Little remains to remind hikers and picnickers of the deadly fury that
once engulfed a Griffith Park canyon.
On a sweltering October afternoon in 1933, sudden winds fanned a
lackadaisical brush fire into an inferno. More than 3,000 civilians were
drafted to fight it, armed with only shovels and pickaxes. They
clambered down the steep canyon walls in pursuit of stray embers and
found a death trap.
Twenty-nine died in the deadliest blaze in Los Angeles city history;
more than 150 were injured.
At 11 a.m. today, 71 years after the tragedy, the city will honor those
who lost their lives. On Vista Del Valle Drive, overlooking Mineral
Wells Canyon, officials will place a stone marker and plant a memorial
tree to replace the original bronze plaque, which vanished nearly seven
decades ago.
"I think it's important to never forget the past and this tragic
moment that took place marking one of the darkest days in our
history," Councilman Tom La Bonge said.
On Oct. 3, 1933, in 100-plus degree heat, more than 3,700 Works
Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps workers were
maintaining bridle trails, pulling weeds and building roads that
visitors use today.
The Depression-era New Deal programs, which provided work for the
jobless, were meant to give hope to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's
"forgotten man."
A little after 2 p.m., a blaze began in a small pile of leaves
near the parking lot of the golf course clubhouse. A careless smoker
might have been responsible; a man in a dark suit was seen running away
but never identified.
Bernard Mack, 19, a high school dropout from Boyle Heights, was clearing
a road when his supervisor ordered his WPA crew to fight the fire.
"We were kibitzing about the upcoming USC football game,"
Mack, now 90, recalled in a recent interview. "[We] didn't think it
was that big a deal as we threw buckets of sand on the fire."
"Smack it out with your shovels and cut a firebreak," one of
the supervisors yelled.
Most of the men and supervisors had little or no firefighting
experience. Some workers later testified that their bosses had
threatened to revoke their work permits if they hesitated.
As the fire started moving faster, foremen flooded the canyon with
workers and set a few backfires in hopes of blocking it. Those were the
worst things they could have done, then-Fire Chief Ralph Scott later
testified. They didn't know how or where to set the fires, and the
canyon was the most dangerous place to be.
When Los Angeles City Fire Engine Company 56 arrived, the professionals
found it impossible to control more than 3,000 inexperienced workers.
While most firefighters stationed themselves on higher ground, WPA and
CCC supervisors kept sending their men into the ravine. A city fire
captain stood at the bottom of the canyon, sending them back up as fast
as they could go.
"Get out of here, you fellows," he bellowed. "There's
some wind."
John Loa, now 94 and a retired Southern Pacific Railroad employee living
in East Los Angeles, was working on a road with the CCC when he and six
others were called to help put out the fire with their shovels.
"I remember that our shoes and pants caught on fire too," Loa
said. "So we had to extinguish them as well as the brush fire at
the same time."
By 3 p.m. the breeze had shifted, and ushered in hell.
"The wind came up all of a sudden," said Mack, the WPA worker.
"I had this fear and started to climb back up the slope. My foreman
yelled at me to get back down there, but I kept climbing up anyway,
eventually all the way home. And I never returned to work, either."
Those who hesitated were lost. With the fire roaring like a locomotive,
terrified workers clawed up the sides of the canyon as flames licked
their heels.
From the ridge, a few thousand workers and firefighters watched in
horror as other workers stumbled and pushed their way upward ahead of
the fire. Some crawled on their bellies, clinging to the undergrowth, as
others walked over them.
"Most of us got out in time," survivor Leo McCormick said in a
1933 interview. He burned his left arm pulling someone to safety.
"The horrible cries of those caught by the flames echoed through
the canyon," McCormick said. "We had to hold our hands to our
ears to drown out the terrible sound."
One man could be heard crying out, "My God, my family."
Miguel Holquin survived by jumping into a stone planter that surrounded
an oak tree and throwing sand over himself. Others jumped into the
swimming pool at the Girls Camp.
Happenstance saved Loa.
"We were working down in the ravine when my crew chief called out
to us, saying, 'You don't belong to that [work] gang, get back up here,'
" he said. "When we changed locations, the wind shifted and
our lives were spared. Later we learned that the other crews we had been
working beside had been trapped and had lost their lives."
By nightfall, firefighters and workers had confined the fire to 47
acres. Twenty-nine charred bodies were recovered — all facing the same
direction, their arms outstretched toward the safety of the summit.
"Two of the bodies lay with hands joined together," McCormick
said. "One was a young man. The other apparently was older. The
body of the younger man was a little higher on the side of the canyon
than that of his companion. Evidently he had endeavored to assist his
more aged fellow worker to safety and had perished in the attempt."
Anxious weeks passed before all the workers were accounted for. Most
bodies could be identified only through personal effects, such as keys,
watches and two belt buckles emblazoned with the initials D and B. Roy
Brown's body was identified by his high school class ring.
Margaret Miles Drew, 79, was 8 when the fire claimed her father, Robert
R. Miles. "My father was a contractor and builder [who was out of
work], and it was his first day on the job," she said. "He was
identified by his teeth through dental records.
"Times were rough then," said Drew, of Garden Grove. "I
don't think my mother would have gone on living if it weren't for
me."
More than 150 people suffered smoke inhalation and burns, including two
children who were playing nearby.
The coroner's and grand jury inquests concluded that many of the dead
were killed not by the original fire but by the backfires, set by
inexperienced men.
"There was no incident commander like we have today, telling them
how and where to light backfires," park ranger Anne Waisgerber
said. "Low humidity, high temperatures, shift in wind and the types
of brush were most likely factors."
"It was a mistake to let anyone down in the bottom of that
canyon," then-Fire Chief Scott testified.
Those left jobless or disabled pretty much had to fend for
themselves. In February 1934, the state Supreme Court decided that the
workers were not entitled to workers' compensation because their work
was welfare, not a regular job.
On Nov. 23, 1933, at the Vermont Avenue entrance to the park, city
officials and the Los Feliz Women's Club planted a tree and dedicated a
plaque to the men who lost their lives. The plaque later vanished.
As part of the WPA arts project, Finnish American sculptor John Palo
Kangas of Ojai honored CCC workers with a 10-foot bronze he called
"Conservation of Man and Nature," depicting a worker with an
ax in his hands. Others called it "The Spirit of the CCC."
Roosevelt came to Griffith Park on Oct. 1, 1935, to unveil the statue.
"The CCC has done wonderful work," he told 4,000 spectators.
"Carry on."
The statue was swept away in a devastating 1938 flood, ranger Waisgerber
said.
The new marker is supposed to be flood- and fireproof.