CRYSTAL LUONG
Editor in Chief
.jpg)
Students watch the fire in Calabasas on Thursday night. (Anela Holck/Asst. Photo Editor)
Gusty winds have carried a small brush fire that started Wednesday afternoon north of the 118 Freeway in the Chatsworth area well beyond local expectations. Smoke continued to rise and ash to fall throughout the night and into the morning as the fire spread toward Highway 101.
At about 4:30 a.m. today, residents of Malibu Canyon Apartments in Calabasas awoke to intercoms blasting and neighbors pounding on their doors to evacuate.
“They were saying, ‘You guys need to go. You guys need to go,’” said senior Minda Miyamoto.
The Los Angeles County Fire Department has ordered the mandatory evacuation of Malibu Canyon north of Thousand Oaks Boulevard in Calabasas, the Mountain View Estates, the Old Agoura/Chesebro area of Agoura Hills and areas east and west of Kanan Boulevard north of Highway 101. This was in addition to the mandatory evacuation late Wednesday of residents in Bell, Box and Woolsey canyons in Chatsworth.
Voluntary evacuations were also in effect for residents of the city of Hidden Hills and the Calabasas Malibu Canyon, Westlake Village Lindero Canyon and Agoura Hills Reyes Adobe areas north of Highway 101. In addition, all schools in the Las Virgenes Unified School District are closed for today.
The fire had burned at least 8,600 acres and was 5 percent contained at 3:30 a.m., according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
The spreading flames prompted senior David Locke and his four roommates, who reside in a voluntary evacuation zone in Agoura Hills, to ride out on the 101 to survey the situation shortly after midnight.
“The entire sky is lit up red,” Locke said, as fire trucks and sheriff’s vehicles cruised past him in both directions on the highway. “It’s definitely more intense and a lot larger than we thought.”
Malibu was not considered at risk yesterday evening, though wind direction could quickly change the situation, according to Malibu City Manager Katie Lichtig. But the city is ready to alert residents of any important evacuation information and has taken safety precautions.
“The wind can shift so quickly and so strongly,” Lichtig said. “We have staff representation at the command post, which is being run by the fire department.”
Elsewhere, fire response turned Canoga Park High School in Canoga Park and Santa Susana Recreation Center in Simi Valley into evacuation shelters, and Pierce College in Woodland Hills was set up to accept evacuated animals, according to Calabasas city reports.
The most recent fires to strike the area surrounding Pepperdine include a six-acre brush fire in Malibu Canyon in September 2004 and a 25-acre burn late October 2003 in the Corral Canyon Hills.
If fires were to hit the area though, Pepperdine is the safest place in Malibu because of cleared brush and strategic shrubbery planted on the perimeters of campus, the university’s Fire Department Capt. Cash Reed told the Graphic last spring.
09-29-2005
