It was the worst wildland-urban fire in California history up to that point. Hundreds of homes were incinerated despite every firefighter in Los Angeles being called up in an unsuccessful effort to fight the Santa Ana winds. Hydrants ran out of water as 50-mph “devil winds” drove fires fueled by “the fastest burning ground cover in the western hemisphere” across major highways that would normally provide sufficient fuel breaks. Famous movie stars, writers, and composers lost their homes and a former vice president of the United States was photographed spraying water from a garden hose on the cedar shake roof of his rented house to protect it from the flames.
Other than a ban on wooden roofs, little has changed since the Los Angeles Fire Department made this film after the Bel Air Fire of 1961.
Just two years before this fire, the National Fire Protection Association had studied Los Angeles and declared (according to the above film) that “combustible-roofed houses closely spaced in brush-covered canyons and ridges serviced by narrow roads” was a “design for disaster.” They were ignored, but the 1961 Bel Air Fire, which burned 6,000 acres and 484 homes, was something of a wake-up call. After the Los Angeles Fire Department made the above film, the city banned wood-shingled roofs and required some landowners to clear their properties of brush. Continue reading
