The Southland Firestorms: Week Two : 5 Escape in Evacuation of Probation Facility

When authorities ordered the boys at Camp Gonzales, a probation camp for serious juvenile offenders, to flee Tuesday’s fire, five of the boys held there went too far. They fled.

The five escapees were among 116 boys, 16 to 18 years old, who were evacuated from the walled-in camp about noon, just an hour before the camp lost telephone lines and electric power.

The five boys apparently rushed out of a school bus as the vehicle stopped after coming off the Foothill Freeway on its way to the San Fernando Valley Juvenile Hall in Sylmar, said Paul Higa, chief of the Los Angeles County Probation Department’s institutions.

Higa said several probation officers who were on the bus gave chase but were unable to catch them. Probation officers and the Los Angeles Police Department were searching for the boys Tuesday night.

It was midmorning Tuesday when officials at Camp Gonzales, nestled in the hills off Las Virgenes Road, saw flames within four miles of the center. The camp had drawn out detailed evacuation plans more than a week ago.

“The fire was in sight, we felt the winds and they were coming in our direction,” Higa said. “The winds were so unpredictable so we felt we needed to evacuate.”

About noon, several school buses and vans began arriving inside the center, which is enclosed by 15-foot-high walls. The school buses were privately operated and were not secured like county vans, Higa said.

“Our vehicles also rode into sight, but because of the traffic ours weren’t first to arrive. We evacuated on the first vehicle that arrived,” Higa said. “It was done in the haste of the moment.”

Camp Gonzales houses boys who have committed serious crimes against people and property. Two other camps run by the probation department near the fire zone, camps Kilpatrick and Miller, both in Malibu, were on alert but not evacuated as of late Tuesday.