Topanga Spotters Defend Canyon From Brush Fires : Patrols: Arson watchers maintain vigil and take note of odd occurrences. The volunteers also educate the public on dangers of blazes.

From their perch at the intersection of Saddle Peak and Stunt roads, high above Malibu and the San Fernando Valley, Fred Walecki and Michael Georgiades nodded at each other instinctively, each having noticed the beat-up black station wagon with Oregon plates.

“DPT 265!” Georgiades called out as Walecki jotted it down, old partners working in unison.

“Out of state,” Walecki explained to cub arson-watcher Judy Levine. “After who-knows-whatever happens, all those little numbers we have could make sense.”

And so it went this week, as the volunteer members of Topanga’s Arson Watch tooled around in search of the suspicious, defending their canyon against would-be arsonists and the dreaded brush fires that have consumed too many Southern California hillsides.

Although Topanga’s rugged landscape is “ripe for an Oakland or a Laguna,” as Arson Watch coordinator Allen Emerson puts it, his well-organized network of busybodies is credited with saving the eclectic community from any major fires since its inception 11 years ago.

Mainly, it’s the deterrent effect of vehicles with red-and-white Arson Watch signs on their sides and occupants armed with binoculars, radios and note pads. Mobilized on “red flag” days with high fire potential, such as Santa Ana weather or the Fourth of July, arson watchers work in pairs--one to drive and run the radio and one to observe and take notes.

Seasoned arson watchers know the innocuous can suddenly turn incendiary: smoking outdoors and using blowtorches on a windy day; hikers leaving marked trails for illicit campsites and campfires, and cars or motorcycles parked on brush rather than pavement, because the heat from catalytic converters can start fires.

Most of the group’s 75 members know the canyon so well that they can easily tell what’s kosher and what’s not, who looks suspicious and who’s merely eccentric--not always easy in laissez-faire Topanga.

“It’s a mobile, neighborhood watch,” said Emerson, a retired actor and innkeeper.

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The last, truly big brush fires in Topanga were in the 1970s, according to Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Mike Johnson, including one in October, 1973, which burned more than 2,500 acres, from the Trippet Ranch headquarters of Topanga State Park to the ocean and back to Tuna Canyon. No homes were lost, and no one was injured.

A November, 1977, fire consumed four homes and 1,200 acres of brush.

Of course, Topanga still has its share of starts, baby brush fires that are quickly “knocked down” in firefighters’ parlance. But, Johnson notes that in the five years that Arson Watch has patrolled remote motor ways and lookout points on July 4th, “We haven’t had a single start.”

“I can tell you--Arson Watch is effective,” said Johnson, who works out of the Topanga firehouse opposite the canyon’s landmark health food and video stores.

With the winds down and humidity up on Thursday, Arson Watch members were able to breathe a little easier and take a short break at the Outside Inn, a local cafe. The 68-year-old Emerson--who clocked 14-hour days during the height of the fires on Tuesday and Wednesday--was joined by rock musician Georgiades, musical instrument purveyor Walecki and a new member, contractor Tim McDaniel.

It was Emerson’s vivid memories of a 1960’s brush fire in Laurel Canyon, where he was living at the time, that prompted him to get involved in Arson Watch. The program, begun by actor Buddy Ebsen in 1982 after he nearly lost his Liberty Canyon ranch, has chapters in Agoura, Malibu, Chatsworth and Calabasas, and operates under the auspices of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which investigates arson.

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Fire memories also drew Walecki, who grew up in Westwood and remembers seeing “people walking the streets in their bathrobes” after the Bel Air fire of 1961, which destroyed 484 homes.

As a smoker himself, the 47-year-old Walecki takes a diplomatic approach. Headed home from patrol one night this week, he passed a man having a beer and a cigarette at the popular Saddle Peak Lookout. Like any arson-watcher worth his salt, he pulled over.

But, instead of subjecting the guy to the rantings of a zealot, he pretended to want a smoke himself--then stopped before lighting up.

“Oh, I better not smoke outside,” Walecki muttered, immediately getting the stranger’s attention and giving himself an opening to discuss the fire hazards of Santa Ana weather. He even noted a street sign knocked down by the force of the winds.

“Oh, I’m glad you stopped,” the man said.

McDaniel, who grew up in Topanga, said he never misses a chance to educate the public. When an acquaintance, smoking outdoors at a brush-laden construction site, recently asked him, “So tell me about that Arson Watch thing,” McDaniel said he replied:

“Put out that cigarette and I’ll tell you!”

For those who think such precautions should be obvious, Georgiades has this observation: “Common sense isn’t all that common.”

With that view of reality in mind, he and Walecki had a quick cigarette (safely inside their pickup) and set out on patrol, ever alert for careless construction workers or smokers, cars without license plates and oddballs.

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No lack of those in these hills--as in the case of an old, black Cadillac driven by a man in a black cowboy hat with feathers. The car caught the eye of arson watcher Jim King--especially after it drove west on Saddle Peak Road after heading east just minutes before.

“Now, that’s a little suspicious to me, to go that way and then this way,” King said, aiming his binoculars down the road.

But that one was OK. It was another Topangan, a backup blues musician easily recognized by Walecki and Georgiades.