By Joann Groff
Assistant News Editor
The sky seemed to burn in a wash of auburn, crimson and black. Snow slowly drifted to the ground and the air grew thick, not with the usual fog, but with smoke. Some students commented the Apocalypse had arrived in Malibu, but in reality, this otherworldly site was caused by wildfires as near as one-and-a-half miles from Pepperdine’s campus.
Two small fires in Malibu and one major blaze in Simi Valley had the Pepperdine community fighting smoke, ash and anxiety, after predictions of devastation by local firefighters were confirmed. Santa Ana winds, a bad driver and perhaps a couple of arsonists are to blame for the sudden eruption of fires, two of which were creeping just around the corner.
About 25 acres were burned by a fire that broke out a little before 3 p.m. Sunday at Corral Canyon in Malibu. The blaze was ignited by sparking power lines on Pacific Coast Highway. There were no injuries and little structural damage as a result of the fire, just fear from beachcombers and local residents who say the fire started quickly, and spread even faster.
“I was just sitting on the beach, and I saw a guy point at what I then saw was a cloud of smoke coming up from behind the trailer park,” junior Ryan Wakeman said. “When (Ryan Johnston and Greg Carlson and I) looked up, there was a trail of fire going up the hill. … It seemed like within a half hour the whole hill was engulfed in flames.”
The Los Angeles County and Pepperdine Fire Departments responded quickly with a full brush response team and four aircrafts, two planes and two helicopters, delivering a complete knock down in less than three hours.
“I was impressed with the response rate of the fire department,” said junior Kristi Arthur, who lives in the Lovernich apartments. “Seeing that all the fires were going out of control everywhere else, I definitely expected the same to happen here, which was very scary because of how close it was to campus.”
Director of Public Safety Earl Carpenter said an emergency response team was activated, which closely watched the fire’s progress.
“The primary purpose of the Emergency Operations Center, headed by Gary Hanson, the vice president and legal counsel, is monitoring disasters that have a very direct effect on the campus.”
Early in the week, a fire less than 20 miles from Pepperdine was considered a definite threat to the campus with fierce winds blowing South and a continued zero percent containment rate. It began Saturday in Simi Valley and spread rapidly – arson is the suspected cause although it is still under investigation. Residents of the town, as well as in Moorpark, Fillmore, Somis, Chatsworth and Stevenson Ranch lost homes, which now total 16. Pepperdine students and their families were affected by the tremendous flames, which as of Wednesday has burned more than 102,000 acres, a number still growing by the second. Junior Ed Grether is from Somis where his parents still live – flames were not only visible, but burned part of his family’s ranch.
Other students who reside through Malibu and Kanan canyons could see the flames on their way home or to school off Highway 101.
“As I was coming home Sunday, I saw that people were stopping to take pictures,” said Eric Jepsen, who lives in Agoura Hills, just 15 minutes South of the blaze. “I looked back in my rearview mirror – I have never seen the sun that red before. There was fire on Kanan Hills, so when you got on the freeway to go north, you could see the flames behind our house. It was raining ash at home and in the backyard – our pool was covered with it.”
Junior Jenny Yang saw a similar sight at her home in Oak Park.
“I was scared, especially because all my roommates were gone and I was without a car,” Yang said. “I don’t mean to sound dramatic, but we don’t get fires where I’m from (Michigan), and I was pretty sure the end of the world was upon me. I was swimming in the backyard and suddenly the sky turned black – when I looked up, it looked like a bruise – dark purple, and red and black. My roommate told me to calm down and call the fire station, it was probably a fire. Then I realized she was right – I could smell it.”
Firefighters were successful in steering the fire away from Highway 118, keeping from taking direct route to the ocean, possibly burning everything in its path. But in their attempt to keep it from crossing the freeway, the fire ripped North, burning into Stevenson Ranch. Good news came from the fire departments Wednesday, with a predicted end to the devastated blaze; firefighters assure the public that there will be no more structural damage and the fire should be out in the next two days.
Pepperdine’s fire department consists of 45 volunteer fire fighters, all of which are fighting the fires in Southern California.
“We are very pro-active to any brush fire in the immediate area,” Carpenter said. “We are constantly, 24 hours a day, monitoring any event that may affect Pepperdine University. We were just in contact yesterday with the fire command post in Chatsworth to ensure there is no threat to Pepperdine’s campus, and we will continue to do so.”
In other local fire news, a small fire broke out Tuesday morning at 1:21 a.m. after a car crashed into a power pole, sending sparks from the lines into the brush at Latigo Canyon and PCH. Pepperdine Fire Department was warned of the flames, which occurred just three hours after the Emergency Operations Center had been shut down after three days of fires finally under control. The Los Angeles Fire Department put out the fire quickly, keeping the blaze contained in under a half-acre space.
October 30, 2003
