Fire Forces Evacuation of Apartments

A brush fire in a rugged hillside neighborhood late Thursday sent 150 residents scurrying from their homes and snarled traffic along busy Ventura Boulevard before it was contained about an hour later.

The flames scorched about 15 acres of the area known as Chalk Hill, starting about 8:15 p.m. There were no injuries and no structures were damaged.

The cause of the fire, which began at a cul-de-sac at Kelvin Avenue and De la Guerra Street, had not been determined, fire officials at the scene said.

More than 13 engine companies and four water-dropping helicopters quickly doused the flames, which could be seen from more than four miles away. A half-mile section of Ventura Boulevard was closed west of Winnetka Avenue.

The fire came within 30 feet of the Viewpointe Apartments, where residents were evacuated.

“This is the closest a fire has ever been to my house. It was nerve-racking there for a while,” said Chad Sesser, 23, as he waited outside the complex to reenter after the flames had been knocked down.

His friend, Jeff Ellis, ran to the back of the building with an off-duty fireman who lives in the complex, found the sprinkler box, broke it open and turned on the sprinklers on the hillside immediately in back of the building.

At the nearby Kol Tikvah Temple, one mother ran up the hill at Winnetka Avenue to learn if her 16-year-old daughter enrolled in Hebrew school was safe. When the girl emerged from the front doors, Miri Vernia let out a huge sigh, wrapped her arms around her daughter and said, “Let’s go home.”

Then she added, in reference to the traffic, “I wonder how we’ll get home.”

But daughter Danna Vernia seemed unfazed by the flames that were darting into the sky less than a mile from the rear window of the temple.

“It happens all the time in L.A.,” Danna said.

“We’re used to disasters,” she said as the smell of cinders wafted through the air.

Firefighters were expected to spend the night cleaning up.