Not Burned Again : Conservancy’s Lessons From ’93 Fire Helped in Defense of Park

It is a war without end, the fight against fire in the brush-filled parklands of the Santa Monica Mountains.

But using hard-won lessons, civilian employees of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy prevailed last week, joining firefighters to battle raging flames in a successful defense of Malibu’s Solstice Canyon Park.

“We took the initiative, and that’s why we were able to save park buildings,” said conservancy Executive Director Joseph Edmiston. “We depended on our own resources this time, as opposed to 1993, when we assumed someone would get to us.

“Even though we were right in the middle of the fire, the only thing we lost was a Porta Potti,” he said.

Three years ago, when fire swept through the mountains and canyons from Calabasas to the ocean, the park lost several buildings, including a nature center and a historic home.

That led the conservancy to upgrade its protection by adding an array of new weapons to its firefighting arsenal and by training virtually all its employees, from division chiefs to construction crews.

“We spent most of this summer drilling with the equipment at each one of our buildings, and everybody knew precisely what to do,” Edmiston said. When the Calabasas-Malibu fire roared through this past week, “everybody pulled together exactly as planned,” he said.

The agency spent more than $75,000 on four portable firefighting units--200-gallon water tanks and pumps that attach to park rangers’ pickup trucks.

In addition, each park building was equipped with its own water supply to feed those pumps, and each truck carried a special foam that was sprayed on buildings as the fire approached to provide temporary insulation against the heat.

The planning paid off when flames from last week’s fire threatened the Solstice Canyon Park visitors center; Malibu’s oldest building, the 1865 Stone House; and a former TRW research building, called the “silo,” where pioneer satellite tests were conducted.

Park crews were assisted by Ventura County firefighters, who arrived about 15 minutes before the park was encircled by flames, Edmiston said. “They literally drove in with flames burning about three feet from their truck as they came through the canyon.”

It took park firefighters only minutes to swing into action, once they saw the flames cresting the ridge along Solstice Canyon.

“It took about two hours to burn down to us, then all of a sudden it arrived, this 100-foot wall of flame,” Edmiston said. “It’s a pretty amazing sight and feeling to face those flames.”

It wasn’t all high-tech equipment that saved park buildings. “We also used some old fire engines that had been retired by other departments, which we’d purchased for a song and rehabilitated,” Edmiston said.

When the 1993 blaze struck, more than 850 of the conservancy’s 5,000 acres burned. The losses included the nature center near Cold Creek, a ranger’s residence and a 105-year-old historic house at Stunt Ranch.

“Those were great losses, dramatic losses,” Edmiston said. “When we lose something, we don’t go back and rebuild. We try . . . but the cost of that is usually prohibitive.

“We learned that the initial response would have to be with our own personnel, given the fact that the fire departments are primarily concerned with protecting residential areas,” he said.

Last week’s fire came as no surprise to park officials accustomed to the unrelenting attacks by one of nature’s fiercest foes.

“All of our crews are on duty this weekend,” said Walt Young, supervising ranger. “In fact, we’re up and running in the fire business until we have at least a half inch of rain.”

Each fire is a learning experience, Young said, and each time, the agency hopes to be better prepared for battle.

He said the new equipment made the difference between saving structures and watching them burn because the specially equipped pickup trucks were small enough to navigate narrow roads too large for regular firetrucks.

“When it came to defense of the Stone House, our pickup could safely get in, turn around and get out in an area where a conventional firetruck never could,” Young said. “So we could fight the fire aggressively, and safely.

“We got hit pretty hard, but we were ready. And we’re still ready . . . and waiting.”