Malibu Homes Burn; University Threatened : Residents Flee String of Brush Fires Whipped by Winds; Man Dies in Attempt to Save House

A string of dangerous brush fires exploded along the dry slopes of the Santa Monica Mountains above Malibu on Monday, destroying several homes and driving canyon residents from their homes as Santa Ana winds gusted up to 50 m.p.h. and whipped the flames to the Pacific, where they threatened Pepperdine University and the exclusive Malibu Colony.

The Pepperdine area blaze grew dramatically late in the day, crossed a ridge and charged down to Pacific Coast Highway, where it destroyed several plant nurseries. Five homes were burned in the 24900 block of that major coastal artery.

Flames reportedly scorched the home of the university president, Dr. David Davenport, and burned to within a short distance of student dormitories. There were rumors among fleeing students that the president’s home had burned and that faculty condominiums were afire, but county fire officials said nothing on campus was destroyed.

‘Limited Damage’

Mike Adams, vice president for university affairs, said that students, staff and faculty members had been evacuated safely and that some would be moving back onto campus later in the evening. The university will operate normally today, he said.

“There has been some limited damage to the university’s grounds,” Adams said, “but we feel very fortunate that there was no damage beyond that.”

As flames reached to within a quarter of a mile of the Pepperdine campus, students began to pack their bags and leave.

Along Pacific Coast Highway, residents watched anxiously as the fire front moved down the hillsides toward Malibu Colony, where many film figures have beach homes.

At least four homes and a garage were reported destroyed in Decker Canyon as an even larger fire swept through that area.

Fires also erupted in Box Canyon in the Santa Susana Pass area near the Ventura County line, in Agoura, in the La Tuna Canyon area near Sunland and in the Angeles National Forest west of Mt. Baldy Village. Still others broke out in Ventura County, including one between Ojai and Santa Paula that destroyed six structures and was threatening others.

And shortly after 10 p.m., yet another blaze erupted, this time in the Montecito Heights area of Los Angeles, east of the Pasadena Freeway. Twenty city Fire Department engine companies and three helicopters pounced on the flames in the 500 block of East Fenn Street, but five structures, including at least two residences, were destroyed before the 15-acre fire was contained, officials said. No serious injuries were reported.

One man died of an apparent heart attack while watering down the roof of his home in Box Canyon, authorities said. There were no other reports of fatalities. One firefighter was reported injured in the Malibu area.

By late Monday evening, the erratic winds had calmed for the night and most of the fires were relatively quiet, but Capt. Gordon Pearson, county fire information officer, said the winds are expected to return today and it is anticipated that humidity will be about 2%--a perilously low reading.

After a strategy meeting by fire officials, Pearson said that a fire retardant chemical was being stockpiled for a “massive” assault at daybreak today with helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft on the two major fires still burning out of control in the Malibu area.

The largest of those blazes had flared in the Decker Canyon area from near Mulholland Highway to the ocean, crossing Pacific Coast Highway at Leo Carrillo State Beach and burning more than 3,500 acres of dry brush.

Third Malibu Fire

The other fire, the Piuma blaze, was the one that marched down on Pepperdine and toward Malibu Colony, reaching Pacific Coast Highway and burning homes and structures west of the Malibu Civic Center. It had burned over 2,000 acres by Monday night.

A third Malibu area fire, which began in Malibu Creek State Park not far from the Piuma fire, never reached dangerous proportions and was virtually contained after burning about 75 acres.

As is common when the Santa Anas gust in the Southland, firefighting efforts were hampered by the erratic winds, extremely dry chaparral indigenous to the hillside areas and the lack of moisture in the air. The humidity dropped to as low as 9% Monday, the National Weather Service said.

Until the threats to Pepperdine and Malibu Colony, the principal danger was posed by the fire that broke out about midday near Mulholland Highway and Encinal Canyon Road. It was driven by wind gusts on a widening front south and west in the Decker Canyon area to jump Pacific Coast Highway at Leo Carrillo State Beach.

In addition to the four houses and a garage had been destroyed in the Decker Canyon area, a mobile home park was threatened.

The 3,000-acre Decker Canyon fire advanced on a widening front down the slopes to jump Pacific Coast Highway about 3:30 p.m. as fire officials massed personnel and equipment in the area in a desperate effort to stop the flames. Four strike teams from various cities were deployed along the beach.

Smoke was so black that motorists on Pacific Coast Highway could not see without headlights. Fierce winds sent sparks and embers streaming across the highway toward the beach.

Evacuees along Pacific Coast Highway cheered the helicopters that fluttered in low to drop loads of water on the leaping flames. California Highway Patrol officers told the spectators over loudspeakers, “If you don’t have business in the area, move on.”

During the afternoon, the California Highway Patrol said evacuations were ordered north of Encinal Canyon Road.

Strike teams from El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Hawthorne, Long Beach, Montebello, Arcadia, Sierra Madre and Torrance helped Los Angeles city and county firefighters on the various Malibu fire fronts. Los Angeles County prisoners also were aiding the battle.

By early evening, there were more than 1,000 firefighters on the ground and six helicopters were hitting the flames with water drops.

Charlotte Podrat and an employee of her ranch on Decker School Lane were aided by firefighters in spraying down a corral in an effort to save about a dozen horses during the afternoon onslaught of flames. “We saved the house,” she said. But she thought she had lost a couple of the horses.

On Decker Road, Rhett Hatfield, 34, and his daughter, Nicole, began gathering personal possessions and household pets to evacuate but were advised by firefighters to remain where they were rather than risk the roads. The advice turned out to be good. The flames swept around their home and went on.

Traveling the roads was hazardous. The wind was changing direction so much that flames would double back on themselves to burn trees or brush they had missed the first time.

The Decker Canyon blaze was being fought by firefighters and equipment from the Los Angeles County, Los Angeles City and Ventura County departments. Four aerial tankers were also thrown into the fray during the early afternoon.

As the flames moved to within a quarter of a mile of the Pepperdine campus, about 300 students gathered with packed bags in the field house, waiting for orders to leave.

“At the start,” said Jim Howey, a 19-year-old Pepperdine freshman, “everyone was joking around. Some people were playing songs on their stereos like ‘Burning Down Your House’ by the Talking Heads. But then everyone was running around when it got close.”

Large columns of black smoke billowed into the sky from the hills behind Pepperdine University, where a command post was set up for all three Malibu area fires.

Through Traffic Halted

Roads between Pacific Coast Highway and Mulholland were closed to through traffic. These included Piuma, Encinal Canyon, Decker and Trancas Canyon Roads. Westbound lanes of Pacific Coast Highway were closed at Encinal Canyon Road. Mulholland was closed at Pacific Coast Highway. Traffic was backed up for miles along Pacific Coast Highway.

As more than 500 people were evacuated from homes in the Malibu area, evacuation centers were set up at Malibu Civic Center, 25325 Civic Center Way; Malibu Park Junior High School, 30215 Morningside Drive, and County Fire Stations 71 and 99, both on Pacific Coast Highway near the Sheriff’s Malibu Station. By early evening, only the center at Malibu Civic Center had received any evacuees--about 30 of them.

A Santa Monica-Malibu School District official said there would be no classes today at Malibu Park School and Webster Elementary School because of the fires. Janice Walker added that the district would not be providing bus transportation for Malibu residents who attend Santa Monica High School.

Twenty-six people were treated for smoke inhalation and eye injuries at the Malibu Emergency Center, but there were no major injuries.

A group of Pepperdine students huddled near the Colony Market on Pacific Coast Highway. One young woman was telephoning her parents from a pay phone--clutching a teddy bear and weeping.

Because of power lines burned out in the area, the hills were dark except for the line of orange flame stretching from Cross Creek Road to the Pepperdine campus.

Ordered to Leave Home

Edward and Leslie Boyes said they stayed with their home on Pacific Coast Highway, just west of Malibu Colony, hosing it down in an effort to save it. But as two palm trees and a fence went up in flames, they were ordered by firefighters to leave.

Later, they learned their house had been saved. They screamed and hugged each other.

A brush fire swept down out of the hills back of Malibu in 1978, crossing the highway to burn about two dozen homes at Trancas Beach. And, although the recent Sherwood fire burned to within a short distance of the area being swept on Monday, this was the first time Decker Canyon had been burned since the 1930s.

Because of the sequence in which the Malibu area flames erupted from east to west, officials were asked about the possibility of arson. Pearson said sheriff’s arson investigators were looking into it but could not yet say anything definite. The Piuma Road fire, he said, might have been started by a downed transformer.

As the capricious winds whipped into the Los Angeles Basin, other blazes broke out in La Tuna Canyon in the Sunland area, Box Canyon in the Santa Susana Pass area and west of Mt. Baldy Village in the Angeles National Forest.

5 Homes Threatened

The La Tuna Canyon fire broke out at about 9:30 a.m, and flames were driven by 35 m.p.h. winds across about 100 acres of brush within an hour. Five homes were threatened but none was damaged, according to Los Angeles City Fire spokesman Larry Ford. Fourteen fire engines and three helicopters battled the flames, putting them out by 11 a.m.

The Box Canyon fire in Ventura County near Chatsworth had burned more than 700 acres. About 200 firefighters were on that blaze, the Simi Valley Fire Department said. It was declared 85% contained by 9 p.m.

A 65-year-old man suffered an apparent heart attack while hosing down the roof of his home, an elaborate structure complete with moat and drawbridge and known as “The Castle,” in the 400 block of Box Canyon Road. Johannes S. Leembruggen was pronounced dead on arrival at Simi Valley Adventist Hospital.

About 200 residents of the area were evacuated but were able to return to their homes in an hour or so. The flames reached the grounds of the Rocketdyne test facility but did no damage there.

About 75 acres were burned a couple of miles west of Mt. Baldy Village in the Cow Canyon area, but no structures were threatened there. High winds and heavy smoke precluded the use of aircraft and more ground crews were dispatched to aid the 10 engine companies and two hand crews already working. The fire was controlled by about 2 p.m.

Smaller Brush Fires

Another blaze broke out in the Angeles National Forest near Mt. Gleason, where about 40 acres burned but no structures were damaged.

And shortly after 11 p.m., fire erupted in the South Hills Park section of Glendora, north of the Foothill Freeway. Los Angeles County fire officials said the blaze had blackened about 200 acres and was threatening some homes.

There was a brush fire near Agoura High School and two others west of the Box Canyon blaze in Ventura County. One of those was at Tapo Canyon, just north of the Simi Freeway and west of Bennett Road. It had burned more than 1,000 acres by late Monday.

A 15-year-old Agoura Hills boy reportedly was arrested on suspicion of arson after someone reported seeing him set the fire at 28620 Conejo Valley Drive in that community. That fire was held to half an acre by firefighters. He was not believed connected with the other fires.

The fire between near Ojai was moving through heavy brushland in Santa Paula and Wheeler Canyons, Ventura County fire officials said. By late Monday, six structures had been destroyed and others were in the path of the flames, they added.

A fire in Ventura County’s Moorpark, which began in the Peach Hill area, moved toward several homes, but fire-resistant roofs appeared to have saved the structures. The blaze destroyed about 350 acres of brush.

Contributing to the Southland fire coverage were Times staff writers Bob Baker, Jerry Belcher, Edward J. Boyer, Greg Braxton, Marita Hernandez, Rosalva Hernandez, Nieson Himmel, Marc Igler, John Kendall, James Rainey, Michael Seiler, Douglas Smith, Ronald L. Soble and Ted Thackery.