Many Fires Rage Throughout Valley
8 Houses Gone, One Fatality
Southern California seemed to burst into flames from the Tehachapis to San Diego this weekend.
It appeared that any spark, anywhere, could be fanned by the hot 40to mph Santa Ana winds, blowing down the canyons, blowing down the canyons from the desert, into a holocaust.
In Valencia Valley, one man was burned to death and eleven families lost homes and possessions.
One of the three fires that were most destructive among the 14 or 15 being fought started in Newhall.
It began at the oil refinery, near the crest of Highway 14 at 10:50 a.m. Friday morning, and soon black billows of reddened smoke were pouring into the air, visible for miles around.
The highway was closed to traffic for a few hours, and then the flames, sweeping through grass and brush went over the hill to Interstate 5, which in turn was closed to traffic.
Sparks jumped the freeway into the hills beyond and developed a twopronged holocaust that moved westward along the hills and down the canyons.
One prong moved southward, destroying homes in Granada Hills and Chatsworth, and swept over the Ventura county line and south and west until it joined with the tremendous fire at Calabasas. That one was the one which had done the greatest destruction when it came down to the ocean at Malibu. It closed both the Ventura Freeway and Pacific Coast Highway.
The other prong of the Newhall fire raged westward down the Santa Susana mountains, touching the flatlands of the Santa Clara river. It swept through the mountains and canyons of the Newhall ranch, blazing brightly all Saturday night. At times, the sky was half-obscured by black smoke streaked with a brilliant red.
On Saturday new fires arose.
Most damage was done by a fire which swept from Agua Dulce down blanketing the ridge between Soledad and Mint canyons, the former near the Antelope valley freeway, and later swerved by Old Sierra Highway.
The blaze swept down the canyons, burning seven Mint Canyon homes on Scherzinger Lane, including a veterans’ rest home, where one man lost his life.
The scheduled Agua Dulce western parade shrank seriously as people ran to save homes and horses. Children were evacuated from the LARC ranch and brought to Placerita junior high school in Newhall, where weary firefighters took rest periods on the grass.
The fire grazed a number of subdivisions. A spokesman for Kaufman and Broad, developers of Pinetree homes in Soledad Canyon, said, “The firemen were wonderful! I don’t see how they did it, but every home was saved.”
Further down in the more populated area of Saugus, the grass fire, approaching the nature of a firestorm, burst out dramatically behind the North Oaks and Sky Blue Mesa subdivisions. One home was completely burned on Enderly Street in the latter tract where the fire arrived so suddenly that no fire engines were on hand until the house was gone.
On the flat area below, three businesses, the Myers Pump Co., 25824 Springbrook St., and the adjacent Hasa Chemicals Inc., and Wayne Manufacturing Co. all suffered damage to buildings or stock, to a total of $14,000.
Many acts of neighborly helpfulness or assistance by strangers were reported by residents in the area. That fire was not completely under control until 10 a.m. Sunday.
While the Agua Dulce fire was racing down the canyons, another blaze suddenly started up on San Martinez Grande Road, far to the west. That road leads from Highway 126 to the small community of Val Verde. The fire burned from the road’s edge, cutting a mile-wide swathe to the very edge of the small community, burning right up to the back yards of houses and to the edge of the Val Verde county park. No houses were burned there, and no one was injured.
The westward prong of the original refinery fire meanwhile continued westward through the lands of the Newhall Land and Farming Co. on the south side of the Santa Clara River, paralleled by the Val Verde fire, which swept down the crest of the mountains on the north side of the river.
Highway 126 to Ventura was closed for about seven hours while firemen moved in equipment to fight on both fronts. Late Sunday afternoon both were still not contained; the Val Verde fire roared along the crest of the hills, invading some walnut and avocado orchards, and severely threatening the town of Piru. It was brought to a halt just outside the town, where residents watered down the roofs.
On the south side the fire still burned Sunday afternoon in Pico Canyon, where numerous oil wells constituted a hazard, and where it was seen near the highway patrol office on Interstate 5 and just behind Denny’s restaurant.
Further down the river, the town of Fillmore lost a block of older buildings near the center of town on Friday. Then on Saturday, the fire ranged from the bottom to the top of the Santa Susana mountains, directly opposite the town.
Fire crews fought all night Saturday to keep the blaze from creeping into the new home of Africa U.S.A., where elephants, lions, tigers, ostriches and hosts of other creatures used in pictures are housed. Africa U.S.A. moved to Fillmore after severe damage two years ago by floods in Solemint Canyon.
Firefighters from all of southern and central California were pressed into duty for the emergency. Many of the firefighters operating in this area came from as far away as Bishop and Fresno.
Five firemen were slightly injured on the first day of the conflagration in the Newhall refinery area. Some 400 forest rangers, assisted by Conservation crews and Department of Corrections inmates, also battled the blazes.”
Said a Los Angeles County Fire Department spokesman yesterday; “It’s a hit-and-run operation. We get a fire down to where it constitutes no present danger and then run off to fight somewhere else. We hope to get our teeth into the fire if the wind will let us alone.”