The Flammable West

Where Mother Nature and civilization collide.

THE FIRE STARTED on November 5, 1961, in a pile of rubbish on a Santa Monica Mountains hillside. Within minutes, the Santa Ana winds were pushing flames across expensive neighborhoods, among them Brentwood Canyon and Bel Air. By the time it was extinguished, two days later, the Bel Air Fire had burned more than 500 homes, among them mansions belonging to actors Burt Lancaster and Zsa Zsa Gabor. Richard Nixon saved his house by hosing down the roof before he and his wife evacuated. The combination of the conflagration and the glamorous setting led Life magazine to dub the fire, “A Tragedy Trimmed in Mink.”