situation,” Bradley said before touring the burned-out streets with Manning. “A terrible tragedy.”

Meanwhile, countless other fires broke out around Southern California as the terrible day wore on and as fire departments in several counties posted “red flag” alerts.

In the community of Jesmond Dene near Escondido in northern San Diego County, flames broke out and moved rapidly late Tuesday afternoon through heavy brush. At least 15 structures were destroyed or damaged, but by evening the blaze was said to be nearly contained. The fire broke out shortly before noon west of the Interstate 15 freeway and leaped that busy artery, raging out of control.

As the high fire danger continued, the U.S. Forest Service ordered closure of large sections of two national forests in the Southland. One was a 60,000-acre portion of the Trabuco District in the Cleveland National Forest in eastern Orange and western Riverside counties.

Hikers also were banned from 232,000 acres in the lower Santa Ynez area of the Los Padres National Forest in Santa Barbara County. Several campgrounds there were closed.

Three C-130s aircraft from the California Air National Guard at Van Nuys and two from an Air Force reserve unit at March Air Force Base will be fitted today with U.S. Forest Service-provided chemical retardant and mixing equipment so they can be called upon to battle fires in the Los Padres National Forest.

Each C-130 can carry 30,000 pounds of retardant, said Byron Smith, an Air National Guard spokesman .

A fire that erupted in the brushy hills above the Hollywood Bowl about 11 a.m. was controlled by noon after burning fewer than three acres.

The big brush fire north of Ojai in Ventura County remained out of control, however, burning another 1,000 acres to bring the total to 7,000 and prompting officials to conclude that containment was several days away. More than 600 firefighters were being aided by 10 air tankers and five helicopters, according to Irl Everest, a U.S. Forest Service spokesman in Ojai.

About 450 children at Camp Ramah, northwest of Ojai, were evacuated and taken to local Red Cross centers. They were to spend Tuesday night at a local high school.

Although the blaze reached the northern edge of Ojai, it did not appear that the town itself was threatened. A fire line was set up to protect the 10,000 residents.

At sunset Tuesday, the towering cloud of smoke from the Ojai blaze was clearly visible from many parts of the Los Angeles area.

The Lake Sherwood fire on the Los Angeles-Ventura County line was fully contained at 4:13 p.m. Tuesday after destroying 3,800 acres of brush.

The biggest remaining hot spot in that blaze, which began Sunday morning, was in the Carlisle Canyon area. The only damage so far had been to two trailers.

In Riverside County, meanwhile, the U.S. Forest Service said the 20,000-acre grass fire in the Cabazon Canyon area of the San Jacinto Mountains near Palm Springs was all but out, although full containment was not expected until Sunday.

That fire has burned since Thursday, and fire crews had to work Tuesday in temperatures up to 120 degrees.

A light plane smashed into the front of a tractor-trailer and burst into flames Tuesday afternoon in Santa Ana Canyon, near the border of Orange and Riverside counties, killing the aircraft’s two occupants and setting off a brush fire that had engulfed more than 740 acres within two hours.

The airplane was towing an advertising banner, which tangled in high-tension power lines crossing the canyon over the Riverside Freeway, causing the pilot to lose control and plunge to the freeway.

Pat Napoli, 47, of Lake Elsinore was hauling a load of furniture from Carson to Ohio in a brand-new truck, he said, when he saw the plane coming toward him. “I owned it (the truck) one day. This was my first trip. . . . “I swerved to the left, then right to avoid him.”

The evasive moves proved futile, however, as plane and truck collided in the freeway’s right lane, Napoli recalled a few minutes after escaping the fireball that engulfed his truck.

Napoli and his wife, Joyce, 43, escaped injury, but their son, Michael, 19, injured his leg as they fled the cab.

“We have unconfirmed reports that (the plane) was out of Chino,” a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said, “but we’re not sure.” The single-engine aircraft, he said, was a Maule Model 6.

The burned bodies of the plane’s two occupants had not been identified as of late Tuesday.

The ensuing blaze quickly spread to the steep hills of the canyon, destroying a livestock ranch and five structures there. A fire engine also was destroyed--and three firefighters injured--when it was overrun by the blaze.

Strong winds whipped the fire through rugged terrain, and firefighters said quick containment and control of the fire was considered unlikely.

In San Luis Obispo County, near Santa Margarita Lake, 8,500 acres had been burned by a fire that destroyed two houses, a cabin and a barn. More than 100 residents fled, moving livestock to safety.

In San Diego County, flames that began in an illegal dumpsite at Jamul near El Cajon burned through another 8,000 acres of brush and destroyed three more homes before being controlled Tuesday morning.

In northern San Diego County, another blaze moved through Deluz Canyon and part of Camp Pendleton, burning at least 2,000 acres and advancing toward Fallbrook’s homes and avocado ranches.

Near Big Bear Lake in San Bernardino County, firefighters expected full containment late Tuesday of flames that had been brought to a halt after 2,100 acres were charred in the Snow Crest ski area west of the Snow Summit resort. That fire came within 200 yards of several mountain homes before the threat was ended.

Northern California was having its heat and fire problems also, with flames threatening homes in the Mt. San Bruno foothills on the San Francisco Peninsula. Firefighters from several nearby communities joined the all-night effort that saved those houses.

At Ft. Ord, in Monterey County, small-arms practice set off a 500-acre blaze in brush and manzanita.

A brush fire in Yosemite National Park was partly contained by hand crews after burning about 1,200 acres in Tuolumne River Canyon north of the White Wolf area off Tioga Pass Road. Full containment was expected today.