Southern California Brush Fire List

MAJOR BRUSH FIRES IN LOS ANGELES CITY 1883 -1996
Date	Locality	Acres	Homes	Deaths
September 22, 1883	Coldwater Canyon Brush Fire	.	.	.
July 4, 1917	Hollywood Hills Brush Fire Laurel Canyon x Lookout Mountain	.	.	.
January 24, 1929	Cahuenga Pass fire	.	.	.
October 3, 1933	Griffith Park Brush Fire Dam Canyon -- Block 36	46.8	.	29
November 6, 1955	La Tuna Canyon Brush Fire	4,500	.	.
December 31, 1958	Beverly Glen Canyon Fire	.	.	.
December 31, 1958	Woodland Hills, Topanga Canyon Benedict Canyon Fire	.	1	.
July 10, 1959	Laurel Canyon Fire	.	.	.
May 12, 1961	Beachwood Canyon Fire	.	.	.
November 1961	Bel-Air-Brentwood Brush Fire	.	484	.
September 25, 1970	Santa Susana Mt., Chatsworth Brush Fire Porter Ranch Estates	.	173	.
September 25, 1970	Lopez Canyon Fire	.	.	.
September 28, 1970	Griffith Park Fire	.	.	.
1971	Santa Ynez Fire	9720	.	.
1975	Big Tujunga Canyon Fire	.	.	.
November 14, 1977	Topanga Canyon Fire	.	.	.
October 1978	Mandeville Canyon Fire Pacific Palisades	6,130	30	.
September 16, 1979	Laurel Canyon Fire Kirkwood Bowl	.	29	.
July 2, 1985	Baldwin Hills Fire	.	.	.

MALIBU FIRESTORMS, 1930 -1996

Malibu is the wildfire capital of North America and possibly, the world. Fire here has a relentless staccato rhythm, syncopated by landslides and floods. The rugged 22-mile-long coastline is scourged, on the average, by a large fire (one thousand acres plus) every two and half years, and the entire surface area of the western Santa Monica Mountains has been burnt three times over this century. At least once a decade a blaze in the chaparral grows into a terrifying firestorm consuming hundreds of homes in an inexorable advance across the mountains to the sea. Since 1970 five such holocausts have destroyed more than one thousand luxury residents and inflicted more than $1 billion in property damage. Some unhappy homeowners have been burnt out twice in a generation, and there are individual patches of coastline or mountain, especially between Point Dume and Tuna Canyon, that have been incinerated as many as eight times since 1930.

Mike Davis, Ecology of Fear (Vintage Books, 1999), pp. 97-98.

MALIBU FIRESTORMS, 1930 -1996
Date	Locality	Acres	Homes	Deaths
October 1930	Potrero	15,000	.	.
1930	Decker Canyon Fire	?	?	?
October 1935	Latigo/Sherwood	28,599	.	.
1936	?	?	?	?
November 23-30, 1938	Topanga	16,500	350	.
1942	Malibu	?	?	?
November 1943	Woodland Hills	15,300	.	.
October 1949	Susana	19,080	.	.
November 1955	Ventu	12,638	.	.
December 1956	Sherwood/Newton	37,537	120	1
December 27,1956	Hume	1,940	?	?
This fire retraced the path of the 1930 Decker Canyon fire.
December 1958	Liberty	17,860	107	.
1959	?	?	?	?
September 25,1970	Wright	31,000	403	10
October 1978	Kanan/Dume	25,000	230	2
This fire began in Agoura and roughly followed the route of the 1956 fire through Trancas Cyn.
October 1982	Dayton Canyon Trancas Canyon	54,000	74	.
This fire began in Agoura and roughly followed the route of the 1956 fire through Trancas Cyn.
October 14, 1985	Piuma	5,120	?	?
This fire retraced the path of the 1930 Decker Canyon fire.
November 2, 1993	Old Topanga Calabasas/Malibu	18,500	350	3
October 1996	Monte Nido	15,000	2	.
.	Total	.	1,636	16
.	.	.	.	.
.	Plus smaller fires	.	2,000	.
Source: Los Angeles County Fire Department records.