Arson investigators are trying to determine the cause of two small brush fires that broke out Saturday afternoon in Malibu at Point Dume and up Encinal Canyon Road, sending local fire authorities scrambling to douse flames at both locations.
Both fires are being investigated as “suspicious in nature.” Sheriff ’s officials suspect the Encinal fire was started by illegal fireworks in a potential marijuana-growing area, though a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Fire Department would not comment on the specifics of the investigation. County Fire’s arson investigation team is handling both cases, fire inspector Keith Mora said.
“Both of those fires are still under investigation,” said Mora. “…I’d give it a couple of weeks before I can tell you more.”
Authorities said a passing motorist reported the first fire at 1:12 p.m. in a remote area of Encinal Canyon off 3210 Encinal Canyon Road, about three miles north of Pacific Coast Highway and Encinal. It was knocked down at approximately 2:43 p.m., but Los Angeles County firefighters spent another four hours mopping up the fire. Three helicopters—one from Los Angeles County, one from Ventura County and one from the City of Los Angeles—were used to drop water onto the fire.
It is not clear what time the Heathercliff fire began at 29500 Heathercliff Road. Several Point Dume Club residents attempted to fight the flames with garden hoses as they waited for authorities to arrive.
Resident Cate O’Brien said she first reported the fire at 1:45 p.m. Firefighters did not arrive until approximately 2:15 p.m., according to O’Brien and resident Loretta Tieffen. The fire was knocked down at approximately 3 p.m. O’Brien was at the Point Dume Club pool when she saw the flames.
“At about 1:40 I saw the fire. Watched it for a couple minutes,” O’Brien recounted. “At about 1:45 I was with my neighbor [and we said] ‘We don’t think that’s a barbecue,’ and realized it was something more than unimportant.”
O’Brien said the fire started small, then spread from bush to bush on the hillside to the south of Wildflower Way in Point Dume Club, right next to the neighborhood’s basketball court. A small gully separates the neighborhood from homes to the south on Wandermere Road. Two firefighters came on the scene and did what they could to contain the fire with shovels and garden hoses while waiting for help to arrive, O’Brien said.
Point Dume Club property manager Eddie Miller said the fire became contained when helicopters swooped in with water drops, as more than 100 concerned residents looked on.
“I think they did 15 of them,” Miller said. “After they started doing those the fire just died down.”
Tieffen said the fire was scary, and she was concerned about the lag in time it took for firefighters to get there.
With both fires burning at around the same time, the flames had local firefighters stretched thin, according to Battalion Chief Scott Salhus.
“Most of the engine companies were gone to the Encinal fire,” Salhus told The Malibu Times. “…Unfortunately, you get a brush fire, you get a second brush fire, you’re going to tax or exhaust the resources very quickly.”
Salhus said engines from Malibu stations 72, 71, 65, 89, 88, 70 and 144 were sent to the Encinal fire, which likely caused the delay in the response time at Point Dume. Engines had to be called in from stations 69 in Pacific Palisades and 67 in Monte Nido.
“What we do is when [there’s] a second fire in Malibu, we’ll take an engine company from another city, and we’ll start moving them to Malibu,” Salhus said. “But due to the fact that it happened so quickly, those companies had not yet arrived.”
Malibu Mayor Pro Tem Skylar Peak lives at Point Dume West Club but was not home when the fire erupted. Instead, he saw black smoke from afar while lifeguarding at Zuma Beach.
“I looked over and just saw a bunch of smoke,” Peak said. “And I thought, ‘I hope my house isn’t burned down when I get back.’”
A Los Angeles County Fire helicopter landed at Zuma after having dropped water on the Encinal flames. Not long after, though, Peak said the helicopter took off again to douse the Point Dume fire.
Luckily, both fires were put out within an hour.
“We were lucky there were no Santa Ana winds, that’s for sure,” Miller said.