 Western Airlines Flight 39 left the Soft Lake City at midnight Christmas night south-down for Las Vegas and Los Angeles Because of the surface wind conditions pilot Ben LaBucca brought her in high over the San Gabriel Mountains He was cruising at 14,000 feet over Fontana at 240 a.m. When he made his first contact with the Los Angeles International Airport LA Tower from Western 39 LA Tower from Western 39 This is Western 39 reporting at 14,000 over Fontana the question landing instructions over Thank You LA Say that's quite a fire you have down there. What fire? There's a whole mountain burning up the coast of ways. I guess somewhere back to a point do I haven't heard anything about it. Well, I'll take a look at the tower window Yeah, yeah, I can see it from here. Yeah, I better report that That's your hat boy Donna Cruz was fairly new in her job She joined the Los Angeles Board Operator and the Spatcher on October 1st Early in the morning of December 26th She was the only operator on duty at the Malibu Fire Station of Agura in the San Fernando Valley some 45 miles west of Los Angeles At 240 a.m. Her switchboard lit up like the Christmas tree. She had turned off before leaving for work a few hours ago Fire Department Malibu station. I want to report a fire. Yes, sir. Where is it? Well, I don't know exactly but the one I am it seems to be up to a canyon. Thank you, sir Yes, we'll take care of it. Excuse me, please. I have another call Malibu fire station Yes, what is it? We have a report from an airplane of a fire back to Point Doome. Yes, I already have it. Okay Malibu Battalion Chief George Riker came in from the kitchen with a pot of fresh coffee to find Donna with more calls than she could handle He slipped into the chair beside her and put the next one Malibu fire station Chief Riker. This is over that canyon station. We can see a fire over in your territory. Where in our territory? It appears to be about five miles west of Saddle Peak Lookout. Thank you, cello dad. We'll check From an airplane three miles above the earth From a citizen on the ground from a fire station 20 miles away a rough sort of triangulation is possible The warning bell The alert signal that the dispatch is coming through For the time the battalion chief has picked up the receiver the men are awake wriggling into their gear and scrambling through their stations on the entrance Roll to a reported brush fire in the Newton Canyon area And they roll Engine 71 from the Zuma station on Pacific Highway number 88 from the Malibu Beach Colony number 70 from Los Flores Canyon 72 from the Chuzah across the mountains and Calabasas number 67 Ripping the stillness of the night after Christmas with the shrill terror of their sirens The ranchers the homeowners the farmers come awake with the starters they hear them scream by For they live with the fear of fire At 340 a.m. One hour after the fire was reported 23 engine companies three bulldozers five work crews and four patrol units 170 men are fighting the fire And the fire is winning Crackling down the mountain sides roaring through the canyons whipped by a 50 mile an hour wind Forcing back men and machines backwards and downwards toward the white beaches in the sea which surely must stop it There was no dawn along the beach the day after Christmas The swirling black smoke merely became gray and when the stinging hot wind whipped it thin from time to time Toward the east the bloody ball hung momentarily at the mountains rim Where men yesterday had seen the sun Frank L. Dickover Jr. Had driven his wife and nine-month-old daughter to safety And now he was returning to his home in Zoma Canyon to do what he could to save him But he never got there smoke thicker than any beach ball Engulfed his car blinding After the fire at road by the highway patrol found the wreck and nearby mr. Dickover's chart body He'd broken his leg when the car went off the road He didn't have a chance Morning County Fire Chief Pete Clinger set up his command post to the Zuma fire station on the Pacific Coast Highway His command now comprised 430 men including Navy and Marine personnel moved in by truck when the CV base at Fort Juanini in Terminal Island In the firehouse where the gleaming engines usually stand Gray ladies of the Red Cross served coffee and sandwiches Smoke blackened fire fighters in the dormitory men off the line were treated for I burn and smoke poisoning In the kitchen Bob Singleton set up a press center to accommodate the reporters radio commentators TV news This is Chief Percy go ahead Go ahead Okay Primera goes this condito Canyon will be next no doubt about it Ask the sheriff's office to evacuate this condito Canyon one right away Captain so old griggers of the sheriff's arrow squadron has a bullhorn on his helicopter He uses it to untangle traffic jams This morning it is used for another purpose as he flies low and slow This is the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office Escondido Canyon is in fire danger Persons still in the canyon are ordered to evacuate immediately As they had in two wars the mobile canteens of the Salvation Army will get close to the fire At the Webster School on Malibu Canyon Road the Red Cross set up an evacuation center And as the refugees put in on foot by automobile and some even on horseback the stories poured out There was Mrs. Jean Hasselquist's narrow escape By telephone call from a lovely neighbor and we looked up in the whole hillside in the mountain ranges on fire and We were quite sure that we weren't going to be in the flame until the last minute when it leaps over the Hillside there and all of a sudden the hill but there's the whole hill was just in mass of flame We just ran for our lives. We just missed the flames by about ten feet by nightfall this first burning day 900 men and a hundred pieces of equipment for fighting a wholly Uncontrolled fire and 30 houses had burned to the ground leaving nothing Ironically with their stone chimneys and fireplace among them was the beach house of TV star Ralph Edwards Yes, we did have a lot of Wonderful mementos in there things that were very close to our hearts but the ones I really feel sorry for those people who Lived on their land who made their living out of the land and to have their home Go up in flames that indeed was a tragedy The second smoky dawn brings no relief as the fire rose on south toward Latigo Canyon and here among the bright red fire engines Is the blue and gray short-wave truck of radio station KNX and CBS news reporter humor corp It looks as if we're trapped or at least temporarily stymied up here The road has been blocked off by flames with just moments ago I've leaped across the road up the side of the hill below here in the canyon There is a house and a number of outbuildings which in just about a moment from now Will be reached by those flames and up here on the hill where the plane to jump the road Another house the green house is threatened. I don't think we can make a stand here much longer Jim Lowe our engineer is about ready to evacuate with the KNX mobile unit We've got to make our way back down this row The heat is getting more and more intense than the flames are swept over more than a half a mile of these mountains now Raging moving very very fast the house I told you about a few moments ago down below here is completely enveloped in smoke and flames The people we have just learned have been evacuated from that home and up here to my right another house Which is still standing is threatened by these flames reaching 20 to 50 feet up into the air as these wind guts Whips the black ball of smoke. That's all for Matago Canyon. We've got to make our way out the engines are evacuating now Highway 101 the citizens of Santa Maria and Santa Barbara of Carpinteria and Oxnard News something was up as a convoy of 18 civilian defense pumpers from Northern California, North South Red lights flashing sarin's Something indeed Is the entrance from the north pulled into the zoom of fire station? You can try just north of the sheriff's substation on the highway. It's traveling very fast It's already taking several calls. Thank you Chief yes, Roland that's got a reportable place about the sheriff's station and that's eight miles east of here Must be a completely new fire. It's gotta be order out area available piece of equipment in both the city and county I'll take these civilian defense engines down there myself a New fire eight miles away sweeping down the steep cliff side toward homes thickly clustered above the highway Homes built high for the magnificent Pacific view a view now obscured by ugly brown smoke choking out the setting sun Bringing an early night to this California Riviera Mr. Height at this very moment is up on the roof with a hose wetting down his roof for directly across While the others fight the fire house by house and below parked on the road the householders and their cars Watching the smoke and fire plot out their homes Still gaily outlined Christmas lights and then pass on leaving the homes and the lights intact as it draws on insatiable to the west toward the first fire the zoom of fire now contained but not controlled All over Southern California the thoughts and sympathies of men of goodwill stretch toward the threatened people of the stricken area And the thoughts and the sympathy and the prayers seemed not to have gone unheard That night the wind died down The roaring red monster of flame flickered to a faltering standstill Third fire by known it has swallowed nine homes on the shore of Lake Sherwood and pushed by a 35 mile Wind roars on to the zoom a fire on the other side of the range If it joins up with the zoom a burn, we've got it licked the winds increase Who knows? Right now. We know one thing It's out of control The Sun sank that Friday evening behind the dirty brown cloud of smoke that stretched 50 miles from the San Fernando Valley Across the mountains and over the ocean to Catalina Island sank red and angry leaving behind its after image a corona of fire atop the hills and 2000 weary men bought through that last long night There was good news the next afternoon Qualified in the cautious words of a weary fire chief. We now have the fire tied up in a slippery knot the knot held and so did the Pacific High as The evacuees returned to their homes Desirely colorful islands in the black and gray landscape They looked up at the hot cloudless sky and hoped it would stay that way Now there was no fear of fire but a flood When the rains came and come they must what would happen to their homes with no living vegetation in the hills to hold back the waters Day after day Forestry Department planes flew over the 26,000 acres of devastated mountains and hillsides scattering a half a million pounds of fry grass seed and the Pacific High held and Men asked will the rains when they come come so heavily the seeds will wash away before they sprout and Men began filling sandbags and building dykes around their homes and finally The Pacific High weakened and broke And the rains came and once more men prayed It rained as it should have two months ago It rained all day Friday the 11th of January all day Saturday sometimes mercifully and then Sundays dawn Burst into a blue sky lazy with the fleecy clouds that follow a storm Yes, like a green fuzz across the gray hillsides the rye grass It sprouted and pushed its way through the cold ashes like a promise of springtime There would be food now for the hungry deer in the high hills There would be tiny roots now holding back the soil against the next length in Malibu Because man who knows so well how to organize for his own destruction And also learn how to horizontal salvation