Mill Fire of 1975 – The Community Helped Each Other

Through all the images of fear and destruction from the Mill Fire of 1975 there were some funny sights as well. A llama peacefully grazed on the lawn of one La Crescenta house, having been evacuated from its fire-threatened home. A photo that made the newspaper showed a young couple sitting on rocking chairs next to their pet goat on the corner of Briggs Avenue and Rockdell Street. They were evacuating their home and were waiting for pick-up.

We heard many stories of neighbors helping neighbors in the fire zone, such as helping load cars of elderly neighbors, watering the roofs of houses next door, etc. All through the community were seen individuals and businesses pitching in to help. On Sunday, Crescenta Valley High School was commandeered as a Red Cross evacuation center. The next day, Monday morning, many students unaware of the school’s closure showed up for class. Some of them, instead of turning around and heading home, put their books down and pitched in as volunteers for the Red Cross. The school’s cafeteria joined the effort by serving over a thousand meals to evacuated residents. The La Cañada Youth House was also set up as a Red Cross evacuation station and food for evacuees was donated by the La Cañada McDonald’s.

Three residents of hard-hit Harmony Place, where so many homes had burned, took it upon themselves to start a drive to furnish supplies, home goods and furniture for those who had lost everything. They were overwhelmed with support, including a Girl Scout troop that volunteered to go door-to-door soliciting donations.

A couple of local businesses
pitched in. Cooper’s Hardware (located where Marshalls is today) offered a 30% discount to anyone who had damage from the fire. La Cañada Heating and Air Conditioning put on extra crews to offer free replacement of smoke-clogged filters and installation of new ones for all valley residents.

But the stand-out volunteers were a loose band of local CB radio enthusiasts. If you remember, in the ’70s CB (Citizen Band) radios were extremely popular. They were really the social media of their day and allowed many people to keep in touch, make new friends and, in this case, rally help for a community in danger. Two Montrose residents got on their CB radios asking for help, specifically to support the hundreds of firefighters who were here in the valley fighting our fire.

One hundred volunteers from all over the LA basin heard the calls on their CBs and showed up to help. They took over the parking lot of the supermarket at Foothill and Ocean View boulevards (today’s Big Lots) and set up a temporary food station to feed the firefighters. They hooked up their water and electricity to Cal-Med Pharmacy and Colonel Sanders. Around the clock each day they made sandwiches and coffee and coordinated donations from local stores and restaurants while a fleet of drivers rushed the food and coffee to the grateful firefighters manning the fire lines. They were so effective that they were singled out by the responding fire departments for a public letter of thanks. The list of stores and restaurants is a fun walk down memory lane. Here are just a few: Pickle Barrel (Montrose), Jay’s Pizza (La Cañada), Reflections (La Cañada), Trader Joe’s, La Crescenta Liquor, and Yum Yum Donuts (all from La Crescenta), both the local McDonald’s restaurants, Ebmeyer’s Bakery and Montrose Home Bakery, Thrifty, Pizza Pete’s, Bob’s Big Boy, plus Crawford’s Market and Copper Penny (both of Glendale). Even a loaded Oroweat bread truck showed up to donate its contents. It was an amazing all-hands effort to help our neighbors and to save our community.

But of course the natural cycle for our foothills community is fire followed by flood. Within a week of the containment of the fire, the forest service began reseeding efforts in the burned-out areas and public meetings were held to help residents protect against the inevitable mudslides. True to the vagaries of nature, mudslides did not occur that winter. It was a full three years, the winter of 1978, until the denuded hillsides finally cut loose and swept mud through our community.

  mike lawler