by Paul R. Spitzzeri
The horrific wildfires that have ravaged our region for the last week continue to burn, but at least the Red Flag Warning and Wind Advisory have ceased and the forecast shows cooler temperatures and calmer conditions. For the many thousands of people who have lost their homes and businesses, many others with damaged structures and those whose loved ones perished in the conflagrations, there are, of course, myriad challenges ahead, but, as my colleague Beatriz Rivas wrote in a social media statement put out by the Homestead last Saturday, “we will find strength in unity, compassion and the enduring spirit of greater Los Angeles.”
While it was certainly very unusual to have the Santa Ana winds, low humidity and much higher temperatures than normal at this time of year, following some eight months with virtually no rainfall, these extreme conditions have always been a feature of our semi-arid environment, as have widespread wildfires. It was not until recent decades, however, that continued accelerating population growth, coupled with the engineering advancements that allowed for building on steep slopes in hillsides and canyons and other factors allowed for people to live in locations that have been particularly prone to vulnerability with fires and, during rainy seasons, mudslides.
Looking back at our area’s history, one of the earliest detailed wildfire seasons to be covered in the local media was that of late summer and early fall 1878. Greater Los Angeles underwent its first boom period during the late Sixties through the mid Seventies until an economic panic in California, following a national one, took place during what was part of the “Long Depression” stretching through most of that decade. With the local financial one in dire straits, the blazes that burst forth did not do tremendous damage, aside from some outlying apiaries (bee-keeping establishments) and farms, but it did receive some significant coverage.
The 11 September edition of the Los Angeles Express reported,
The super-heated atmosphere which prevailed hereabouts yesterday is generally attributed to the fires which were raging in the brush and trees of the San Fernando mountains and possibly in some of the grain fields in the valley on the north, and also to some extensive fires which appeared up the valley to the east. A long dark angry looking cloud rising along the northwestern horizon which could be seen from the more elevated positions of town yesterday afternoon, betokened the locality where flames were at work. When the sun set it looked like a blood red ball, glaring through the smoke,—just of the peculiar shade which all have marked in observing the orb through smoked glass, on the occasion of an eclipse. Some of our citizens distinguished cinders floating in the air which they thought seemed to be remnants of burned straw.
From the description, it seems that the blazes were in the Santa Monica Mountains range, west of Cahuenga Pass and then spread into the San Fernando Valley, which was very sparsely populated, to the north and the east, the latter being the relatively new town of San Fernando, which was founded four years prior. The account continued that reports from that hamlet were that, in mid-afternoon, brush near the Isaac Lankershim and Isaac Van Nuys ranch, acquired not quite a decade before from Don Pío Pico, former governor of Mexican California, was afire. Some seventy men responded and “succeeded in turning it away from the ranch,” but another report stated that the barns and fields on the ranch were destroyed “and that the flames were sweeping the valley.” John H. Kester, who leased land from Lankershim and Van Nuys, lost his grain fields and up to $30,000—small wonder he left for northern California the following year!
A Western Union telegram, further, stated that “a fire originated in the brush near the little Tejunga [sic] Cañon on the 9th instant, at about ten o’clock A.M., and was soon beyond control.” Two days later “it has burned over an area of about eighteen thousand acres, mostly brush, and is still burning, doing but little damage.” Again, the eastern Valley had few residents, so San Fernando’s founder Charles Maclay and his son-in-law Albert Moffitt lost $300 in lumber and John Loop’s apiary sustained $100 in damage, though it was also claimed that Kester’s losses were minor and the grain field scorched had little value.
The San Gabriel Valley had far more people, a larger town in Pasadena, and much more to lose in the event of a wildfire and the Express, under the subheading of “Sierra Madre in a Blaze,” this using the name commonly assigned to the mountain range towering at the north end of the valley, recorded that
The people of this city who last evening cast their eyes in the direction of Pasadena, beheld the reflection of a lurid blaze lighting up the sky over toward the Sierra Madre [Mountains]. We have just seen Mr. Ena Brenner, who had a bee ranch adjoining the site of the Hamilton hotel, which was destroyed by fire about two months ago. Mr. Brenner informs us that the fire was started by Dr. Edwards, who lives three miles back of Pasadena. He wishes to get rid of a lot of brush and set it on fire—a most reprehensible act for a man to commit at a time when the foliage all over the country is as dry as tinder.
“Three miles back of Pasadena” is what is now Altadena and W.W. Edwards, who owned a large property in that section was engaging in a form of “brush clearance,” though in a time in which there were no general standards, no professional firefighting at all in the area, poor communication and other factors. In what sounds all-too-familiar, the account noted that the conflagration spread very quickly “consuming everything in its way,” though not a great deal of structures and other elements were present in the area. What was mentioned was that an apiary of a Mr. Brenner was consumed as the blaze moved along the range and headed east toward the recently opened Sierra Madre Villa hotel, located just a short distance beyond Eaton Canyon, where this month’s terrible blaze originated, with the observation that no one could be within 60 yards of the fire because of its tremendous intensity. Lastly, it was reported that there were fires to the east in the San Gabriel and the “Cucamongo” mountains (how these were differentiated from the Sierra Madre range was not explained).
The next day’s edition of the Los Angeles Herald provided its summary on the situation, beginning with the statement that,
Yesterday evening and the night before a tongue of fire could be seen licking its way up the San Gabriel range of mountains. From an optical stand point the fire was a perfect realization of the words of the song “So near and yet so far.” The scene of the conflagration seemed not to be over a mile distant, while it was, in fact, nearer twenty miles. As a spectacle it was a superb success . . . It originated on Dr. Edward’s [sic] place, which is on the San Pascual ranch, about 3 miles from Pasadena. He had cleared some thirty acres of brush and thoughtlessly set fire to it. The flames, owing to the vegetation being in a tinder state, spread with incredible rapidity.
It was added that more than 1,000 acres on the land of James Craig was consumed and that the leased lands of Fair Oaks, the ranch of Benjamin S. Eaton, charring fencing and causing some other damage to the tenant. Beyond this, the paper observed that “at least five cañons have been desolated by the flames, doubtless involving considerable loss to our bee interests,” while reports were that the Sierra Madre Villa was, thus far, spared, purportedly because the land on which the hotel sat was “under a high state of cultivation, with fresh and green vegetation,” thanks to irrigation from Eaton Canyon. The account remarked that the flames were taller and heat more intense the first night, suggesting that there was “hope that their progress has been arrested.”
With respect to the San Fernando Valley, the Herald learned from a source that the Kester place suffered up to 3,000 acres of wheat field damage, but the blaze did not get to sacks of the harvested crop as he and fifty men “burned and ploughed a circle around the grain, machinery and stock, thus saving them from the flames.” There was no way, it went on, to estimate damage amounts, but the main affect was with feed for sheep. The paper, though, added that “from the manner in which the fire started it is evident that it was the work of an incendiary, who lighted three or four places on the Encino ranch,” which was next to those properties of Kester, Lankershim and Van Nuys. The first was praised for his quick response, while the “harvest hands” were given kudos for their “industry and good will” as they “worked without cessation until the danger was averted” because, otherwise, there would have been much more destruction to structures, animals, equipment and machinery and so on, and, while “damage is heavy enough, but slight compared to what it might have been.”
The following day’s edition of the Herald reported that “the fires in the San Gabriel range seemed last night to have subsided, as they were not nearly so bright as the night before.” On the other hand, the blaze in the Santa Monica Mountains was such that “on the Cahuenga [Pass], [the fire] must have been burning intensely at 10 o’clock P.M., as the sky in that direction presented a very lurid appearance.” Remembering that almost no lighting would be found anywhere in the region that late at night, the glow must have been very vivid, indeed.
The Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff, meanwhile, informed the paper that he was sent out by his boss, Henry M. Mitchell, and noted that “the brush on the other side of the Cahuenga range was burning fiercely and the fire was rapidly coming over to this [the Los Angeles] side,” in what we know as the Hollywood Hills. The deputy traveled as far as the lower section of the San Fernando Valley, where, fortunately, “the fire in that section has been extinguished.” Another report from a county supervisor remarked that “the flames swept over the country towards the Cahuenga [Pass] with such rapidity that many persons barely escaped with their lives.” In one remarkable instance,
Two men owed their escape to a little foresight. Recognizing their danger, they seized a couple of blankets. One proceeded to crawl into the spring [of water], covering his body completely, wrapping the wet blanket around his head and leaving only his nose exposed. The other dropped into the well, imitating these tactics exactly. They both merely pulled through and would have been burned to death but for these precautions.
In the issue of the 14th, the Herald noted that a police officer named Ketler “went out on the hills last evening to note the progress of the fire,” this presumably being some portion of the Santa Monicas, perhaps in the Hollywood Hills portion, and told the paper that “the Cahuenga fire . . . had not, so far as he could see from his post of observation, made any progress on that side of the range.” A Mr. McDonald, resident of the Cahuenga Pass area, was in Los Angeles and said “he had been actively engaged in fighting the fire” there. The paper counseled residents that, should be blaze “reach this side” and move as quickly as was the case in other locales, “it would behoove our citizens to be up and doing” including the organization of a party to extinguish the blaze. The volunteer fire company in town (the professional Los Angeles Fire Department was a half-year away from being established) was ready to assist and, while it was hoped there’d be no need, the account ended that “there is no harm in being prepared for any emergency.”
The next day, the Herald, reporting that temperatures dropped a good dozen degrees in a “a blessed and most grateful change in the weather,” heard from Henry Hancock, of the Rancho La Brea, who told the paper that “the brush fires in the Cahuenga [are] about burned out, while Noah Levering, who kept an apiary in the area struggled to keep the flames at bay and another local named Holmes only saved his dwelling by ripping down a hen-house and stable and allowing the fire to consume the material. A rumor was also spread that Under-Sheriff William R. Rowland, son of John Rowland of Rancho La Puente and who served as sheriff earlier in the decade and would complete a second term from 1880-1882, was overwhelmed when fighting the fire and died, but this was proved false.
As for Dr. Edwards, who started the Sierra Madre Mountains fire, he was arrested on the 14th and explained to authorities his reasoning for trying to clear brush on a 20-acre field. Five days later, he was arraigned, but the Herald of the 20th remarked that “the evidence so utterly failed to [in]criminate the Doctor in the slightest degree,” so the district attorney, Cameron Thom, who’d held the office from 1854-1857 and 1869-1873 and later became mayor of Los Angeles, moved for dismissal. The paper, observing that Edwards “is a most estimable and law abiding citizen,” secured a “triumphant vindication,” while commenting that “it appears that not a stand of bees was burned by any fire starting” from his actions and that damages were no more than $15 to fencing.
Apiaries were to be found in profusion in the hills of greater Los Angeles, including, aside from the Santa Monica and San Gabriel ranges, in what became Orange County and the Santa Ana Mountains, as well. The paper also opined that, “we are inclined to think that the losses to our bee men by the late fires have been much exaggerated. It is unfortunate that they occurred, but their ravages were Providentially restrained.”
The Express of the 20th quoted from the Santa Monica Outlook, which told its readers,
Mountain fires raged quite extensively in this county during the past ten days. There were some five or six different fires burning at once. With the exception of two valuable bee ranches in the San Gabriel mountains, the loss was principally confined to bee and stock feed. In the range of mountains near Santa Monica, the fire spread over about four miles square. The fire in Cold Water cañon was soon extinguished, having done but little damage. The one in Old Santa Monica cañon started in the upper end sweeping along the valley and mountain sides, with wonderful swiftness, the flames sometimes leaping from peak to peak, a distance of two or three hundred yards.
Old Santa Monica Canyon is where Pacific Palisades is today, this being, along with Altadena, where some of the most terrible destruction has taken place in our recent conflagrations. Several bee-keepers were mentioned as struggling to preserve their properties, while Guy Manville had a close call at his place in what was soon known as Mandeville Canyon in modern Brentwood. The paper also provided the last names of two of the men who saved their lives as noted above, these being Baker and Cox, though a third man, Howard, was the one who “flattened himself in a spring” and kept a wet shirt over his head.
Moreover, reported the Express,
But he wasn’t the sole occupant of that spring. Lizzards [sic], horn [sic] toads, and other little “varmints” tumbled in upon him “by the peck,” and finally two huge rattlesnakes concluded that this spring was a nice cool place during a fire, and so they tumbled in, too. As this was no time to get up a free fight, they all behaved nicely, and finally separated without a single jar to mar the harmony of the occasion. There were no others, we believe, who suffered materially from the fire.
The levity may have seemed fine to the paper because of the relatively little damage and no reported loss of life and just a few minor injuries that were reported, but there were more fires to come just about a month later.
We’ll return tomorrow with the second part of this post, including the aforementioned speculation of the correlation between wildfires and hot, dry and windy weather.
This post is both timely and thought-provoking. Historical news reports suggest that wildfires in the Los Angeles area during the late 1870s were much smaller in scale and often brought under control far more quickly than the devastating fires we experience today. Using common sense, the following transition becomes clear:
Over the past century and a half, millions of people have moved into or near mountains, hills, foothills, and forests. Consequently, the landscape has become filled with potential fuels, including homes, reflective windows, power lines, gas lines, flammable trash, debris, and gasoline. Simultaneously, human activities – such as cooking, barbecuing, building fires, burning waste, and operating machinery – occur constantly and almost everywhere. It’s remarkable how human development and behavior alone have introduced so many potential sources of ignition and fire spread.
Thanks, Larry and these are trenchant observations, which were made note of in the just-published second part of this post. There is, obviously, a great deal to ponder for future planning, not just with wildfires locally and elsewhere, but for all regions of the world that will confront more powerful and destructive natural disasters as climate change accelerates.