More than 500 acres of the Santa Monica Mountains burned after a single-vehicle collision into a power pole sparked multiple fires in Calabasas at approximately 4:11 p.m. on Saturday, June 5.
The Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station reported witnesses saw a pickup truck speeding and then collide with the power pole on Mulholland Highway near Old Topanga Canyon Road. The pole fell and a transformer exploded, which subsequently ignited what officials first coined the “Calabasas Fire,” and later called the “Old Fire” due to its proximity to Old Topanga Canyon Road.
Mandatory evacuation orders were in place for nearly 5,000 residents and approximately 3,700 homes in the Calabasas and Topanga areas, according to the sheriff’s department.
In total, the wildfire burned 516 acres of the Santa Monica Mountains.
“One commercial building was destroyed by the fire and one residential,” Los Angeles County Fire Department (LACoFD) Fire Fighter Specialist Richard Licon said.
As of Tuesday, June 7, Licon reported that “there is no active flame, but we haven’t built our containment line around it yet, so it’s still at 80 percent.”
Licon also said that the topography of the area played a major factor in fire fighting response times.
“A lot of the spots are hard to get to and get around,” Licon said. “We’re also doing mop ups. What we do is, there is actually brush hose all the way around the fire and we actually go into the fire and … we spray water on the dirt and into the dirt just to make sure there are no hot spots underneath that. It does take quite a bit of time.”
Road closures on Saturday were immediately assigned to the California Highway Patrol as fire crews began setting up perimeters to extinguish flames, and Mulholland Highway was closed in both directions near Calabasas High School.
“In total, we had approximately 400 firefighters,” Licon said. “Two hundred LA County personnel and 200 personnel from assisting agencies that would include LA City, CalFire, Kern County, Ventura County, Santa Barbara County. Air support was provided by Kern County, LA City, CalFire.”
Southern California Edison reported that more than 600 homes in the area were without power.
“We had personnel from five sheriff’s stations respond,” Lieutenant Jim Royal said. “Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station Emergency Operations Center was activated.
“In addition, the Sheriff’s Department Incident Management Team responded to Calabasas High School.”
As nightfall broke, Pacific Coast Highway commuters were stalled at the base of Topanga Canyon Boulevard and barred from access to the canyon, causing major traffic delays in and out of Malibu.
“In the Old Fire, our role was perimeter,” CHP Officer Leland Tang said. “We actually manned all the roadblocks. We did that while the sheriff’s department was doing the evacuations. That’s always going to be our role during an event like that. The sheriffs will be responsible for evacuations and we will be responsible for perimeter control.”
Evacuation orders for most Calabasas residents in the area were lifted in the morning on Sunday, June 5, while many Topanga Canyon residents could not return to their homes until 6 p.m.
“I think what was good about this is that we learned from all of the past incidents, so we were definitely more organized this time around,” Tang said. “Social media helped a great deal. We had been planning for this for so many years now and we’ve been drilling on this for so many years that it all came together. It worked out really really well. I’m sure when we do our debrief, there will be lessons learned.”
Los Angeles Pierce College Equestrian Center played a major role in housing horses and other large animals affected by the evacuations.
“We did a fantastic job with the equine rescues,” Tang said. “The large animal evacuations went really well and it was very well organized. There’s a horse ranch not too far away from where the initial fire started and there are a lot of horses boarded there. They were able to evacuate all of those horses and all of the horse ranches in the canyon. They did a fantastic job. They mobilized really quickly.”
Another vital component to fighting the fires effectively included impressive amounts of residential brush clearance.
“We were very happy with the residents in the area that had done their brush clearance,” Licon said. “They helped us out a lot. They created a good defensible station between home and brush for us to be able to get there quickly and get a handle on it.”
Licon also added that brush clearance “is huge. It’s probably one of the most important things as far as their property is concerned and us being able to get there and save it if need be.”
In addition, weather was on the firefighter’s side throughout the weekend.
“There were parts of that area that hadn’t burned in 70 years,” Licon said. “Thick brush, the terrain was steep and hard to get to … Had the winds not cooperated with us like they did, it could have been a whole different story.”
