Total Containment of Corral Fire Expected Monday Afternoon

• Arson Investigators Urge Anyone with Information about How Blaze May Have Started to Call 310-456-6652 •

By Hans Laetz

At least 53 houses were lost, but many hundreds were saved, in the Thanksgiving weekend fire that showed how well careful fire planning could work, while demonstrating how one ignored factor could unravel everything.

Corral Canyon residents say their pleas for increased ranger patrols on State Parks land at the north end of Corral Canyon Road have been rebuffed for months. Arson investigators say the fire was caused by human activity and started in an area where people were partying under a full moon late Friday night.

Corral residents peppered officials with questions about why their pleas for increased fire patrols at isolated canyon party locations had gone unheeded. One angry person posed that question at a Saturday news conference. The commander of the Malibu-Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station, Capt. Tom Martin, said, “That particular area is State Parks property, we do get calls from time to time and we do respond but that is primarily their responsibility.”

Residents said they have been told only one state ranger is on duty at night to patrol the broad swath of mountain parkland from upper Corral Canyon west to campgrounds near Point Mugu, a drive that can take an hour.

As of Monday morning, the fire was reported 90 percent contained, and had burned 4902 acres. Total containment is expected by Monday afternoon. Demobilization was in full swing, with crews pulling out from the city-on-wheels at the Malibu Civic Center.

On Sunday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger stepped over crunched tiles and walked through burned doorways to comfort several families that lost everything. “We lost 53 homes—that's the latest update that I've gotten—which is very sad,” the governor said. "We want to get those people back on their feet as soon as possible."

This time, the photo op was deserved, as it was the governor’s order to move hundreds of firefighters south of the Tehachapis that proved to be what saved Malibu. Trucks from Lake Tahoe and the Bay Area were among the first-in units last weekend in Escondido Canyon—on the scene within two hours instead of two days.
Dozens of Governor’s Office of Emergency Services fire trucks had been pre-positioned in Camarillo, and screamed into Malibu within two hours of the fire’s start. That made the difference, said L.A. County Fire Chief P. Michael Freeman.

“We had the trucks we needed, here at our disposal,” he said. Freeman said that, while more than four-dozen houses were lost, as many as 250 would have burned if reinforcements were not nearby.

“We lost dozens of homes, but it could have been up in the hundreds had we not had pre-positioned resources at the ready,” affirmed Cal Fire chief Tom Barry.

But 53 houses, maybe as many as 58 by some unofficial counts, were lost, as well as 27 sheds, barns or garages. Another 34 homes and 11 outbuildings were damaged, fire officials said.

Southern California Edison crews started to clear Corral Canyon and Latigo Canyon roads of about four miles of tangled power lines and charred, collapsed poles within 12 hours of their burning. By Sunday morning, circuits were restored to all Malibu customers except 55 houses, by Edison count, where meters didn’t exist anymore.

Verizon crews were working to restore lines up the canyons, but did not suffer citywide interruptions. That, again, was not the case with Charter Communications, which again blacked out nearly all cable TV, Internet and telephone service in its entire western L.A. county service area, from Malibu through Topanga to Calabasas, Agoura Hills and other areas miles from the fire area.

Company officials said they lost 12,000 feet of fiber line to their distribution center, just over a mile from the fire’s point of origination. The company said Sunday it had repair crews on standby to restring fiber up the canyon just as soon as Edison crews had finished their work.

Charter released statements Sunday and again Monday noting that a second fiber path into Malibu from its computer center in Monterey Park was only a few weeks from being completed. But with all utility lines down in Corral Canyon, it appears that Charter’s citywide cable, Internet and phone service would have gone down whether the new line was completed or not.

City Manager Jim Thorsen said Malibu City Hall has its own fiber link independent of Charter, and it never failed. The city sent out emergency alerts, but a number of Malibu residents report there were problems with the recorded messages.

Some Corral Canyon residents were complaining that the city had hindered fire response by choosing the middle of fire season to set up a one-lane detour to handle both uphill and downhill traffic on Corral Canyon Road at Solstice Creek, where a bridge is being rebuilt to allow steelhead trout to migrate upstream.

“I am not aware of any reports of any delays on that road,” said Chief Freeman Saturday, and other fire officials agreed. Thorsen said a gate on a bypass route, through the Malibu Beach campground, was opened.