Days of Tension : Hillside Residents Form Arson Watch

Pauline and David Newman have organized a neighborhood arson watch to prevent fires and deter arsonists in their Encino hillside community.

City fire officials say they believe the Newmans’ program may be unique in Los Angeles.

On the Fourth of July, while other families picnicked and watched fireworks displays, neighbors crowded into the Newmans’ Encino Hills Drive house and spilled onto the patio.

Pauline Newman said she had expected about 30 neighbors to show up. Instead, more than 100 people--many who had never met before--turned out to hear Los Angeles Fire Capt. Robert Hogan talk about fire prevention.

Fire Prompts Interest

The Newmans and many of their neighbors already were worried upon learning of the arson fire in Baldwin Hills this week in which three people died.

What spurred them to act, however, was a small fire much closer to home. On Wednesday, firefighters put out a quarter-acre fire in the high brush near Mulholland Drive above the neighborhood.

“The Fire Department said that, if the wind had been blowing in the wrong direction, our homes would be gone today,” Pauline Newman said.

David Newman spotted the fire as he drove home from work about 8:30 p.m. and quickly called 911 for emergency aid.

Although the local fire station extinguished the fire quickly, the Newmans realized their neighborhood, which borders the dry, brush-strewn Encino hills, was like a tinderbox waiting to go up in flames.

Nine years ago, in a fierce fire season when the skies rained ashes for days, the Newmans organized a neighborhood fire watch. Neighbor Bobbi Seltzer recalls that Pauline Newman mobilized many homeowners in the neighborhood by asking them to keep shovels and water hoses in their front yards.

After Wednesday’s Mulholland fire, and amid news reports that blazes in Ventura County had been deliberately set, Pauline Newman said she realized it was time to rally her neighborhood again.

An energetic woman, she resurrected her decade-old list of previous watch-group members and began inviting them to Thursday’s meeting to launch the new group.

Like Neighborhood Watch

The group is patterned after the popular Neighborhood Watch programs, in which residents band together to learn how to help each other combat crime.

After the fire captain’s presentation and his report that the small Mulholland Drive fire had been the work of an arsonist, Pauline Newman, an attorney, split her group into six committees ranging from political action to neighborhood-patrol committees.

More than 2,000 flyers were stuffed in mailboxes, urging homeowners to report suspicious activity and sign up to help.

“We want everyone to pay attention that there’s an arsonist on the loose,” Newman said. “We want to let him know we’re watching,” she said.

Guards with security firms that patrol the neighborhood of expensive homes have been asked to look for signs of fire and arson, homeowners said.

Leaflets Planned

Pauline Newman said she will ask local stores for permission to place leaflets on cars. “I want to send a message to other people who live in fire areas that they can do something,” she said.

Her concern was obviously shared by others in the neighborhood.

“I have a wooden shake roof, and it scares the daylights out of me,” said neighbor Seltzer, an Encino Hills Drive resident of 13 years who is joining the neighborhood watch.

Encouraged by the turnout in Encino, Los Angeles fire officials said they will work with any homeowner groups interested in forming community fire watches.