Fire-Ravaged Area Celebrates Its Rebuilding

Streets were blocked off and fire trucks were lined up end-to-end in Baldwin Hills Estates on Saturday. But this time there was no inferno of smoke and flame choking the hilltops and no hapless homeowners begging in vain for someone to save their homes.

All that is a vivid but receding memory for homeowners who held a festive block party to celebrate the restoration of a neighborhood devastated by a arson-caused brush fire that took three lives and destroyed 48 homes on July 2 three years ago.

“You are showing a little fire can’t get you down,” Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) told a crowd of about 200 at the intersection of Don Carlos and Don Diego drives, which was at the center of the battle against the fire. Around her, razed homes and vacant lots had been replaced by newly built, freshly painted hilltop houses worth about $400,000 each.

The block party was sponsored by the Baldwin Hills Homeowners Assn. as a way of saying thanks to the burned-out homeowners, who did not let the fire drive them away. Instead of sliding into a slow decline, the neighborhood has rebounded. Only a few vacant lots are left, and the sound of hammering could be heard up and down the street as houses were being completed.

“What we’re here to celebrate is putting it all back together again,” said City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter.

Residents said things looked about the same as they had, maybe even better. The only difference is that the roofs all gleam with tile or stone; no shake roofs could be seen. “Noooo,” said Mary Bryant in a scolding voice. “That’s the reason why our houses burned” the first time.

The “Welcome Home Neighbors” ceremony, featuring Gospel music and hot dogs, also included awards for police and fire personnel who fought the blaze that day. Police Officers Ray Denton and Mike Gurr were cheered roundly for saving the life of a woman who had been trapped in her bedroom by flames. Both policemen were hospitalized for burns and smoke inhalation.

Firefighters also were applauded, although some injured feelings were still left over from the criticism aimed at them at the time, when some residents felt that fire trucks took too long to get to the scene. Bryant and her friend Violet Teasley even declined to join in on a standing ovation, remembering how they pleaded with passing firefighters to stop and save their homes. “I begged them to put out my fire; they didn’t answer me,” Teasley said. She said she later heard that there was a shortage of water pressure.

Feelings Forgotten

Most such hard feelings seemed to have been forgotten, however, as the residents and the safety workers shared orange drinks and memories. Los Angeles County Firefighter Specialist Tommy Orso, who was shown in television news reports at the time standing on the roof of a house keeping the flames at bay, received a hug for his efforts from Purnell Lee.

“I told him I heard one of the firemen was on the roof,” she said. “He told me he was the one. That’s when I automatically hugged him.”

“I was just doing my job,” he said. But he admitted that the hug “made me feel great, really good.”

The pain associated with re-building was not so easily forgotten. Maple Hamilton was not so sure about returning; she feared another fire. Her neighbors, she said, talked her into staying.

No Thought of Leaving

Geraldine White was forced to obtain a $120,000 loan to finish rebuilding, because her insurance did not cover the full cost of replacing her house. But she never thought of abandoning the area for more reasonable housing.

“I like the neighborhood. It’s convenient to everything,” she said. “I like my community.”