Back-to-back Wildfires – 1907 and 1908

Our valley has always been beset by wildfires. Before the land was covered with streets and buildings it was covered in sagebrush, which naturally burns with regularity. Before the valley was built-out as it is today, fires would sweep across the valley. Isolated houses and ranches were defended by the locals, who would quickly cut firebreaks ahead of the flames and then make a stand against the approaching blaze.

When fighting wildfires with no pumpers and limited manpower, tactics were important. It was important to know what direction the fire was headed and what you wanted to protect from the fire, such as structures, crops and orchards, or hillsides. Some of those could be protected by cutting a firebreak ahead of the advancing flames. That would mean cutting all the sagebrush away in a wide strip so that once the flames hit that area there would be nothing to burn. That would obviously be a lot of work and ineffective in a strong wind. The only tools they had to fight the flames directly were shovels to throw dirt on the flames and beat down the burning brush, and wet gunny sacks to beat at the flames, which deprived the fire of oxygen. Backfires were sometimes used to fight the fire, but those could easily get out of control, and the use of back-firing was better left to experts.

This idea of standing face-to-face with burning brush and whacking at it with shovels and wet sacks boggles the mind. The heat is intense, blistering exposed hands and faces. Smoke is coming right at firefighters, choking them as they breathe hard from exertion. Barrels filled with water are set up near the fight and the men have to run back and dunk their sacks to keep them wet. The fire can easily get around the firefighters and get behind them, surrounding them. It is dangerous, hard work and, back then, was performed by amateurs.

Just after the turn of the century, the valley was besieged by wildfire two years in a row, in 1907 and 1908. In both cases local resident Phil Begue was the hero of the day.

Phil Begue was one cool guy. His family moved to the mostly uninhabited valley in 1882. He served as one of the first forest rangers of the San Gabriels and was the local constable. He was a family man as well, and a teller of tall tales. He even looked the part, a sturdy man with a big handlebar mustache.

The 1907 fire was relatively small, a couple of square miles, and relatively simple, with only a mild breeze. The fire started near the northern end of the Verdugo Canyon (approximately where the Oakmont Country Club is) and spread north. Phil Begue and two assistant rangers rode hard to all the surrounding ranches and from miles around gathered a large force of local volunteers. They formed into brigades, and Begue sent them to strategic points ahead of the advancing flames.

In this case, the strategy was to keep the flames out of the Verdugo Hills. The northern flanks of the Verdugos were dotted with small farms and bee ranches and if the flames got in there the fire would be uncontrollable. The volunteer firefighters were arrayed in lines with wet sacks and shovels to hold the flames away from the hills while the more experienced Begue lit well-placed backfires.

Within a matter of hours, the fire crew had brought the wildfire under control and they methodically mopped up the hotspots. The fire had traveled as far north as La Crescenta Elementary School, getting into a dry, abandoned orchard just below the school, but getting no further. No structures were burned and, even more important, the fire was kept away from the hillsides. However, several groves of oak and sycamore were lost.

The Crescenta Valley got lucky but that luck would not hold. 1908 brought a much fiercer, more destructive fire. The larger fire also resulted in a clash of priorities between federal and state agencies that nearly left La Crescenta unprotected, save for the efforts of Phil Begue.

  mike lawler