There were six of us sitting in the darkened living room, watching in despair as the flames flickered and flared up the coast. The smoking rails of the coral and the huge crossbeams of the Forests' house across the streets still glowed faintly through the dark, but the engines had long since abandoned the hopeless effort and gone clanging off to some other front where they were more desperately needed. The fire had disappeared over the hill, leaving only the charred grasses, and the stooped figures, silently picking their way through the smoldering ashes.

At 12:11 p.m. on October 23, 1978, a small brushfire was sighted near the Ventura Freeway in southern California on the inland side of the Santa Monica Mountains. Huge brushfires scorch this region regularly, but the five that swept through Agoura and Malibu that day and the next was a holocaust that defied previous measures. Fed by chapparal and whipped by high winds, a small fire lit by a teenage arsonist kindled into a firestorm whose heat set grasses and animals' fur ablaze a hundred yards before the flames. At 2:27 p.m.--precisely two hours and 16 minutes after the first alarm--the fire had crossed the mountains, jumped two highways and a firebreak, and burned the 10 miles to the sea. Over the next 24 hours, 700 firefighters--including 136 engine companies, 12 helicopter and aircraft squads and 28 camp crews--battled the blaze. When it was over by late afternoon only one human life was lost but the toil was still staggering. It included:

--25,000 acres burned:

--197 homes destroyed and 27 damaged;

--254 miscellaneous structures destroyed;

--233 vehicles, 33 mobile homes and 8 private water tanks destroyed;

--27 dogs and 43 horses dead;

--120-150 exotic animals killed.

At 2 p.m. on that gusty Friday, however, we could not anticipate the disaster's magnitude.

I was 20 miles south of home in Santa Monica when I got the news. I was taking the bus back from an afternoon class at UCLA. Accustomed to hearing news of such fires. I was intermittently daydreaming and listening to the news reports on the Mandeville Canyon fire, which had been raging since noon of the previous day. Suddenly, an account of another blaze came on. The words "Kanan Dume"--a road near us--cut through my reverie. Startled, I waited for elaboration and when none came glanced instinctively up the coast for the telltale black smudge on the horizon, Dark clouds billowed from Mandeville Canyon five miles away, but beyond that, the sky was only a crystal blue.

When I got off at the library to change buses I nevertheless called home. My father, who miraculously had taken the day off, answered.

"Where are you?" he demanded.

I told him and mentioned something about a fire.

"It's on three sides of us and creeping up on the Forrests' now. I've got to go," he said.

Quickly we made contingency plans. There would be roadblocks on the way back and quite likely the bus would be stopped as far down as the Colony. If so, I would walk the 10 miles home along the beach.