Source of fire near cave
Authorities say the fire started near a cave on state park land known for late-night partying. The blaze burned 4,901 acres, destroying 86 structures, including 53 homes.
By Jonathan Friedman / Assistant Editor and Laura Tate / Editor
While the origin of the Corral Fire is still under investigation, authorities are confirming what some Corral Canyon residents already knew-it started at or near a cave on state parkland, where people usually hang out after legal posted hours, drinking and scrawling graffiti on rocks and caves.
The fire is under investigation through a joint effort by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s and Fire departments and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
“This was a criminal act … it’s either arson, malicious mischief or willful disregard” said Ron Schafer, superintendent of the Angeles District of the California Department of Parks and Recreation, at Monday night’s Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy board meeting. Schafer serves as the vice chair of that board.
The Corral Fire was fully contained as of 6 p.m. Monday night. Eighty-six structures were destroyed and 4,901 acres were burned in the fire that sparked early Saturday morning and traveled through Malibu’s canyons for three days.
Of the 86 six structures destroyed, 53 were single-family homes and 33 were outbuildings. Also destroyed were 37 vehicles and one mobile home. Forty-five structures were damaged, including 33 single-family homes and 12 outbuildings. (See page A7 for partial list of homes affected).
‘Human activity’ could be cause of fire
Early on, authorities said “human activity” was the cause of the fire, but whether it was deliberate or an accident is unknown.
Corral Canyon resident Scott Palamar, whose home was one of the first to burn down in the fire, said he had heard a car horn being honked repeatedly some time between 2:30 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. Saturday, and he thought to himself “‘Oh it’s a Friday night … must be some reveler.'” But later, after his neighbor called him at about 3:30 a.m. to tell him there was a fire, he thought maybe whoever honked the horn had been trying to warn people.
Brooke Halpern, who also lives on Corral Canyon, also heard the honking about 2:30 a.m. But he said he heard laughing.
“They were laughing with windows open,” Halpern said. “That’s what woke me.”
Palamar has long been active in trying to get more patrolling of the State Parks area near his home because of illegal late-night partying on parkland.
But the response he’s received was there was a staffing shortage and not enough funding to make up for it.
State Parks Superintendent Schafer said at Monday’s SMMC meeting that rangers were patrolling the area from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m., so no ranger was on patrol when the fire began. The last ranger report came at 10 p.m. on Friday, with no suspicious activity noted.
Palamar said in an interview with The Malibu Times Sunday morning that he saw an aerial shot on television of the area where the fire started and he saw the cave, near Mesa Peak, that he showed to a Times reporter several months ago. He said that is possibly where the fire started, perhaps with someone having a party.
“Somebody was in the cave,” Palamar said. “I’m not sure it was deliberate; though who would be foolish to be having a fire on a windy night like that?
“Is it irony? Or what is it that has me being the victim of what I sought to avoid?” Palamar added.
Los Angeles County Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman said at a Sunday press conference in Malibu regarding the area being a problem spot, ” We’re actually working the crime scene right now and some media clues that we’ve responded to. So I can’t give you really anything further yet.”
Freeman said anyone with information regarding suspicious activity near the source of the fire should call the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station at 310.456.6652.
No lives lost
Nobody was killed in the fire, the second major blaze to hit Malibu in a little more than a month. Eight firefighters suffered minor injuries, including one with burns to the face.
The fire, which started at approximately 3:30 a.m. on Saturday, disrupted power for more than 1,300 Southern California Edison customers due to the destruction of 50 power poles. Power was restored to all but 100 customers by 5 p.m. that day. Five customers in Corral Canyon were still without power as of Tuesday.
Charter Communications cable, telephone and Internet service went out in most areas on Saturday because a primary fiber optic cable was destroyed. Charter spokesperson Craig Watson said Monday morning that cable had been restored for 95 percent of the customers. The city’s local TV channel was still not functioning as of Tuesday evening, before the Times went to print. Watson said this is because an emergency installation of fiber optic cable to restore service for most customers was not large enough to also allow the municipal television station to operate.
Fighting the fire
Crews worked through the weekend battling the fire. The strong Santa Ana winds caused the flames to quickly spread to 2,000 acres on Saturday, said Assistant Fire Chief Reggie Lee at Monday night’s City Council meeting. “Within 24 hours, we had 4,500 acres burned,” he said.
By Sunday, the strong Santa Ana winds had died down, enabling firefighters to hold the blaze. More than 1,700 firefighters, 290 engines and 23 water dropping aircraft were on the scene at the height of the fire battle.
“The alignment we saw occur was very scary for us because of the resources not being able to get in to every single house,” Lee said.
There were complaints of fire hydrants not being used to defend homes, including at the top of Corral Canyon.
“We only have a certain amount of water,” Lee explained, “We teach our officers not to use the hydrants, because when the power goes out the hydrants don’t work. You might as well be hooked up to a rock.”
And as to why some homes were defended and other not, Lee said, “In a wind-driven fire, you have to have an engine at every single house. We don’t have that many engines … to be able to do that. So we try to figure out where the fire’s going to hit first, and position ourselves as best we could. After that, we had some losses, unfortunately. None of us wants to see losses at all because we’re not raised that way.”
Anticipating the possibility of more fires with the Santa Ana winds, combined with a low humidity index, fire crews were staged in three main areas in Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Ventura counties Thanksgiving week, with small strike teams positioned at local stations. By Thanksgiving Day, 449 fire engines from within the state and out of state, were gathered at numerous staging areas.
More than 100 helicopters and several fixed-wing aircraft, along with 89 hand crews from the California Department of Corrections to help cut fire breaks, were on deployment as well.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger toured the devastation in Malibu Sunday. As he walked amid the charred remains of a hilltop home, he said the damage could have been much worse. He said officials had learned from previous blazes how to better organize firefighting resources and this led to a more coordinated strategy in Malibu.
A major civic event
“With a loss of this magnitude, the numbers of homes lost and damaged, it is difficult to find any kind of a silver lining,” Mayor Jeff Jennings said at a Saturday afternoon press conference. “It’s a major event in our civic life. The city has its work cut out for it in assisting those who want to rebuild and those who want to get their lives back together as rapidly as possible.
“We certainly dodged a bullet that could have been far, far worse than it is,” said Jennings, after expressing his sympathy to those who lost their homes.
The fire season this year, Chief Freeman said, is particularly bad because of no rain and the high winds. “I’m praying for rain,” he said. “I hope you’ll join me in this prayer.”
He added, “This fire definitely is going to have us, policymakers and firefighters, rethink how to prepare for a fire season. The fire season is no longer September through November. It is now January through December.”
This was the third fire in Malibu this year. Jan. 8, 20 acres burned and five homes were lost in the Malibu Road Fire, and on Oct. 21, 4,565 acres burned and six homes and two businesses (the Malibu Presbyterian Church and Malibu Mirror & Glass) were destroyed in the Canyon fire.