As the sun went down on Halloween, Saturday, October 31, just before kids were due to take to the streets, neighbors looked up in alarm at smoke billowing over Paradise Lane. Tucked away on a large property, a classic Airstream trailer was in flames. One of the owners, home with a friend at the time of the fire, spoke about the scary circumstances on condition of anonymity. "I'm a very private person," she said, and also embarrassed, because the fire was started when she put off a "gopher smoke bomb" in the trailer to flush out rodents. "It was really interesting," she said. "We had no idea that something like that was capable of starting a fire. There's a lot to learn about the safety of those." At the beginning, the homeowner tried to attack the fire with an
PHOTO COURTESY OF JANICE HARMON  The Halloween fire on Paradise lane took down a trailer. At the Coalition meeting (see related article, "The Readiness Report," on page 20), Janice Harmon and Bo Tasker passed around photos that showed the sad remains of what had been a beautiful Airstream. Firefighters were quickly called to the scene and put the fire down before it could spread. The group agreed that everyone should review the dos and don'ts of fire safety in the Survival Guide issued throughout the County. The Emergency Survival Tips brochure in Spanish and English sent out by Supervisor Yaroslavsky's office in September will soon be available on the T-CEP website, www.t-cep.org. |
The closest hose wasn't long enough, so the flames took off as she struggled to attach a larger one. "And the water pressure is not great." Meanwhile, she called both Station 69's local number and 911. "The Fire department was there really quickly – in five minutes or so." That's close. Station 69 reports that the call came in at 5:57 p.m. and they arrived in 10 minutes. By that time, the trailer was fully engulfed. As she stood watching it burn, she spoke with her neighbor Chuck Bateman. They were "astounded," she said, "that an Airstream could melt so quickly." Luckily, "Nobody was hurt. Nobody was living in it. I know a lot of people have trailers on their property with people living in them and now I know they can be highly flammable."
"It was eye-opening for us to watch it burn," agreed Bateman. "It melted so quickly. It was fortunate it wasn't under any trees." Said the owner, "My property was really clear. The blessing was there wasn't any wind."
"The smoke was terrible!" said Maryana Palmer, who was at home near the intersections of Paradise and Cheney. "And there was a terrible smell because of the tires." She was one of the few neighbors who didn't follow the smoke to its source. Kari Garen drove down with another neighbor. "It was a full blaze. There were a lot of people. It was surprising to see how many people came out to help and to see if Topanga was on fire!" Garen estimated a dozen came down.
Another neighbor, Burt Whalley, put that number at 20. Burt and Connie Whalley, CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) trainees who live nearby, did not walk down closer. "Everyone's reaction was to run down the road to the fire and get in the way of emergency equipment," Burt mused. "I refrained from coming down because you couldn't fit two vehicles at a time down there." Burt was surprised that the neighbors, who are, as the owner put it, "fire savvy" didn't use their radios instead. "We're being trained to use our FRS radios instead of going down to a fire." Connie added, "Many of those people went down to help – one brought a hose…. A lot of neighbors were very, very concerned, but they should be careful not to impede the firefighters." Burt said residents parked three or four cars haphazardly along the road in their effort to get to the blaze. "They drove up on my property with cars," said the owner. "There were a lot of people there to help. But some were asking questions. It was another distraction from what I was doing."
Stations 68, 69 and 70 were called to the scene, but the C crew at Station 69 was able to put the fire out without further assistance. Captain Salgado verified that the cause of the fire was "a rodent smoke bomb."
The owner praised the firefighters' efforts. "They were terrific." The owner, who is very active in her neighborhood network ("I had a Fire Council meeting at my house six weeks ago"), took many lessons away from the experience. But, as Burt said, "It could have happened to any neighbor or anybody else." The owner is philosophical. "People make mistakes. You learn from them and move on."
