Topanga Residents Say Karma, Grit Beat Fire : Canyon: Town center, most structures were spared. Some illegally hiked through state park to get home.

Flames singed the edges of its hot tubs and lapped at its front door, but this canyon known for bohemianism was alive and well Thursday, returning to normal with the same New Age cool and old-fashioned pluck that helped it beat the odds and a major fire once more.

Residents who had thumbed their noses at authority--illegally hiking through the state park to get home or refusing to evacuate--now thanked firefighters with homemade food and hot showers as they mulled over the good fortune that spared their town center and the bulk of their homes.

“It wasn’t luck--we actually have been preparing karmically for it for a long time,” said Lucile Yaney, owner of the Inn of the Seventh Ray, which remained closed for business Thursday but served free coffee and food to firefighters and victims.

About 350 buildings were damaged or destroyed in the blaze, which began Tuesday morning on Old Topanga Canyon Road, south of Mulholland Highway, and spread among more than 18,000 acres between Malibu and Pacific Palisades. Authorities were unable to say how many structures suffered damage within the boundaries of Topanga, whose town center and most populated areas were spared.

Though clearly sobered by the fire that tore through the canyon’s western side, residents spoke of the experience with a resolve that reflected their rustic community’s nonconformity.

“It never entered my mind that we wouldn’t survive,” said Mike Chipko, who relaxed with his wife, Robin, over breakfast Thursday morning on the patio of the Outside Inn.

Chipko, a horse breeder, sped home to Entrada Road from Griffith Park after learning of the fire Tuesday, promptly dropped a fire hose into his pool and began pumping 150 gallons a minute onto his shake roof and surrounding land. He, like scores of other Topangans, stayed put throughout the disaster to defend houses many of them built with their own hands.

“I didn’t want to leave the home I built and spent a decade putting together,” said Richard Lucinio, an engineer.

Some managed to appreciate the fire’s raw, mesmerizing beauty as they carefully kept tabs on its progress.

On Hillside Drive, on the unscathed eastern side of the canyon, residents gathered together for a pasta dinner, sipped wine and marveled at the fire dance from a terraced view as they organized a 24-hour phone tree to warn each other if necessary.

“If you gotta put up with this, you may as well enjoy it,” said 30-year canyon resident Doug Kirby, a former forestry firefighter whose insouciance helped quell neighbors’ fears.

“When your adrenals slow down a little bit you can appreciate what’s happening,” Kirby said.

South of Kirby’s home, off Entrada Road, psychiatrist/songwriter Peter Alsop watched the fire from his back-yard hot tub, keeping an eye on the 100-or-so houses between his own and the flames.

“I was thinking that this has got to be the ultimate California experience,” he said.

Others made their stand in a grittier way--hiking through Topanga State Park to reach their homes after access by car was cut off.

One resident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared being fined by park rangers, said he and a neighbor defied authorities and entered the park in Pacific Palisades after they met each other in a traffic jam on the Pacific Coast Highway.

Finding a little-known, unofficial entrance, they crawled through a mile-and-a-half of thick brush on their hands and knees, then hiked and jogged the remaining four miles home on a fire road, he said.

It took about three hours, he said, adding that they faced the risk of getting trapped in fire “to try to save our homes and our families.”

“I grew up in this canyon,” he said. “I have been through a dozen fires in the canyon, and I know the difference between saving your house and not in a remote area like this is being there.”

As some firefighters continued to drop water on smoldering embers above the Fernwood Pacific section of Topanga on Thursday, residents gathered outside the post office and cheered wildly as busloads of departing, out-of-state firefighters passed them by.

“Thank you! Thank you so much!” screamed Marie Wilkins, whose home narrowly survived on Red Rock Road. Though obviously grateful to firefighters, she also credited her statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary with staving off the flames.

“She was the one thing burned and it was the back of her. The rest of her was looking on my house,” Wilkins said. “I said, ‘Oh, I’m building a shrine!’ ”

Many canyon landmarks remained closed for business--the Inn of the Seventh Ray, Rocco’s Italian restaurant and Sassafras Farm and Nursery. But the Cypress Cafe was preparing to reopen, the Outside Inn and Chill Out Cafe were in full swing and Elysium Fields, the nudist colony, was offering its showers and pool to anyone shut out of their home or simply in need of a little relaxation.

Said Elysium founder Ed Langue: “We were horrified we had to put on our clothes to escape the flames.”

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Times staff writer Tracey Kaplan contributed to this story.