History in flames

Marshall Allen

When Glendale Fire Battalion Chief Joel Markss arrived on the

scene of the College Hills fire on June 27, 1990, the flames were

jumping from one wood-shake roof to another, making their way up the

hillside neighborhood south of Glendale Community College.

“It looked like at least three or four houses were on fire, and

the smoke was so heavy you couldn’t see a thing,” Markss, now

retired, said. “It was moving extremely fast, faster than anything we

had experienced before.”

The College Hills fire was started by an arsonist near where

Verdugo Road and Glendale Avenue meet, Markss said. Once ignited, it

was driven into a firestorm by wind and hot and dry conditions,

according to Glendale Fire Department Chief Chris Gray.

Officials suspect former Glendale arson investigator and convicted

serial arsonist John Orr of starting the blaze.

Once it reached the top of the hill, the College Hills fire flew

across the Glendale (2) Freeway like a blowtorch, said Markss, the

fire’s incident commander. By the time the wind died down and the

firefighters had put out the blaze, it had destroyed 46 homes,

damaged 20 others and caused $50 million in damage.

“In terms of homes burned and partially burned, it was definitely

the worst one ever,” Markss said.

While no fires since have caused damage to the area like the

College Hills fire, the Glendale and Foothill communities have seen a

number of major brush fires over the years.

The San Rafael Hills fire on Dec. 22, 1999, could have been at

least as catastrophic as College Hills.

Believed to have been started by a fallen electric line behind

Descanso Gardens in La Canada Flintridge, the fire came at a time

when conditions were at their worst -- low humidity, dry fuel and

50-mph winds. The fire was soon blowing over the mountain into

Glendale.

“When I saw the fire, I thought, ‘Uh-oh, I’m in trouble. I’m going

to lose houses,’” incident commander and Glendale Fire Battalion

Chief Don Wright said. “All I could see was this wall of flames

coming up over the hill from La Canada into Glendale.”

The flames gorged themselves on dry brush and were shoved

laterally by the winds, rising higher than 100 feet in some places,

Wright said.

Capt. Wayne Lee of the Los Angeles County Fire Department’s

Station 82 in La Canada Flintridge was on the first engine to the

fire on the La Canada Flintridge side. It was moving like a freight

train when it burned into Glendale, he said.

“It had a mind of its own. It was laying all the way across the

[Glendale] freeway and starting to ignite the brush on the other

side,” Wright said.

A combination of factors kept the fire from being catastrophic,

Lee and Wright said. The most significant: Mother Nature cooperated.

The wind died down and a full moon allowed helicopters to make

360-gallon water drops on the flames. What’s more, the College Hills

fire had motivated the departments to implement better training and

brush clearance. By the time the San Rafael Hills fire was over, it

had consumed 505 acres, but the only structure lost was the Glendale

Police Department shooting range.

The fire that burned the most acreage in the region -- 47,383

acres -- was the Big Tujunga fire of Nov. 12-15, 1975. Lee was with

the U.S. Forest Service at the time, on a hand crew that was dropped

at the fire’s point of origin near the tunnels on Angeles Forest Road

in Monkey Canyon.

Started by an illegal campfire, the fire fed on thick, aged

chaparral that hadn’t burned in 30 years, Lee said. Driven down the

mountain by the Santa Ana winds, it reached the hillside north of La

Canada Flintridge, then burned west above La Crescenta and Sunland

and Tujunga, continuing until it reached the Ronald Reagan (118)

Freeway above Hansen Dam.

By the time it was extinguished three days later, it had burned an

area 10 miles wide and 18 miles long and consumed eight La Crescenta

homes.