In Hot Pursuit

DeeAnn Nelson peered intently Tuesday at the goop-stained fire patrol truck rumbling down a blackened rustic trail off a Calabasas peak. Suddenly, in a flash of recognition, she hollered, “That’s my Mac! That’s my hero!”

At the wheel was Los Angeles County Firefighter Tom McGuire. The two had met the day before, after Nelson, 50, narrowly escaped the raging brush fire by riding bareback on a horse, dodging 12-foot-high flames. McGuire, 43, was alone on a peak when he heard Nelson’s cries for help.

The emotional bonding of reunited strangers matched the mood throughout the rugged mountain region Tuesday as day broke on a blue-gray shroud of low-lying smoke in Las Virgenes Canyon.

Residents shuffled through smoldering embers, surveying damage that crept within inches of hundreds of homes. A few--the most unlucky--picked through the rubble of what had been their homes. Some shared bales of hay with horse-keeping neighbors.

One man, whose home burned to the ground, spent time Tuesday fetching his yellow Rolls Royce, saved by a friend. “We’re all in a kind of state of shock,” said another.

And so it went along roads in the once-tranquil rural area, home to a conglomeration of residents from pioneer homesteaders to the nouveau riche. As devastating brush fires continued to rage in Malibu and elsewhere, threatening lives and homes, Calabasas residents on Tuesday were on the mend.

The damage left behind by Monday’s blaze was two homes, one mobile home and two caretaker trailers completely destroyed, along with uncounted sheds, outbuildings, vehicles and farm equipment. Plastic-board fencing lining the roads was contorted and twisted by the heat. Smoke still rose from stacks of smoldering hay, straw horse bedding and wood shavings.

Still, many counted themselves lucky.

At the end of rugged Stokes Canyon Road, Karen and Daniel Miller returned Tuesday morning to the house that Karen’s grandfather built in 1945. Flames still danced from what had been a stack of books in the den. Their children, Christine, 14, and Vincent, 12, unsuccessfully searched for remnants of their CD and other collections.

“The fire came so fast, there wasn’t time to save anything,” said Christine, who had found the family’s dogs but was still worried about the five cats.

The Millers, both postal workers, had no insurance on the house. It was built in segments over the years, largely without permits, they said. They lost heirlooms of table china, African spears and other family mementos. Several vehicles parked on the property were destroyed.

“At least everybody is healthy,” Daniel Miller said.

Nelson, who lives in a trailer on the 60-acre ranch with the Millers and their relatives, said she was the last to escape the compound. She jumped onto her 13-year-old mare and, seeing the only road out blocked by flames, turned and raced back into the mountains, with her 8-year-old gelding following them on his own.

“I thought I never was going to make it,” Nelson said. “The noise was crackling and popping all around us. My hair and the horses’ coats were getting singed. But my mare just kept going. She saved my life.”

Lloyd Smith, 56, a relative of the Millers who also lives on the grounds, said he was away when the fire started but managed to get through fire lines back to the ranch after everyone else left. He said no one, including firefighters, was around when he reached the ranch just in time to see the propane tank next to the house explode.

“It was a great big whooshing sound,” said Smith, who described running for a fire hose attached to a nearby hydrant. But he said he couldn’t get the hose to work and watched as the house finally ignited, then burned to the ground.

At the other end of Stokes Canyon, on a hill with a commanding view of the Santa Monica Mountains, lay the ashes of a mobile home where Mark and Juana Gardiel lived for 14 years. The couple worked for the owners of the 300-acre Malibu Valley Farm, Mark as manager of the vast horse ranch and Juana as a secretary in the firm’s engineering office.

Although their home was destroyed, Mark Gardiel and his crew of workers were busy Tuesday putting out fires still smoldering in the stacks of hay, straw bedding and wood shavings outside horse stalls.

Two other caretaker trailers, just a short distance from an evacuated horse barn, also were lost.

Only stone and brick posts, along with an elaborate fireplace and waterfall, remained of a futuristic-style house at 15750 Mulholland Highway. Built in 1971, the house was owned by James W. Kirk of West Palm Beach, Fla., but had been rented for about a year by Oliver Bendig, an auto exporter.

Bendig said he was out shopping with a friend on Monday when he returned home to find the fire fast approaching. “We rushed in and got a few things,” he said. “There was not much time. I wanted to get out of there.”

He said his friend drove a Rolls Royce to a safer place as Bendig got his two horses out of the small corral at the rear of the house. Bendig rode one and led the other out to Mulholland Highway, where he spotted a few people. “I asked a woman if she knew how to ride. She said ‘yes,’ so she rode the other horse for me.”

Bendig got the horses to safety and his Rolls was untouched. But his Dodge pickup truck, parked outside the house, was in charred ruins and few items in the collapsed house were even recognizable on Tuesday. “I lost everything,” Bendig said.

At Arthur E. Wright Middle School in Calabasas, meanwhile, life was returning to normal. On Monday, flames scorched the hills along Las Virgenes Road in front of the campus and forced school administrators to quickly evacuate students to nearby Agoura Hills High School.

“By fifth period, the whole school was covered with smoke and ashes were getting in people’s eyes,” said Alana Allegro, 12, of Agoura.

“It looked like a mosh pit at the phones,” according to Lauren Kriddle, 13.

“Kids were fighting to call their parents.”

“Some kids were crying,” added Sam Havens, a seventh-grader from Calabasas.

But for the most part, according to children and parents, the evacuation Monday came off without a hitch.

The children were fine, said Anita Kaller of Calabasas. But her son feared that she wouldn’t be able to handle the stress, telling her: “I was worried about you because I thought you would panic.”