« May 8, 2007 |
Main
| May 10, 2007 »
Responding to historically dry conditions, the city's parks department is considering a ban on all grilling at parks. Officials said they are working with the L.A. City Council to draft an emergency order, which would need to be passed by the council.
-Rong-Gong Lin II
The Griffith Observatory offered a view like no other in the wake of the fire.
To the north and east, hills yesterday covered with trees and brush had been transformed into a barren landscape. The eastern half of Mt. Hollywood burned, but the western side was still an olive green. The view down to the Roosevelt golf course offers another lesson. Tree along course that received irrigation remain strong and bright green. Trees closer to the hills were blackened.
-Rong-Gong Lin II
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa expressed frustration at homeowners who refused to evacuate the endangered Los Feliz neighborhood Tuesday night. About 25 homeowners defied an evacuation order after shifting winds left firefighters scrambling to save houses in Los Feliz. "They put our fire fighters and police officers in jeopardy when they do that," said Villaraigosa. "We know why they don’t want to leave. They’re very emotional about their homes."
-Rong-Gong Lin II
Some animals died, but most animals left the burn area.
"Almost all animals are hard wired to find where there is a safe place is to go," said Marty O’Toole, fire education and prevention specialist for the National Park Service. "By and large, birds are going to fly away, mammals are going to run away and reptiles are going to bury themselves."
The animals may make their way down to people’s homes in the next day or two, but will probably head back to the park once the fire is out and the firefighters are gone. Once there is rain, there will be new and tender plant shoots for the animals to eat.
-Anna Gorman
The Griffith Park fire will help fire-prevention in the short term because there is less vegetation - or fuel for future fires, said Marty O’Toole, fire education and prevention specialist for the National Park Service.
"But it won’t take more than a couple of years for the plants and grasses to grow back," he said.
The best way to prevent damage to people and homes is to clear the vegetation around their houses and to replace wood roofs.
"That is more effective than just burning big swabs of open space," he said.
"The ecosystem is designed to bounce back very quickly," O’Toole said. "The challenge is when we put people next to open spaces. Then their lives and property are in danger. … We are most concerned about public safety."
-Anna Gorman
On Wednesday, the day after Los Angeles Zoo animals were hustled to their off-exhibit enclosures with a fire bearing down not far away in Griffith Park, the animals were returned to their outdoor exhibits. The zoo, however, remained closed to the public as were all the access roads.
With veiled plumes visible in the hills, zoo staffers said animals were calm and seemingly unbothered by the faint smell of smoke wafting on the breeze. "Even along the edges" of the zoo, said principal keeper Jeff Briscoe, "the animals seem oblivious." Briscoe, who stayed at the zoo until 3 a.m. Wednesday, checked on the zoo's TWO high-profile elephants through the night. "They're fine. They're not even aware of it."
With the zoo devoid of noisy patrons and screaming children, animals luxuriated in the unusual quiet.
-Carla Hall
Continue reading "L.A. Zoo: The day after" »
The fire also displaced scores of animals who make the park home. Coyotes, bobcats, raccoons, squirrels, possums, skunks and deer all live in Griffith Park.
"We saw them fleeing," said William Ramirez, park ranger for 19 years. "They fled down the hill. Now we are seeing some on the streets of the park."
Rangers also found some dead rabbits and snakes this morning in the burned areas. The snakes just had babies recently, so rangers expect to find more young snakes who didn’t make it.
-Anna Gorman
 The fire took a toll on the park’s ecosystem. Many old growth sycamore and oak trees were burned and native chaparral throughout the park was scorched.
Rangers plan to reforest parts of the park, but the challenge will be to keep out the nonnative and invasive species, such as the yellow mustard grass and Indian tree tobacco. "Overnight, the park has changed dramatically," said William Ramirez, park ranger for 19 years. "Areas that had trees and had chaparral are gone."
Ramirez said he worries about what is going to happen when it starts raining. "When the rains come, erosion is going to create havoc in the park," he said. "A lot of mud is going to come down onto the roadways." (LAT photo)
-Anna Gorman
LAFD chief Doug Barry said the 20-year-old man burned in the fire "is not considered a suspect" but that he is still being questioned. Barry said the man "is not fully cooperating," and investigators have more questions for him. Officials have not determined the exact point of origin for the fire -- and that is hampering efforts to determine the man's involvement. The fire started somewhere north of the Roosevelt golf course.
--Rong-Gong Lin II
 Mayor Antonio Villaraigoisa ordered that city officials increase fire patrols in high risk hillside and canyon areas on Red Flag hazard days. The move is designed to more quickly identify brush fires and get fire department resources there as quickly as possible. Also, officials said Griffith Park will be closed until at least Thursday.
-Rong-Gong Lin II
Norman Mennes, 90, who lives alone in his house on Commonwealth Avenue, was evacuated by his neighbor Gary Griffitts, 48, as the fire raged. Mennes said he grabbed pictures of his deceased wife, his parents and "a wad of dollar bills."
The retired Los Angeles City College professor who has lived in the neighborhood since 1974 said the sky was a bright orange as flames engulfed the nearby hillside.
"It was very strange to see the whole hillside in flames," he said. "It gave the feeling like it was going to come right over you."
Continue reading "Los Feliz neighbors reunite" »
Smoke from the Griffith Park wildfire combined with wind patterns forecast for this afternoon will likely create unhealthy air-quality conditions for central Los Angeles County, east San Fernando Valley and west San Gabriel Valley, according to air regulators.
People in those areas are urged to avoid outdoor exercise lasting more than an hour, and those with asthma or other lung or heart disease should avoid outdoor activity entirely, said South Coast Air Quality Management District spokesman Sam Atwood. Schools in those areas are also being notified, he said. There are no air quality monitors in Griffith Park.
-Janet Wilson
Dennis Hahn said he and his girlfriend, Erin Wignall, were evacuated about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday from his apartment on the north end of Los Feliz. He said they packed photos, passports, birth certificates and other valuables.
"We go hiking every morning and every night in the park," Hahn said. "It's a real heartbreaker."
The couple returned to the neighborhood Wednesday morning along Commonwealth Avenue to assess the damage. The area was mostly deserted except for a few gardeners and construction workers returning to work.
"We love the park so much," Wignall said. "We're just waiting to see what happens and what we can do to help."
--Sam Quinones
J.R. Wolfstein, 37, worried all night about his missing cat. He had only been able to round up two of his three cats before he, his father, Dr. Ralph Wolfstein, and his mother, Norma, evacuated the home on Cromwell Avenue where they have lived since 1970. The 1924 Spanish-style home by architect Wallace Neff had filled with smoke that rolled like dry ice over the ridge behind it.
Finding the cat was the only thing Wolfstein wasn't able to do. Area hotels were already booked, so in just 20 minutes he managed to borrow a friend's 36-foot Winnebago and stop by an AutoZone and a RadioShack store to equip it with a battery-operated TV set, a charger and other emergency supplies.
He and his parents spent the night parked outside ABC Studios watching the fire on the television.
When they returned to their home this morning, the power was still out and everything, including the pool, was coated with a quarter-inch of ash. But the cat was on the doorstep waiting for breakfast.
-Mary Engel
Architect Elizabeth Eshel saw the flames of the Griffith Park fire from the air as she flew into Burbank's Bob Hope Airport Tuesday night. Meanwhile at home, her husband, Ron, had already bathed their 2-year-old twins and put them to bed when he noticed their neighbors evacuating. The family was reunited at a friend's house in Beechwood Canyon, along with their Ridgeback retriever.
The Eshels bought their 1958 home on Aberdeen Avenue the day they learned Elizabeth was pregnant with Ben and Lucy. The previous owners also had twins.
Back home Wednesday morning, the family praised "Fireman Phil" and other firefighter friends from Department 35 in Los Feliz. But Elizabeth Eshel, who trains for marathons in the park, worried whether her twins would still see rabbits, deer and woodpeckers on their daily nature walks.
"What does a woodpecker say?" she asked the twins as they clamored up and down the front steps. "Tap tap," said Ben.
-Mary Engel
The Captain’s Roost, a popular hiking spot along one of Griffith Park’s most popular trails, is a complete loss. It includes a ledge and a bunch of oak, pine and other trees along the Mt. Hollywood Trail, which offers hardy hikers stunning views from the Pacific Ocean to the San Fernando Valley. All the trees burned, said Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge.
On Wednesday morning, LaBonge drove carloads of reporters up the closed road to the Observatory parking lot, where several fire trucks remained. Firefighters have a special routine for protecting the Observatory, he said, which reopened last year after a multimillion-dollar renovation.
Some of the scorched chapparal smoldered and helicopters and planes continued to douse the hills with foam. A few deer scurried across the hillside.
LaBonge said that the Observatory had been saved, as well as a patch of 29 trees planted nearby. They were planted in memory of the 29 workers killed in the 1933 Griffith Park fire.
-Amanda Covarrubias
The LAFD said the fire is now 50% contained. Officials now say 817 acres have burned. Because of the progress, about half of the 600 firefighters on scene are being let go.
"Right now, if it goes like this, we are in good shape," said LAPD Capt. Antoine McKnight.
-Amanda Covarrubias
Gabriella Parra, 40, and her son, Tupac Otero, 3, fled their Richland Avenue apartment about 8 p.m. while her husband stayed behind. She said she and her family are regular visitors to the park and that her son particularly enjoyed the carousel and the zoo. "It was really devastating because it has so many memories for us," she said. "Every day we go to the park." Parra said when she picked up her son from school Tuesday he had written on a Mother's day art project: "I love my mommy and daddy because they take me walking to the hills..." As she talked, her son interrupted, "I'm not going hiking anymore because of the fire."
When they left their apartment, Parra said they could see the flames in the hills above the neighborhood. "At that point, it hit me that everything could be burned," she said. Parra, who spent the night along with her son at a friend's house in Cypress Park, said she was happy to learn Wednesday morning that the carousel had been saved. "You just feel relief," she said. "We take him there all the time."
-Anna Gorman
Except for a slight smell of smoke in the air, it was business as usual at Marshall High School, where an evacuation center had operated overnight.
Principal Daniel Harrison said attendance appeared to be down, but only by about 5 percent, and he attributed some of that to incorrect media reports that the school would be closed today. "It's a little bit less than usual, but it's not bad," he said of the attendance drop.
He thought that only a handful of Marshall High students had been evacuated from their homes.
The biggest inconvenience, Harrison said, involved two standardized tests that were scheduled for today. One of them, a makeup version of the state high school exit exam for about 100 students, was canceled and is expected to be rescheduled after consultation with state education officials. The test was canceled because some students were personally affected by the fire and others had been at the school until early today helping at the evacuation center. "We couldn't expect them to score well on a test today," Harrison said.
The other test, for advanced placement calculus, was going ahead, but the school was allowing students to opt out and take it at a later date.
Because of some concerns about smoke, the school would not be holding any rigorous physical education classes today, giving students other options including watching sports training videos.
Harrison has been in the job for just one week. His first day was May 1, when other schools saw student walkouts for immigration rallies. Marshall High did not experience any walkouts but a week later was dealing with the fire. "It's been an exciting introduction to Marshall High," Harrison said.
-Larry Gordon
 L.A. Fire Department chief Doug Barry said he was hoping firefighters could fully contain the fire by this evening. There are more than a dozens choppers and planes in the air dropping water and fire retardant on hot spots. Some inmate crews are working the lines, too. Fresh firefighters should arrive in Griffith Park around 11 a.m.
-Amanda Covarrubias
At John Marshall High School in Los Feliz, about 25 people spent the night on cots and in chairs in the gymnasium, according to Red Cross volunteers. By 8:30 this morning, all had left except one person who was waiting for clearance to get back into a house.
Red Cross volunteer nurse Doris Walton said it was clear to her that the fire was receding. Earlier in the morning she had seen heavier smoke and flames, but now the fire seemed much more under control. "It looks good. You can see the mountains," she said.
Walton and other volunteers had served bagels, croissants, coffee and Gatorade to the evacuees for breakfast. The atmosphere in the gym "was very relaxed" after residents learned their houses were safe, she said. Almost all evacuees had slept on cots, but one spent the night sitting in a chair.
"They all seemed to have things to do today. They had appointments," Walton said. She said she expects the Red Cross evacuation site to be shut down by early this afternoon.
Michela Principe, 64, was evacuated from her Los Feliz Boulevard home last night because the smoke was so thick. From the high school's driveway as she was leaving the evacuation center, she said she slept fitfully on a cot in the school gym and felt exhausted this morning. Nevertheless, she was pleased about being allowed to return home. "I feel good, because I want to go home."
-Larry Gordon
City Councilman Tom LaBonge said two popular hiking destinations -- Captain's Roost and Dante's View -- were severely damaged by the blaze. But Berlin Forest, which park officials feared was lost, appears to have survived the fire, he said. Meanwhile, the fire this morning seems to be focused on the western edge, around Mt. Hollywood.
-Amanda Covarrubias
Stephen Halbert swept ash from his brick patio this morning, trying to clear it before his wife returned to the 1926 house on Aberdeen Avenue they have lived in for seven years. Halbert had been standing outside his home at 8 p.m. Tuesday watching the glow of the fire grow closer and redder when neighbor Kirstie Alley drove up and told him to leave. He grabbed his cats and his computer and jumped in his black Prius.
Halbert's wife spent the night with friends in the San Fernando Valley, where she had been rehearsing a play. He spent the night of his 57th birthday in his car at a nearby Albertson's parking lot with a handful of other evacuees. He was too wired to sleep and wanted to stay up to listen to the radio. Besides, he'd left his wallet in his house.
Returning just after 6 a.m. today, Halbert was grateful to the firefighters but saddened at the loss of so much parkland, where he and his wife hike. But the movie sound man found something to be optimistic about. He'd never heard so many birds singing, he said.
-Mary Engel
The hilly neighborhood next to Griffith Park looked like a ghost town early today before evacuated residents began to trickle back. Tall iron gates that normally guarded $3- to $5-million homes stood eerily open, revealing landscaped lawns and secret gardens.
Helicopters thrummed overhead, and lawn sprinklers, turned on manually when the power went out and left on overnight, hissed. Two coyotes loped across empty Vermont Avenue and disappeared into an unburned patch of park.
Tom Ford stopped in briefly to check on his house before going to work. He had been among the last to evacuate Tuesday evening. His 1923 mansion, once the home of Col. Griffith's son, backs up against the Roosevelt golf course, and Ford had been sure the expansive green would save it. But as the fire last night whipped the wind up, then down, then up again, he lost faith and fled about 10 p.m.
-Mary Engel
 A large California Department of Forestry fixed-wing plane is in the air over Griffith Park and started dropping fire retardant in and around the remaining hot spots. The first drop was on a ridge east of the Hollywood sign.
-Amanda Covarrubias
 Fire officials said the number of acres burned still stands at about 600. They also reported $30,000 in property damage, involving the wood-shake roof of a home. Firefighters continue to deal with flare-ups around the park. Fire vehicles are on top of Mt. Hollywood and Mt. Lee.
-Andrew Blankstein
By 6:45 a.m. today, Deborah Gelson, 56, was back at her 1926 Spanish home on Vermont, four doors down from the Vermont gateway to Griffith Park. The daughter of the co-founder of Gelson's Supermarket had spent the night in her boyfriend's SUV on a nearby Albertson's parking lot, with both their dogs, her two cats and her two parrots.
Gelson fled her home at 8:30 the night before, minutes before the mandatory evacuation orders went out. But she almost didn't make it out. The power had gone out at sunset and there was no battery backup for her electric driveway gate, and her cars were trapped behind it. Just in time, two strapping tourists, optometrists from Kentucky and Indiana who had come to the park to watch the fire, stopped to help.
With Gelson's boyfriend giving directions by phone from his home in La Quinta two hours away, they dismantled the gate and drove her second car, filled with animals and her belongings, to Albertson's, where her boyfriend met her later that night.
-Mary Engel
The 20-year-old man who was questioned by authorities Tuesday as a person of interest in the investigation into the origin of the Griffith Park fire is no longer a suspect, Los Angeles police officials said early today.
Authorities say the cause of the blaze is still under investigation but after hours of questioning, the man who was reported near the scene when the fire broke out did not appear to be involved. "He's no longer a person of interest at this time," said LAPD officer Karen Smith. The man had reportedly been smoking a cigarette or using matches when the fire broke out. He is being treated treated for burns at a San Fernando Valley burn facility. Los Angeles Fire and police officials continue to try and determine how the fire started, whether it was deliberately set or accidental.
-Andrew Blankstein
 The National Weather Service didn't offer firefighters much encouragement.
The forecast for today calls for another big drop in humidity to the single digits and temperatures in the high 80s and low 90s. Forecasters also predict light winds.
"The conditions are pretty similar to yesterday," said Rich Thompson of the National Weather Service. "There is not a lot of wind, but you don't need a lot of wind to dry things out."
Firefighters were aided overnight when humidity levels rose to 15-25%. But those levels are expected to fall today. (LAT photo)
-Andrew Blankstein
Firefighters are focusing their efforts this morning on flare-ups that occurred in the Vermont Canyon area overnight, said LAFD Capt. Carlos Calzillo. With daybreak, fire officials will be able to do their best assessment of damage and determine where the fire is still burning. Vermont Canyon is away from homes, and officials allowed most residents back into their Los Feliz neigbborhood at 6 a.m.
The one exception is a group of homes around Commonweath Avenue near the Roosevelt golf course. Those homes still are threatened by fire because of their location and will remain off limits, he said. About 300 people spent the night at a shelter at Marshall High School.
Fire officials said their biggest concern is a return of hot winds and another drop in humidity.
-Amanda Covarrubias
At the command center at the Greek Theatre, there are still flames visible from the hills above, along with white smoke. But officials believe those are mostly small flare ups. The bigger fire is further up into the park, they said. Officials are hoping to allow some Los Feliz residents back into their homes very soon. Several roads and freeway off ramps were also closed, notably the Zoo Drive and Griffith Park Drive offramps from the 5 and 134 freeways.
-Amanda Covarrubias
Firefighters said the fire is now 40% contained. The fire continues to burn in hard-to-reach hillside and canyon areas, eating up brush that has not burned in decades. But the threat to homes south of the park has eased. Firefighters spent the night holding the line on the fire in the neighborhoods north of Los Feliz Boulevard. But that part of the fire has died down. The part that is still burn is further into the park, away from homes.
-Amanda Covarrubias
Fire officials said the threat to homes is lessening as winds die down. Some -- but not all -- of the residents evacuated might be able to soon reenter their homes. But officials warn the fire could pick up in the morning with the sunrise and more winds.
-Rong-Gong Lin II
Temperatures are cooling slightly and the winds are dying down at the fire command post near the Greek Theatre. Fire officials said they are cautiously optimistic that the fire is "laying down" for the night -- though there are still visible flames and many hotspots. A shift in winds -- like the one that flared the fire around 7 p.m. -- could cause problems.The command center will remain open through the night.
-Rong-Gong Lin II
|
|
