LAFD: "Design For Disaster" - The Story of the Bel Air Conflagration | 1962
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Published 2024-01-06
The then $30 million disaster led to new laws in the City of Los Angeles to eliminate wood shingle roofs, and to clear dry brush away from homes. The film is narrated by actor William Conrad.
All Comments (17)
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My father worked at LAFD FS36 in San Pedro (LA Harbor) & was dispatched to the Bel Air Fire. He said they would save or try to save a home, quick pick-up the fire hose, then onto the next house or neighborhood. The modern version of the Bel Air Fire is The Camp Fire in Northern California in 2018. In my opinion, brush fires are the most dangerous fire, as there are no 4 walls for containment. I have many pictures of Dad at work on those Crown fire engines!
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Bill Conrad on the voiceover.
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I remember growing up as a kid in the 1950's and 1960's watching those beautiful open cab CROWN fire trucks. LAFD Task Force 89. W89. My first in fire station one block from my house where I lived.
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11 years later I visited writer Robert Bloch at his home. He told me that during this fire he saved his home by pumping out the water from his pool onto his roof & grounds while all around him other homes burned to ashes with many people not home at the time. I walked up there from Sunset Boulevard & back then I was 20 years old & it was very steep & a lot of new vegetation everywhere but you could still see the scars from the fire. Mr. Bloch was very nice to allow me to visit and he is very missed.
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A classic, thanks for posting šØāš
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I hired on as a stewardess for Western Airlines the year after this and we did our training at LAX some of which was conducted by LAFD. They were very professional and thorough and arrived each day in one of those big open engines that look so epic now. On one of my very first flights we had a fire in the cabin of a Boeing 720 and I was grateful for those guys every moment it took to put out that fire. The cause were some young guys heading to basic training in the Army playing with cigarettes. (The "end" came when a full Colonel sitting in the back found out. Not pretty!)
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The Camp was truly horrendous. The opening description of wind in this piece nails what we faced, even in November, although the heat was likely less....but oh, it was so dry. Combined with the canyon winds....Paradise had no chance at all. I listened to the Camp on tbe scanner, helping people get as much accurate information as fast as possible via internet sources. I am absolutely astonished that we still have sane first responders after that. I never, ever, want to hear something like that again.
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Oh how well I remember those Santa Ana winds. I always knew that in a fire those winds would whip the flames into an inferno. Thank God I never had to go through that horror. This fire is unbelievable even today. Glad I never lived in that area of L.A.
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I love these films! The equipment looks so cool nowadays! I wonder what difference modern firefighting equipment and techniques would have made. You'll never beat nature!
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Watching from 700 yards from the point of origin and Iāve never heard of this!
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If this film was made today, we would of heard the term āāClimate Changeāā as least once.
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People still haven't learned, this shit happens WAAAYYYY too often!!!ā¹ļøšµ
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Where are all of the comments about space lasers, and blue roofs, and billionaires???
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Was this narrated by Lorne Green?
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And yet your building code just adds more fuel, building in wood.
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The narrator is the same guy from rocky and bullwinkle????
