Playing with Rain and Fire
Pacific Coast Highway and Tuna Canyon were shut down for hours on January 21, while firefighters worked to contain a fastmoving brush fire in steep terrain. (see spectacular photo on following page.) The fire is thought to have ignited...
Helitankers Arrive in Time for Peak Fire Season
The three massive helitankers that are the core resources for the Quick Reaction Force, are back in town. This high-tech, highly efficient aerial firefighting team will be stationed in Southern California throughout peak wildfire season. These three mammoth airships...
Topanga ArsonWatch Seeking Volunteers
Many Topangans have not lived in the Canyon long enough to remember the fire of November 1993. It burned for 10 days, from the top of Old Topanga Canyon to the coast in Malibu destroying over 300 homes, scorching...
Thanksgiving Power Outage Update
More than 80,000 households and 100 electrical circuits in five counties were shut down the night before Thanksgiving, during the strongest windstorm in four years, with sustained winds of more than 50 mph and gusts of more than 75...
Why We Stand a Fighting Chance
A conversation with the folks that fight our fires about what’s keeping them up at night. On November 8, 2018, a fire ignited, sparked by power lines at the old Santa Susana Field Laboratory in the Simi Hills. Less...
Three-County Training Exercises Tuesday, October 19
This coming Tuesday, October 19 as the Santa Ana winds surface across Southern California, the Los Angeles County Fire Department will be hosting its annual training exercise at Helispot 69 Bravo above Topanga Canyon/Malibu. The four Quick Reaction Force...
Fire in the Mountains
Topanga and Malibu had close calls with fire last week. The Flores Fire on July 19, named for Little Las Flores Canyon, was the second fire in the Tuna Canyon area this month, and this time, it burned perilously...
The Chinook 47—World’s Largest Fire-Fighting Helicopter
Los Angeles, Orange, and Ventura Counties have each secured the use of a Chinook Helicopter for the coming fire season, beginning June 15. The Chinook 47 is currently the world’s largest fire fighting helicopter. Built by Boeing, this aircraft...
69 Bravo Upgrades
69 Bravo, the critically important fire fighting helistop base high in the mountains above Topanga, has received some important improvements, just in time for peak fire season. The base, which has four helipads, and four water tanks—officially known as...
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