Winds Sweep Fire Through Anaheim
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A fire swept through urban areas of Anaheim, Calif., near Disneyland just before dawn last April 21 leaving 53 structures damaged or destroyed and approximately $50 million in damages. It was the worst non-brush-caused fire disaster in the memory of area fire fighters. Wood shingle roofs, along with the wind, were major contributors to the fast spread of the fire.
The fire, blown by fierce, up to 63mph Santa Ana winds, taxed resources of fire fighting agencies in Orange County and brought mutual-aid strike teams from departments in Los Angeles County as well.
“It was the finest mutual-aid operation I’ve ever seen,” Anaheim Fire Chief Bob D. Simpson said. Simpson should know about mutual aid. As a former Los Angeles County deputy chief he commanded many major brush fire emergencies, sometimes involving statewide mutual aid.
Santa Ana winds
The infamous Santa Ana winds are known for their hot, dry blasts from the north and east. They periodically cause holocausts in the mountains and foothills of Southern California.
The winds were blowing on April 20-21, and fire departments throughout the area were making frequent responses.
The Net 4 Communications Center serves Anaheim, Garden Grove, Orange and Stanton. Normally the center dispatches 70 to 80 emergency responses a day. During the 24-hour period beginning at 7:00 p.m., April 20, Net 4 dispatched 211 calls with 32 structure responses, many of them working fires.
First call: tree fire
The initial alarm for the worst fire reached Net 4 at 5:40 a.m. as a “tree fire” at 1590 West Juno. Because of other calls nearby, it was immediately changed to a structure fire with Anaheim Engines 11 and 1, Truck 1 and Battalion 1 responding. Two minutes later Engine 12 joined the response. Other calls came in regarding “roof fires.”
A complicating factor occurred two hours prior to the incident. Anaheim Engine 6 and Truck 6 were dispatched to Garden Grove on mutual aid and were there when the West Juno alarm came in. Station 6 was empty when the fire in its district broke out, making a four to six-minute longer response necessary.
At 5:47 a.m., prior to full knowledge of the West Juno incident, Net 4 dispatched Anaheim Engine 5 and Truck 7 on another structure response to Orange. Almost simultaneously Anaheim Engine 7 reported a medical still alarm at Station 7 and requested Anaheim Medic Engine 3.
With a three-minute time frame, Anaheim had committed six engines and two trucks to three major, unrelated incidents. The city’s on-duty fire resources were reduced to four engines covering the city of 220,000.
On arrival at West Juno, the Battalion 1 commander saw that the fire was obviously in several structures along roof lines and requested help. “I want three alarms on this thing. Get us about 10 more engine companies. We’re fully involved!”
Full emergency operations
This sizeup sent the Net 4 into full emergency operations, alerted Orange County Fire Department as regional disaster coordinator. Eventually, the equivalency of 20 strike teams would be requested—16 from outside Net 4 area—consisting of 56 engines, 11 trucks, 15 battalion chiefs, two special equipment apparatus, and a 15-man hand crew. This included six strike teams from Los Angeles County consisting of 30 engines and six battalion chiefs. Four of the six teams were from the L.A. County Fire Department, the regional agency coordinating disaster service; the other two included units from Long Beach, Compton and Vernon and Downey, Lynwood and Montebello.
“This was not a firestorm, but a wind-driven fire, Anaheim Assistant Chief Rob Evans, the incident commander, pointed out. “We are not certain where and how the fire started; it has been reported it was in a palm tree. However, we do know that the fire undoubtedly was a delayed alarm and got into the wood-shingled roofs of apartment houses in the area.”
He noted first-in companies could not properly size up the fire because the wind was blowing so hard it held the smoke down along the roof lines.
Entire department recalled
Once the extent of the emergency was known, Anaheim issued a full recall of its entire department. According to Evans, it was more than 80 percent effective.
“I came to headquarters initially to set up our operation,” he recalls, “and KEZY radio called for a report. I told them what I knew and when I mentioned a recall, they put an announcement on the air immediately. This plus our standard recall procedure assisted.”
Evans notes that police operations were very efficient.
“A motor officer on the way to headquarters saw the incident and radioed the watch commander of the potential problem. The watch commander held the shift going off duty so, along with the day shift, the police had many officers on the scene quickly.”
Evans says initial units under command of Battalion Chiefs Ekannbery and Vandiver tried to hold the fire from crossing southwesterly across Ball Rd.
“One of our engineers saw the fire had jumped Ball and reported it was into the apartment complexes. There just was no stopping it,” Evans explained. “We tried to get ahead of the wind, it just wouldn’t work.
“Our men and units had major problems in getting hose lines in and around the apartment complexes. We had to lay hand lines back into the inner yards. We tried large streams on roofs, but the high winds hampered our efforts everywhere. The fire continued to spot behind us although we did eventually have patrolling engine units ahead of the fire.”
A natural fire break
As the fire continued to rage southwest toward Euclid Ave., the next major highway, a major effort was to be made to hold it there. The winds slowed slightly and Loara High School and Park provided a natural fire break.
The fire did jump Euclid to South Falcon St. one block west of Euclid, but a four-engine strike team was immediately dispatched to extinguish the structure and spot fires. Then a secondary defense line was established more westerly at Falcon and F’ann Sts. to catch the flying embers being pushed by the wind. This also was successful.
By 7:26 a.m. the strike team leader assigned to the sector west of Euclid reported all fires in that sector were extinguished or under control.
For the next two hours a concentrated effort by the fire fighting army worked and succeeded in controlling the major fire still burning between Juno on the north, Loara on the east, Palais on the south and Euclid and Roberts on the west.
Police set up a command post adjacent to the fire command post on Ball Road and sent officers into the field to alert residents to the fire and request they evacuate immediately. There were no deaths or critical injuries.
Getting more water
Evans said the Anaheim water department responded with a coordinator and, when additional pressure was needed, a radio call could up the flow as high as 6000 gpm.
“The cooperation of police, water and other city agencies was outstanding,” he says. “And, Fve never seen such prompt mutual-aid response in my memory. We had units here faster than sometimes when we have other emergencies.”
He also notes that an L.A. County strike team was assigned to fire headquarters on Broadway, several miles east of the fire. The County units with an Anaheim fire fighter as coordinator responded as needed. Radio communications often were difficult.
Simpson says the effort to provide proper public information to the media was most successful.
“While at Los Angeles County I learned the need for the media to know what was going on to prevent panic. The need for the media to have accurate information was paramount and this fire attracted press, radio and television from all over the region, plus telephone calls from the entire country.”
Anaheim Fire Marshal Garth Menges and Anaheim Information Officer Dean Gross assisted the chief in the field media information operation.
The toll
In summation the damage report was: 53 structures damaged or destroyed, 4H8 dwelling units damaged or destroyed, 1500 homeless, 39 citizens and fire fighters treated at hospitals, and 157 citizens treated at scene.
“Looking at aerial photos afterwards,” Evans observes, “the fire passed our vacant Station 6 which had a composition roof (it burned trees) but it destroyed a building next door with composition roof. Carports with composition roofs were not burned while t he apartments were.”
Simpson reports that Anaheim and other areas are banning new construction with wood shingle roofs.
Official photographs Public Information Office, City of Anaheim.
