Triumph and Tragedy on Fiery Mulholland

On this terrible Tuesday, twisting, turning Mulholland Highway--a Yellow Brick Road to million-dollar mansions in the mountainous west San Fernando Valley--was transformed into the Road to Hell’s Fury.

Just days after a series of firestorms had scarred the region, wind-whipped flames again roared unchecked across sections of Southern California, a rapidly advancing army of disaster. Its most awesome weapon was a blaze that took charge of the brush-covered canyons that stretch along Mulholland Highway from the Ventura Freeway in Calabasas south to Malibu.

All day Tuesday, as the flames drove southward, hundreds of residents, their cars stalled at police checkpoints, raced down the winding road on foot, hitching rides with the lucky few allowed to drive past the teeth of the fire line.

Like competitors in some life-or-death marathon, they ran to see for themselves whether they still had a home, or whether their dreams had indeed gone up in smoke and flames.

On this day, Mulholland Highway told the human tale of the winners and the losers, the heroes and the rest who survived the battle against an unbridled Mother Nature.

It showed residents who stood weeping on the road shoulder as the fire raged closer to their expansive ranches, split-level homes and horse farms. It showed the sooty-faced strangers who had come--shovels and picks in hand--survivors of the last round of fires, ready to do anything they could to help these canyon dwellers withstand this one.

Many of them, watching last week’s infernos spread devastation from Thousand Oaks to Laguna Beach, knew that the next fires could come their way--to the dry, crackly brush lands that surround their homes.

“We saw what happened to Laguna Beach and we were damned that it was going to happen to us,” said Larry Lobach as he and his wife, Susan, and daughter, Leslie, stood outside their Mulholland Drive home.

“We spent all last weekend cleaning the brush and the leaves away from the house. We watered things down. We did whatever we could.”

He hesitated, pulling the red handkerchief tighter across his mouth, watching the evil winds tease the fire that now lurked just across the road.

“But, no matter what you do, there’s really no way to prepare for a fire like this. You just pray it doesn’t turn on you , that’s what you do.”

Strangely, at high noon of his life’s most disastrous day, Irv Mann felt incredibly lucky. He had gotten through, even if it was on foot.

Moments earlier, he had sat in his car at the police checkpoint at Old Topanga Canyon Road and Mulholland Highway, watching helplessly as his neighbors were allowed to drive past.

But he was denied. He had no horses to rescue, the men in uniform explained. He could not drive his car any farther. He would have to wait.

So Mann abandoned his car and set off on foot. Then he began to run. He passed women in high heels and men in sweaty business suits, people who--like him--refused to take a wait-and-see attitude about the safety of their home.

“It was simply amazing,” Mann said to a driver who picked him up along the road’s edge. “They were like bouncers at a nightclub. They let some people go past. But they made others wait. It’s not fair.”

Above him, the smoke rose into the blue November sky like a flame-fed atomic cloud. On the Ventura Freeway, firetrucks raced along, 10 at a time, like a screaming army convoy.

On the shoulder of the road, distanced from the heat and the blinding smoke, motorists used binoculars to bear witness to the strange beauty of the billowing, dreamlike smoke cloud.

Watching the nearby hills, they commented that the smoke moved about like a cool morning mist. But this one was definitely hot. And its breath was deadly.

And in the belly of the beast, the view was anything but pretty.

Standing along the road with a homemade mask and hat, one man looked otherworldly as he hosed down his front yard, all the while watching testily as the fire burned just across the road.

“It’s gonna jump across the road and take my house, I just know it,” he cried. “I just know it.”

Just then, the flames reared and raced across the road.

“Go! Go! Go!!” the man yelled. And then he was gone, disappearing into the brush toward the front door of his home.

All along Mulholland Drive, people stood next to parked cars that carried the belongings they gathered in panic and dread. Their load was a strange one.

Wedding pictures. Leather belts. Business records. Pottery. Artwork. Computer files taken but the computer left behind.

Raoul Fima stood by the road drinking Miller Genuine Draft beer from a can. “I just moved here a month ago,” he said, wiping his mouth.

“I just bought this house. And here we are--in the middle of an inferno. I don’t know what we’re gonna do. If that house up there burns to the ground, I’m going to be ready for the nut house.”

Down the road, Sue Marcione stood with hoe in hand, looking like the farmer’s wife in “American Gothic.” Unlike the painting, there was a smile on her face.

The fire had raced past her house, just touching off a corner of the garage. But her husband, a local firefighter, had been prepared. He had cleared brush from the yard and purchased extra-large hoses. He put the fire out in moments.

“We got flooded out of here in 1980,” she said with a wince. “I’ll take a fire over a flood any old day. A fire you can control. But who can control a flood?”

Some neighbors weren’t so lucky. A man with eyes reddened by the smoke and his own tears walked his dog silently down Stunt Road. “Everything I have that’s insured is still standing,” he said. “The rest is gone.”

As the smoke-choked afternoon wore on, Mulholland Drive became an emergency freeway of firetrucks, police cars and motorcycles, animal control trucks and wild-eyed horses that had escaped from nearby stables. Planes with flame retardant swooped down from overhead.

This was war. And Bill Wales was one of its youngest volunteers.

The 14-year-old Chatsworth youth had helped his parents save their home from last week’s fire. And when he saw smoke Tuesday morning, he raced up to Mulholland Drive to see how he could help.

Now he and two other youths were hitchhiking up and down the road, helping residents pull horses from barns or water down their front-yard foliage.

“I came here to take pictures,” said 21-year-old Gregg Ouist, his white T-shirt gray with sweat and soot. “But when I got here, I saw people crying and losing everything they had ever worked for. I knew that it wasn’t the time to take pictures. It was time to pitch in and help.”

Still, no amount of help could salvage some houses.

Ashen-faced, Boyd Hollister listened to the firefighter explain the danger his family faced if they stayed to protect their home.

But they just couldn’t leave. Not yet. The fire was just across the street. They knew it was coming. They wanted to stay.

So they asked about the defense they could erect with a few water hoses and buckets of water.

It didn’t look good. But Hollister was ready to take the punches.

“It’s like any fight,” he said, still dressed in his white shirt and tie. “You don’t think much about it, or hurt much from it, until it’s over. It’s then that you think. It’s then that you hurt.”