Malibu Fires Put Palisades On Alert

Sunset Mesa Prepared to Evacuate; PCH Reopened Wednesday

As fires erupted in Malibu beginning early Sunday morning churning large black and gray plumes of smoke up and then out over Santa Monica Bay, city emergency response crews readied Pacific Palisades against the impact of the conflagration. But by Tuesday morning, the L.A. Fire Department and LAPD scaled back their operations in the Palisades when the risk from Malibu’s Canyon Fire waned with weakened Santa Ana winds. ‘Normal operations’ have resumed at the Palisades’ two fire stations, 23 and 69, but they remain on ‘high alert,’ according to fire officials there. “We’re still in a ready state of preparedness,” said Captain Armando Hogan, LAFD’s spokesman, on Wednesday. “But the winds have died down, and today is the first day since Sunday that we haven’t had a Red Flag warning.” The Red Cross, which had set up an evacuation center at Palisades Charter High School on Sunday, shut down their operations Monday night. School officials do not believe that anyone stayed at the school overnight. As of Wednesday morning’s press deadline, Pacific Coast Highway north of Topanga Canyon had been reopened; and the Canyon Fire was more than 75 percent contained and posed no serious threat to the Palisades, which was spared the devastation wrought on neighboring Malibu and more than a dozen other Southern California communities. No homes were burned; and no property was reported damaged. But the Palisades did not go completely unscathed. A fire was reported on Sunday at 7:30 p.m. halfway down the bluffs below Via de las Olas. Four engines from local fire stations quickly extinguished the 20- by 50-foot fire fed by the area’s thick, dry brush. The cause is not yet known, say LAFD officials who responded to the fire. Station 23 on Los Liones Drive became the center of emergency planning for the Palisades. By Monday, it bustled with activity and anticipation. LAPD officers established a mini-command post there from which they organized evacuation plans in case a fire had moved east from Malibu toward the Palisades. City firefighters strategized defense plans–and played therapist over the telephone. “We got several panic-attack calls from locals watching TV,” said Captain James Varney of Station 23 on Tuesday afternoon. “I hoped we’d get a lot of rest last night, but we got calls all hours of the night. We even got a call from someone in New York at 3 a.m. their time, wondering if the Palisades was OK. I told people to listen to reason.” Varney said that based on historical patterns, the greatest fire risk would come from the 405 Freeway blowing flames southwest across Mandeville Canyon, not from Malibu. He said fire crews had planned for multiple scenarios. Because the local risk was considered high, Station 69 sent only one engine from Palisades to assist with firefighting efforts in Malibu. Other engines from stations 69 and 23 remained on alert here. Beginning early Monday morning, a four-man crew from 69 guarded a house in fire-ravaged Carbon Canyon. By mid-afternoon, dive-bombing planes and water-dropping helicopters encircled a distant hilltop shrouded by flames and smoke. Shovel-in-hand, local firefighter Mike Koenig buried hot ash and embers that spewed from a tree stump still burning from the night before. “I’m here to protect houses,” Koenig said, balancing himself on a steep hillside against powerful gusts of wind. No mandatory evacuations were ordered in the Palisades, but Sunset Mesa–technically a part of unincorporated L.A. County, sandwiched in between Malibu and Los Angeles–was a “voluntary evacuation” zone. On Monday afternoon, many residents of the area’s highest streets, which border Topanga Canyon, stood anxiously in their driveways next to open garages and packed cars. Fires in Malibu burned through Charter Communication’s fiber optic cables, cutting off Sunset Mesa’s sole source of cable Internet and television. Sunset Mesa resident Francesca Cohn fumed at the irony of the information age, while packing her car with personal photographs and her children’s artwork. “I don’t have Internet right now,” Cohn said. “It’s funny when you really need information you can’t get it. Both of my neighbors are prepared to evacuate. They’ve all packed up.” Across the street, next-door neighbors Robin Perkins and Sybille Gorn mulled over the decision to leave. Both had prepared evacuation plans. “The old timers around here are not as worried [as we are],” Gorn said. “We’re relatively new. I’ve packed up my silver, china and some clothes.” Elsewhere in the Palisades, anxiety among local residents was mixed–a function of proximity to the fires, personal experience of surviving them and exposure to television news. After watching the fires on TV, Castellammare resident Lisa Cochren walked down Tramonto Drive to assess the risk for herself midday Monday. Her opinion? “I’m not that worried,” she said. “Besides we’re right next to the Getty [Villa]. I figure they’ll protect that at all costs.” Larry Niles looked calm on Monday afternoon standing outside of the Bienveneda home (and VW Bug) that he defended during the devastating 1978 fire, and he pointed to acres of steep brush-free hillsides above his home. “I’m not very anxious,” he said. “I lived through the ’78 fire. I stayed here to squirt the house down. And I’d stay if it came through again.” — To contact Staff Writer Max Taves, e-mail reporter@palipost.com or call (310) 454-1321 ext. 28.