[Concerning the Oct. 22, 1996 fires, written on Oct. 24] Nothing like a little fire to start off the week... I work at Hughes Research, which sits on a bluff overlooking Malibu, CA, very close to Pepperdine University. While this normally makes for a serene, pleasant working environment, that changed drastically on Monday. The fire started around 10:30am in Calabasas, about 7-10 miles north of the labs. Fanned by 40 MPH Santa Ana winds, it moved south and west towards the ocean, taking a route very similar to the Malibu fires in 1993. The first clue I had was noticing the two "Super Scooper" aircraft in the area. These are fire-fighting seaplanes on loan from Quebec that can scoop water while flying over the surface of a body of water (in this case, the Pacific), drop it on a target, then come back and reload. I noticed two things: 1) They were flying right over the labs, headed due north, and 2) It wasn't taking them very long to come back to the Pacific and reload. I was focusing on something else at the time, so I didn't think much more about it, but if I were smarter I would have put those two together and reached the conclusions: 3) There's a fire not very far north of us. 4) The prevailing winds (blowing south, southwest) are pushing the fire toward us. 5) RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY! Around lunchtime we went for our normal run around Pepperdine. That's when we saw the ominous, massive cloud of dark smoke to the north. Coworkers who had been through the '93 fire pointed out that it looked exactly like the situation in '93. Sometime around 1 pm the fire hopped Mullholland drive, about 4 miles to the north of us. Malibu Canyon Road, the normal route north, was closed. Voluntary evacuation orders (which soon became mandatory) were issued by 1:30pm. Fire crews from several neighboring counties were pouring into the area and assembling near the Malibu civic center. So of course, I stayed and manned a firehose, staring at 200 ft. flames six inches from my face... Yeah, right. Actually, I hightailed it well before the fire arrived. When you're told to leave, you leave, before everyone else beats you to it and blocks the roads. I took Pacific Coast Highway north, following the ocean until the mountains ran out so I could avoid getting trapped on any canyon roads. People were bringing their horses and animals out, and many fire crews were stationed at strategic points along Pacific Coast Highway. There was no chance of containing the fire; the crews were trying to protect structures and individual sites. By 3 pm Pacific Coast Highway was closed. By 4 pm the fire had crossed parts of Pacific Coast Highway. By 6 pm the fire was at Hughes and Pepperdine University (whose students had already fled or piled into the central dining center, quickly converted to a shelter). The fire burned around the labs and the mountain edge of Pepperdine and a little bit in the middle. It also crossed P.C.H. in two places but didn't get the homes on the other side. Fortunately, the winds have died down so the fire has become much easier to fight. Very few buildings burned. Hughes was untouched, and Pepperdine only lost a few outer buildings (e.g. stables). Compare that to '93 when over 200 buildings were destroyed. Still, over 13,000 acres have burned in under 3 days, and as of this morning (Wed) the fire is still not out. I can still see substantial numbers of fire crews at the civic center this evening. Helicopters and aircraft continue to buzz our building, and the thick smell of smoke is omnipresent, even inside the building. Hughes Research was closed on Tuesday but we reopened on Wednesday. Several firemen were hurt but there are no deaths so far. Driving down the canyon and seeing the blackened, still smoldering hillsides gives a very eerie feeling. [Some later comments: most of the fire crews stayed for almost a week. At its peak around 4,000 firefighters were in the area, with hundreds of fire trucks visible in the command center near the Malibu civic center. The total area that burned is roughly the size of the entire island of Manhattan.] For now, things are ok, although the first winter rainstorm will probably close the labs again, this time due to mudslides (with all the ground cover burned away) [Actually, it ended up closing the main road but not the labs...] Ron Azuma (azuma@HRL.com) "Malibu has a natural built-in firebreak. Unfortunately, it's the Pacific Ocean." - Sara Maurice, Malibu city spokesperson