‘Looky-Loos’ Come to the Canyons to See for Themselves : Aftermath: Some want to find out what’s become of familiar places. But only residents and crews are allowed in.

They came in hiking boots and heels, Jaguars and Jeeps. On this first weekend after, with green hills gone gray and mansions reduced to rubble, they lined up at lookout points to see the fire’s destruction firsthand.

“Yeah, we’re looky-loos,” said Wayne Croskrey of Newbury Park, who came with his wife, Marie, on Saturday to check on a friend’s home and view the overall devastation. “This is just too much,” he said, surveying the stark scene from Saddle Peak and Stunt roads.

“It just looks like somebody dropped a bomb on us. It’s just so cold--it looks like death to me,” Croskrey said. “It used to be so beautiful up here. It just makes you want to cry.”

Several residents of the hard-hit Santa Monica Mountains area said they resented the idea of outsiders coming in to gawk at their misery and feared some might be looters. “Owners on premises. Looters will be SHOT on sight!!” warned one sign hastily posted on private Mildas Drive.

But gawkers themselves said they were drawn by an irresistible urge to view the awesome power of nature and revisit familiar territory so dramatically changed.

“Most people are not bad-intentioned for the most part,” said E.J. Hofer, one of several California Highway Patrol officers who were turning away all but residents and utility crews at several mountain road checkpoints. “They’ve heard about this devastation and want to get a look at it.”

That’s why Scott Thomas Richards, a singer who lives in Canoga Park, got on his bicycle and peddled from the San Fernando Valley floor all the way up Stunt Road to the Saddle Peak Lookout.

“I wondered what it looked like. It was so beautiful before,” Richards said. He described what he found as “a freak show, like something out of the ‘Planet of the Apes.’ ”

More than one spectator said the charred landscape resembled the aftermath of a nuclear war or volcanic eruption.

“We went to Hawaii and took a tour of the lava flow and it looks exactly like that--it’s just total devastation. It’s just amazing,” said Aaron Marcarelli, who bought a throw-away camera to capture the scene so he wouldn’t be tagged as a tourist.

Because his parents live in Malibu, Marcarelli was able to use their address to gain access to the canyon roads. Their house in Malibu Sea View Estates survived, he said.

Lucien Bauer, who owns an acre of ocean-view property in western Topanga Canyon, also fared well because he has yet to build his dream house. In retrospect, he mused, the tedious process of getting construction permits was a boon.

“Maybe I wasn’t supposed to build till afterwards,” the Rocketdyne administrator said philosophically. With a video camera slung over one shoulder and a still camera over the other, Bauer marveled over what saved one house over another.

“You can see the advantage of having ice plant at that place,” he said, “and the hill over there was just bulldozed off--you can see how that stopped it.”

Gwilym McGrew of Woodland Hills came with his daughter, Colleen, 7, and son James, 5, to see what happened to the Calabasas nature preserve where they often hiked.

“It’s all burnt!” Colleen said.

“It’s totally barren,” agreed her father. “All our landmarks are gone forever.

“There’s a spot there where every February you could see thousands and thousands of ladybugs; the plants they landed on turned completely red,” McGrew said.

The family plans to go back this February to see if the ladybugs return, too, he said.

Residents and police, meanwhile, said contractors were starting to swarm the hills in search of work.

But one contractor who came Saturday armed with leaflets for solar water heaters said he did not view himself as an opportunist.

“I feel like I’m doing them a favor,” said Eric Wedell of Van Nuys.

“I’m offering them a good deal on a water heater that won’t blow up like a propane tank. In fact, one of my customers lives right down there on Mulholland and her house didn’t burn.”

Wedell said he also just wanted to see what had happened to an area he knows well.

“I was just up here two weeks ago,” he said. “It’s pretty different now.”

Croskrey is also a contractor but said he wasn’t in search of customers Saturday. “It’s a little early for that. People don’t want to see that now,” he said.

His wife, who is from Sweden, said they came mainly to look at something they may never see again.

“I’ve never seen anything like this; it’s pretty amazing. We don’t have fires like this in Sweden,” she said. “If they put the arsonist in a room with all 350 people who lost their homes--that’d be something, wouldn’t it?”