California is suffering its worst fire fall season in decades, after the huge Santa Rosa-Sonoma conflagration a few months ago, and the blazes surrounding the Los Angeles area over the past week. The Skirball fire itself, which has burned around the Bel-Air area and destroyed several homes, echoes that of the terrible November 1961 fire in the Bel-Air community in which celebrities like Joan Fontaine, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Burt Lancaster, and Joe E. Brown lost their houses. That fire was not the first to affect enclaves around Los Angeles that year though.
In May 1961, a fire around the Hollywoodland community and Griffith Park devoured eight homes, seriously damaged 24, and affected scores of others, threatened the Hollywood Sign, the Civil Defense station, Griffith Observatory, and zoo, while scorching acres of land in Griffith Park. On May 12, 1961, temperatures soared. At 7:43 pm that night, winds gusting 40 miles per hour and later up to 68 miles per hour, knocked down power lines at Hollyridge Drive and Canyon Drive, touching off a conflagration.
Mary Mallory’s “Hollywood Celebrates the Holidays” and “Hollywood at Play” are available from Amazon, Vroman’s in Pasadena and Book Soup in West Hollywood.
Note: This is a repost from 2011.
