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WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2017

CONYERS RESIGNS AFTER 53 YEARS IN HOUSE The Democrat facing sexual harassment accusations by former aides had lost support from party leaders.

By Cathleen Decker WASHINGTON — Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the longest-serving member of the House of Representatives, resigned Tuesday after his support among fellow Democrats collapsed amid accusations of sexual harassment by several female employees.

Conyers endorsed his son, John Conyers III, in a rambling radio interview with Detroit host Mildred Gaddis.

“I am retiring today, and I want everyone to know how much I appreciate the support, incredible undiminished support I’ve received,” Conyers said.

Conyers’ use of the word “retiring” rather than “resigning” left some uncertainty over when he was vacating the congressional seat he has held since 1965.

Later in the day, however, he sent a letter to congressional leaders saying he was stepping down “effective today.”

Conyers’ replacement will be chosen in a special election.

The Detroit-area seat is strongly Democratic, so Conyers’ departure will not affect the balance of power in the House. But it does set up a potential family fight: While the congressman endorsed his son to succeed him, a great-nephew, state Sen. Ian Conyers, has publicly said he intended to [See Conyers, A14]

Mideast braces for Trump’s edict on Jerusalem Arab leaders warn against declaring the city Israel’s capital.

By Alexandra Zavis, Brian Bennett and Laura King BEIRUT — With President Trump poised to do what no other president has been willing to do — move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem — leaders and analysts in the region warned Tuesday that it could spur insecurity and instability in a part of the world already beset by both.

Fulfilling an oft-repeated campaign pledge, Trump will declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel in a speech at the White House on Wednesday, three senior administration officials said.

At the same time, he will set in motion a multiyear process for moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the officials said.

The president laid the groundwork in a series of phone calls Tuesday to Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi.

All the leaders issued strongly worded declarations opposing the idea, which they fear could stir [See Jerusalem, A4]

Michael Owen Baker For The Times

A FIREFIGHTER at a burning apartment building in Ventura, where the Thomas fire charred 55,500 acres and forced 27,000 to flee.

Santa Anas whip up destructive wildfires ‘It was like watching Rome burn,’ woman says in Ventura, where racing flames place the city under siege.

Several blazes burn out of control in Southland, destroying 180 buildings, forcing thousands to flee.

By Ruben Vives, Sarah Parvini and Jaclyn Cosgrove

By Laura J. Nelson, Matt Hamilton and Alene Tchekmedyian

The reports started coming in a little after 9 p.m.

Monday. A fire had erupted amid the oaks and scrub in the hills north of Santa Paula.

Located on the southern edge of the Sespe Wilderness, the blaze was named the Thomas fire for its proximity to Thomas Aquinas College. Within hours — its embers driven westward on the gusts of the Santa Ana winds — it had reached Ventura, a dozen miles away.

Mark Patterson, 58, and his wife, Linda, 59, woke to the sound of pounding on their front door. It was 1:15 a.m. No one was there, and at first they thought it was a prank. Then they could see flames leaping over the ridgeline to the north. Gathering with neighbors in the street, they kept vigil, and by 4 that morning, the hill was consumed.

Standing in their driveway, feeling the heat of the flames, they knew they had to evacuate. But first they drove to the church where Patterson is the lead pastor.

It was safe, but there were more fires downtown, and the enormous apartment complex — Hawaiian Village, known for its views over the city to the ocean — was [See Ventura, A10]

A series of Santa Ana wind-driven wildfires burned out of control in Southern California on Tuesday, destroying more than 180 buildings, forcing thousands to flee and smothering the region with smoke in what officials predicted would be a pitched battle for days.

In Ventura, flames consumed dozens of stuccoand-tile homes along tidy streets and cul-de-sacs.

Propane tanks exploded and fan palms became ragged torches lofting fiery debris hundreds of yards.

By morning, an estimated 150 structures were destroyed in scenes reminiscent of the deadly October firestorm that tore through Santa Rosa.

Late Tuesday, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection officials said the number of homes burned in Ventura County could grow by hundreds.

As other fires erupted throughout the region, officials were quickly facing a triage situation.

The Creek fire broke out in the San Gabriel Mountain foothills before dawn and forced thousands to flee Sylmar and Lake View Terrace, burning 30 homes and [See Wildfires, A12]

Marcus Yam Los Angeles Times

MURIEL ROWLEY, 15, left; Olivia Jacobson, 16; Emma Jacobson, 19; and Anna

Niebergall, 20, comfort one another as the Jacobsons’ home burns in Ventura.

Southern California wildfires Fire perimeters

Mandatory evacuations THOMAS AQUINAS COLLEGE

Rye fire 14 SIX FLAGS MAGIC MOUNTAIN

126

Creek fire

5

Thomas fire

Ventura

Santa Clarita

Santa Paula

San Fernando

118 23

210

Thousand Oaks

170

Burbank

101

1

405 Los Angeles

Malibu

Perimeters as of Tuesday afternoon

10 10 MILES

Sources: Ventura County Fire, Mapzen, OpenStreetMap

Los Angeles Times

MORE COVERAGE: From Sylmar to Magic Mountain, L.A. is hit by fires that close freeways, burn homes. CALIFORNIA, B1 :: latimes.com

Seeing truancy through new lens Panel offers ways to stem no-shows so LAUSD won’t lose funds

By Anna M. Phillips Two years ago, an independent policy group warned Los Angeles Unified School District officials that high levels of student absenteeism were eating away at the district’s finances.

Since then, the problem has not gone away. As L.A. Unified’s student enrollment has continued to shrink, the percentage of

chronically absent students has remained essentially unchanged — a concern because funding is based on attendance. According to one estimate, absenteeism cost the nation’s second-largest school district $20 million last year, at a time when it’s desperately in search of new revenue.

Now, a different advisory body is trying again.

Assembled by philanthropist and former Los An-

geles Times publisher Austin Beutner to work with Supt. Michelle King, the latest task force is made up of civic leaders and education experts.

On Tuesday, the group presented L.A. Unified’s school board with its first set of recommendations, aimed at encouraging students who frequently skip class to show up more often.

Its report includes ideas pulled from other districts,

including Philadelphia, Cleveland and Long Beach Unified. Among them is a proposal to send direct mail to parents of students who are at risk of missing too much school. Another would dispatch volunteers to canvas homes and businesses near schools with high rates of absenteeism.

“This campaign will be a collaborative effort,” Beutner said. “If we can help shift [See Absenteeism, A17]

Wedding cake case is heard The Supreme Court sounds skeptical of a Colorado baker’s refusal to serve a gay couple. NATION, A6

Russia barred from Olympics Evidence of doping and cheating prompts decision for 2018 Winter Games. SPORTS, D1 Weather: Sunny.

L.A. Basin: 77/50. B6

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Hills boil as the wildfire finds fuel in leaves, then residences [Ventura, from A1] engulfed in flames.

“We’ve lived in Ventura for 19 years,” Patterson said.

“We’ve had a couple fires, but nothing like this.”

The fire had taken Foothill Road as its path into the city. First burning through the dry leaves of the outlying avocado groves, it found new fuel in the homes built north of the 101 Freeway. Its glow brightened the night sky.

Jeff Jacobson and his daughters, Emma, 20, and Olivia, 16, began evacuating before midnight. Their single-story, ranch-style home on Island View Drive — its backyard with coastal views, the Channel Islands in the distance — was threatened.

Jacobson had considered staying, putting up a fight.

He looked at his two grand pianos, one a prized 1937 Mason and Hamlin; they could be lost, he thought. But his daughters were insistent.

“Let’s leave,” they said.

“Let’s leave.”

He could not ignore them. They loaded up a trailer and headed to the evacuation center at the Ventura County Fairgrounds.

In the past, wildfires have largely skirted downtown Ventura, burning through the wildlands that surround the smaller communities of Ojai and Santa Paula. But Monday night was different.

Power outages had left more than 260,000 residents in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties without power. Initial alerts from the Ventura County Fire Department reported nearly 31,000 acres consumed and 150 structures destroyed.

Firefighters set up their command post at the fairgrounds and began planning their offensive, but first they had to wait for daybreak.

To the east, stories were coming in: of neighbors in Camarillo banding together with garden hoses and spray nozzles to battle the onslaught of sparks; of a mother in Santa Paula who raced back through a police line to grab her daughter’s guitar (“It’s all she wanted”); of the crowds who had gathered to watch the black smoke and flames creep along a dry ridge near dozens of homes.

Winds ripped through bougainvillea, sending flames a hundred feet high into the sky. Some homes were spared, others destroyed, trees and chaparral left blackened and smoldering.

The land, said one resident, had not seen a fire in more than three decades, leaving this conflagration to eat its way through years of brush and debris.

At first light — the sky gray with smoke and ash — Scott Quirarte, a public information officer for the Ventura County Fire Department, delivered the news: miles of fire line and the frustration of having to wait until dawn to start full operations.

At 6 a.m., Heather Rhoades, 24, and her boyfriend Tyler Miller, 29, were evacuating Oak View with their family. They were driving down Highway 33 into Ventura, and flames covered the hillsides adjacent to highway. It was terrifying, Miller said, “like driving through the gates of hell.”

“All I saw was Ventura engulfed in flames,” Rhoades added. “All my friends’ houses were burning down.

It was just scary.”

Heading the other direction were David Demshki and his wife, Christy Harris, who live in Oxnard and needed to rescue their three horses in Oak View.

Making that drive, Demshki said, “felt like you were going into fire.” The

hills were “boiling” with flames and the sky glowed orange.

Just east of Highway 33 in Ventura, patients had been evacuated from Vista del Mar Hospital, an acute psychiatric facility, above downtown. Two buildings were destroyed, the facility left smoldering under the smoky sky.

Returning to Island View Drive, Jeff Jacobson watched flames flick out of his still-burning home. He could see one of two pianos, broken and charred, and he tried to hold back the tears as the memories flooded back, the treasured notes of Emma’s playing.

“So many things that are not replaceable, I don’t even know where to start,” Jacobson said.

By 8 a.m., winds were gusting to 40 mph and on the distant ridges, peaking at nearly 70. The ocean was mottled with whitecaps.

More than 1,000 firefighters were on the scene, and by 10:30 Gov. Jerry Brown had declared an emergency.

By some estimates, nearly a quarter of Ventura — 27,000 people — had been evacuated.

Mansions off Foothill Road were engulfed in flames. The city was smudged by smoke, palm trees consumed by flames and Christmas decorations — one inflatable snowman — darkened by soot.

On Main Street, power had been restored at Pete’s Breakfast House, where Gilberto Amaya went to work at the grill. As he scrambled eggs, owner Lindsay Timpson began making breakfast burritos — 800, she guessed — that her daughter would deliver to the firefighters on the hillsides above town.

Mary Tedesco and her husband, Steve, were helping. They got out of their home just in time to save their three dogs, but they lost two Harley-Davidsons and the irreplaceable mementos of their family: an heirloom cookbook and a father’s sergeant badge from World War II. “I just try very hard not to let myself break down,” Mary Tedesco said. “You gotta stay strong.”

By late night, the fire was at more than 55,000 acres.

“We anticipate that number to grow,” said Capt. Stan Ziegler of the Ventura County Fire Department.

At the fairgrounds evacuation center, south of the 101, Robin Andersen was walking her dogs. After caravanning out of their neighborhood with her neighbors, the 62-year-old spent the night in her car along with her three dogs and two cats.

The city, she said, “looked like Armageddon.”

“I sat facing the fires, and it was like watching Rome burn,” Andersen said. “I cried. I love this city so much and it was overcome by flames.”

Greg Lindfors dressed up as Santa for the children who had been evacuated.

“I can’t help in the way firemen or the Red Cross does, but I can do this,” Lindfors said.

Most of the children he spoke with told him about the Christmas toys they wanted, he said. One boy just wanted a long hug. ruben.vives @latimes.com Twitter: @LATvives sarah.parvini @latimes.com Twitter: @sarahparvini jaclyn.cosgrove @latimes.com Twitter:@jaclyncosgrove Times staff writers Thomas Curwen, Sonali Kohli, Laura J. Nelson and Matt Hamilton contributed to this report.

Marcus Yam Los Angeles Times

JOHN BAIN and Brandon Baker take cover as they try to fight flames at a stranger’s home in Ventura. Embers from the Thomas fire, which had begun on the southern edge of the Sespe Wilderness, blew west on the gusts of the Santa Ana winds and began an assault on Ventura.

Al Seib Los Angeles Times

Marcus Yam Los Angeles Times

AMANDA LEON and husband, Johnny, watch as firefighters

PALM TREES are consumed by fire, which sparked power outages for

try to save homes along Cobblestone Drive.

more than 260,000 residents in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

Wally Skalij Los Angeles Times

A FIREFIGHTER battles the blaze along Highway 33. Gov.

Jerry Brown declared an emergency Tuesday.

Wally Skalij Los Angeles Times Al Seib Los Angeles Times

THE FAST-MOVING blaze engulfs a home. By some estimates, nearly a quarter of Ventura — 27,000 people — had been evacuated.

NATAHSA MONTEL waits to evacuate as fire approaches in Casita

Springs. By Tuesday night, the blaze was more than 55,000 acres.

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Brian van der Brug Los Angeles Times

AN AERIAL view of some of the 150 structures in Ventura County that were destroyed by the Thomas fire. Cal Fire officials said the number could grow by hundreds.

Wildfires rage in Southland [Wildfires, from A1] quickly becoming one of the largest fires in modern Los Angeles history.

Authorities closed almost 20 miles of the 210 Freeway to allow additional firefighting crews to stream into the area, as thick smoke from 11,000 acres of charred chaparral billowed over the San Fernando Valley and prompted warnings of unhealthy air as far away as Santa Monica and Malibu.

By 10 a.m., a third fire had ignited, this time in the Santa Clarita Valley. It did not threaten homes but prompted the closure of Interstate 5. At 1 p.m. a fire in the San Bernardino foothills threatened the city’s Cal State campus and prompted the closure of the 215 Freeway. Smaller fires broke out in Riverside and Ontario.

Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in Ventura County.

“This fire is very dangerous and spreading rapidly, but we’ll continue to attack it with all we’ve got,” Brown said. “It’s critical residents stay ready and evacuate immediately if told to do so.”

As of Tuesday evening, no fatalities had been reported. Two firefighters in the Sylmar area suffered injuries. Officials said they had zero containment on the two most destructive fires, the Thomas and Creek. And the forecast was bleak, with seasonal dry winds, caused by high pressure over the Great Basin, not expected to relent until Thursday.

The National Weather Service called it “the strongest and longest duration Santa Ana wind event we have seen so far this season.”

The last time powerful Santa Ana winds lasted three days, the agency said, was in 2007, when wildfires destroyed thousands of homes and killed 10 people as they swept down foothills from Santa Barbara to Baja California.

Although Southern California had a relatively quiet fire season until Monday, the state has suffered its deadliest year because of the fires in Northern California’s wine country in October

Irfan Khan Los Angeles Times

TWO WOMEN help a horse that was spooked by the Creek fire and fell in Lake

View Terrace. The fire started in the San Gabriel Mountain foothills before dawn.

Luis Sinco Los Angeles Times

A FIREFIGHTER monitors the Creek fire near Johanna Avenue and McBroom

Street in Shadow Hills. The blaze scorched 11,000 acres and burned 30 homes. that killed at least 44 people.

That sharpened the anxiety of residents in evacuation zones Tuesday.

In upper Kagel Canyon, north of Lake View Terrace, Scott Wells woke up before dawn to the smell of smoke.

When he looked outside, brush was burning all around his house.

“It was pretty scary,” Wells said. The family had had close calls with fire before, but it was always coming from one side or another

of their home. This time, he said, “it was all around us.”

In the mountains and foothills above Ventura, the Thomas fire burned more than 55,000 acres, forcing 27,000 people to flee as it burned toward the heart of the historic coastal city.

In its path, staff at a canyon psychiatric hospital that specializes in treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder hastily had to evacuate patients in cars.

By Tuesday morning, at

least two buildings of the campus lay in smoldering heaps of stucco and broken clay.

“I burst into tears,” said Sandy Case, 75, who lives next to Vista del Mar Hospital. “It broke my heart.”

“There’s a huge need for this facility,” said Roger Case, 76, who is on the hospital’s advisory board. It serves about 80 patients and has about 230 employees.

“There are all these people who are now unem-

ployed,” Roger Case said.

The Case family’s home — a white colonial estate built in 1915 — was spared.

Such was the haphazard path of destruction so common in wind-driven fires.

A fusillade of embers inevitably finds random openings in some homes — gaps under doors, poorly covered vents, open windows, flimsy pet doors — but not others.

Once inside a house or garage, the embers can ignite all types of flammable material, from laundry to curtains to stacks of newspapers, quickly setting fire to walls and rafters. One burning house often sets off a chain reaction to neighboring homes, as the heat and flames shatter windows and catch eaves on fire.

Hundreds of firefighters worked through Monday night and Tuesday to prevent the fire from spreading as they were confronted by wind gusts of up to 60 mph.

The Hawaiian Village Apartments collapsed about 4 a.m.

Water gushed down North Laurel Street as firefighters worked to put out the flames in the complex and residents watched, holding cameras and cellphones. The sound of bursting propane tanks filled the air.

The Thomas fire started about 6:25 p.m. Monday in the foothills near Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula. It ballooned to more than 15 square miles in the hours that followed, roughly following Foothill Road to Ventura, churning through canyons with thick growth that hadn’t burned in decades, said Ventura County Fire Sgt. Eric Buschow.

Some residents hoped the worst might be over in the early hours of the morning when the wind died down. But it roared up again around daybreak, with 70mph gusts in the mountains.

As the wind downed power lines and poles, more than 260,000 customers of Southern California Edison lost electricity.

Firefighters did not have a single flank of the fire contained, with 1,000 men and women fighting it and more

on the way, said Ventura County Sheriff ’s Department spokesman Tim Lochman. One helicopter was dropping water, and authorities were hoping winds would die down so they could deploy fixed-wing aircraft.

Firefighters found that some hydrants did not work because the pumps had lost power in the blackouts.

In Ojai, the entire water system went down — including hydrants and drinking water — when the pumping system itself was damaged by the fire. Crews were working Tuesday to fix it.

In the canyons just outside Ojai, Marie McTavish and her family watched the flames crawl down Sulphur Mountain toward their ranch.

For more than 30 years, McTavish, 65, and her husband, Mike, 70, have owned a boarding stable for dozens of horses.

As the smoke blotted out the sun and the light turned an eerie magenta, the family knew the horses had to go.

They loaded more than 20 of them into trailers, headed to fairgrounds in Ventura and Santa Barbara.

By the afternoon, three horses remained — the toughest and balkiest to get into trailers.

When the couple were ordered to evacuate around noon, they started to pack up their keepsakes, but looked at their barn — maroon, low-slung, half-century old, with a dozen horse stalls inside.

“Our barn is our lifeblood,” Marie McTavish said. “We have to fight, to save our barn.”

“We could never rebuild it,” McTavish said. “I’m more worried about the barn than my house. It’s a landmark.” laura.nelson@latimes.com matt.hamilton@latimes.com alene.tchekmedyian @latimes.com Times staff writers Joe Mozingo, Brittny Mejia, Cindy Carcamo, Louis Sahagun, Joseph Serna, Alejandra Reyes-Velarde, Melissa Etehad and Sonali Kohli contributed to this report.

Predicted wind speeds 0-10 m.p.h.

VENTURA COUNTY

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20-30 m.p.h.

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VENTURA COUNTY

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40-50 m.p.h.

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T h o m a s S u h L a u de r Los Angeles Times

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latimes.com

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2017

Bel-Air homes burn as fire invades canyon Skirball blaze tears through 475 acres of chaparral, closing the 405 Freeway as residents flee.

In a 12-0 landmark vote, city lawmakers approve regulations for the recreational marijuana industry.

By Melissa Etehad, Laura J. Nelson and Joe Mozingo

By Emily Alpert Reyes Los Angeles lawmakers backed a host of new regulations for the marijuana industry Wednesday, paving the way for the hotly anticipated business of recreational pot.

The unanimous vote was a landmark step for the biggest city in California as the state prepares to start issuing permits to grow, sell, test and distribute recreational marijuana. Despite a slew of concerns about the exact details of the plan, the City Council voted 12 to 0 for the regulations, which now go to the mayor for his approval.

The elaborate rules reflect a tug of war at City Hall over the hopes and fears for the soon-to-be-legalized industry. They have been a prime focus of Council President Herb Wesson, who said Wednesday that cities across the country will be looking to Los Angeles as an example.

“We are L.A. We are leaders. We take on the tough issues,” Wesson said. Before the vote, he urged lawmakers, “Let’s make history.”

The City Council has been eager to pull in new revenue from the marijuana business, which is expected to generate more than $50 million in tax revenue for the city next year. California will start licensing the recreational pot industry in January, aiming to bring an illicit market out of the shadows.

The council also has vowed to make sure that disadvantaged communities that were hit hardest by the war on drugs can now cash in, a quest near and dear to political progressives. At the Wednesday meeting, Councilman Curren Price lamented that the criminalization of cannabis “unfairly targeted communities of color like the one I represent.”

“I’m ready to level the playing field so that everyone has a fair shot at reaping the rewards of this booming industry,” Price said. “Because we shouldn’t just be rolling out the red carpet to those individuals with deep pockets or powerful corporations.”

Under its “social equity” program, the city will give priority processing and other assistance to marijuana business applicants who are poor and were previously convicted of some marijua[See Marijuana, A14]

Genaro Molina Los Angeles Times

A FIREFIGHTER walks through a property on Linda Flora Drive in Bel-Air as flames from the Skirball fire

encroach. By Wednesday evening, four homes were destroyed and 11 more had been damaged in the blaze.

Ojai is in the crosshairs Picturesque town’s residents worry as Thomas fire nears

By Louis Sahagun, Matt Hamilton and Harriet Ryan OJAI — The people who pressed into the fire station in downtown Ojai were scared and hoping for reassurance. From the streetcorners of this picturesque valley town, they could see flames marching along the mountain ridge to the north.

Firetrucks rumbled by winetasting rooms, meditation retreats and spas toward a second wall of fire moving in from the south and east.

One citizen after another approached the station’s front counter Wednesday with a version of the same question: Is Ojai going to burn?

And one by one they received the same disconcerting reply: We just don’t know.

On the third day of the Thomas fire’s rampage across Ventura County, Ojai, a bucolic community long beloved by spiritual seekers, health enthusiasts and celebrities, was in the crosshairs of the massive blaze.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection rushed heavy equipment and crews to the [See Ojai, A11]

Marcus Yam Los Angeles Times

COLETTE LIPSCOMB embraces husband Jeff after surveying their Ventura

home, destroyed by the Thomas fire. Many share similar painful losses in a blaze that has burned 65,500 acres and more than 150 structures. CALIFORNIA, B1

Nearly 30 horses die as ranch burns

1961 Bel-Air fire prompted change

latimes.com

More than 60 in all were housed at the property in Little Tujunga Canyon, which boarded equines.

Major changes in local safety regulations followed a blaze that destroyed more than 500 homes. CALIFORNIA, B2

Go online to find the latest news from the Southern California wildfires, including photographs and videos.

CALIFORNIA, B1

Trump’s Jerusalem decision seen as a nod to evangelicals

Franken to discuss plans amid wave of calls to quit

By Cathleen Decker WASHINGTON — Democratic patience with Sen. Al Franken evaporated Wednesday in the wake of a new accusation of sexual misconduct against him, and in an uprising led by women, more than half of the party’s senators demanded he resign — a decision that could arrive as soon as Thursday.

The cascade of opposition opened when Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York said that “it would be better for our country” if Franken left office. Within minutes, Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Patty Murray of Washington, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii,

Mark Wilson Getty Images

AFTER a new allegation

of sexual misconduct against Sen. Al Franken, most fellow Democrats urged him to resign. He might do so Thursday.

Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Claire McCaskill of Missouri released similar statements.

“Sexual harassment and misconduct should not be allowed by anyone and should not occur anywhere. I believe the best thing for Senator Franken to do is step down,” Harris said.

The choreographed Democratic actions were intended to impose maximum pressure on Franken, who had resisted resigning and has vowed full cooperation with a Senate Ethics Committee investigation into a series of allegations against him by women since last month.

The coordinated move “was a result of mounting [See Franken, A8]

/local

The fires rampaging across Southern California on Wednesday ripped through a Bel-Air canyon in the hills above UCLA, an elite enclave where backyard tennis courts are the norm and Rupert Murdoch owns a $30-million vineyard estate.

As evening fell, the Skirball fire had scorched 475 acres of thick chaparral, destroying four homes on Moraga Drive at the bottom of the canyon and Casiano Drive on its west ridge. Eleven more houses had been damaged.

The fire brought back memories of the 1961 Bel-Air fire, in which movie stars including Maureen O’Hara and Fred MacMurray fought to save their homes — a seminal event that fed apocalyptic visions of Los Angeles for decades to come.

Wednesday’s fire drew on another iconic aspect of L.A. life: a soul-crushing traffic jam on the 405 Freeway.

Officials closed the freeway through Sepulveda Canyon, directly west of Moraga Canyon, from just after 5 a.m. until 1:30 p.m.

With that artery closed, freeways and streets throughout the city clogged.

Smoke from the 11,000acre Creek fire near Sylmar only added to the miserable situation; fires in Santa Clarita and Ventura County also continued to burn through the dry landscape.

In Bel-Air, helicopters chopped through the muck, dropping water on the ridges at the optimal “50/50” — flying 50 feet above the flames at 50 mph.

More than 350 firefighters, 52 engines and six fixedwing aircraft also were fighting to keep the fire in the heart of the canyon, away from homes.

Just to the south, UCLA canceled classes and told faculty and staff who were off campus to stay away. The university lost power, as did more than 800 Department of Water and Power customers.

Jackson Rogow, 24, woke up at 6 a.m. to the smell of smoke and the wail of sirens.

In his boxer shorts, he ran out to the sidewalk on Bellagio Road — where, 56 years before, Zsa Zsa Gabor lost her house, saying: “My three dark minks, my white mink, my sables, some really very nice little jewels are gone.”

His neighbors were al[See Bel-Air, A10]

Pearl Harbor hero honored, 76 years later The military had long refused to recognize Joe George, above, because his action that saved comrades aboard the sinking battleship Arizona defied an order. NATION, A6 Weather Sunshine.

L.A. Basin: 76/52. B6

By Noah Bierman WASHINGTON — President Trump summed up a central reason for declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel — one of the most consequential and globally risky decisions of his presidency — in a single statement.

“While previous presidents have made this a major campaign promise, they failed to deliver,” he said from the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House on Wednesday. “Today, I am delivering.”

The decision may have alarmed prime ministers, presidents, kings and their subjects around the world.

But it fit neatly into Trump’s political calculus and personal view of his mandate.

In his view, he is the president who pushes through toward “historic” change while those around him urge equivocation. He is the president who bluntly scorns the judgment of elites. And he is the president who tallies “promises kept.”

Especially important are promises to the voters Trump sees as his base, who include a strong majority of evangelical Christians.

“You can see it in his face,” said Robert Nicholson, executive director of the Philos Project, a conservative-leaning group that [See Jerusalem, A7]

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Genaro Molina Los Angeles Times

AN L.A. COUNTY firefighting helicopter drops water along a row of homes threatened by the Skirball fire Wednesday in Bel-Air. The blaze was only 5% contained.

Fire crews rush to beat winds [Bel-Air, from A1] ready in the street, packing their cars. The waning crescent moon was blood red.

Rogow turned on the news and in the aerial footage of the fire saw his eight-unit apartment building in the apparent path.

“We should pack,” he told his girlfriend.

By 7 a.m., firetrucks were racing up and down the street. He waved to one and shouted, “Should I leave?” A firefighter gave him a thumbs up, he said.

Rogow packed the couple’s cat, Zeppelin, and a bag of kitty litter. His girlfriend found a stack of photographs of her late father.

About 8:30 a.m., he got an emergency alert on his phone advising him of the evacuation area boundaries: the 405 Freeway on the west, Sunset Boulevard to the south, Roscomare Road to the east and Mulholland Drive to the north. They were squarely inside it.

Rogow remembered a conversation he’d had with his neighbor, who had temporarily left the state for cancer treatment. When she left, Rogow had asked her a question arguably unique to Southern California canyons: “If your house is burning down, what do I grab?”

Her medals, she said. She had more than three dozen — from marathons, halfmarathons and 5K races.

Rogow broke a window and grabbed them.

Rogow planned to go to a friend’s apartment in Westwood with a rooftop where they could watch the fire.

But he made one stop first.

“I needed a smoothie,” he said. He picked up his regular order: a blend with probiotics, strawberries and kale.

Residents near Bel Terrace and North Sepulveda Boulevard raced outside as flames encroached on their homes.

Beverly Freeman, 83, pulled out of her driveway ahead of the fire just before 7 a.m. She didn’t take any belongings with her.

As Freeman drove away from the two-story gray house that her husband built for her three decades ago, she was not sure whether she would have a home to return to.

“I was going to die in this house,” she said as tears came to her eyes. “The flames have never come so close.”

The 405 closure jammed many roads in and around the evacuation zone, making for a nerve-racking, slowmotion escape.

“It’s getting all jammed up in there,” said LAPD spokesman Josh Rubenstein. “They’re deep into the evacuation area.”

Up Moraga Canyon around 1:30 p.m., an L.A. County firefighter spotted

FLAMES tear through a home on Linda Flora Drive in Bel-Air. Winds were expected to hit hard again late Wednesday, fanning the fire.

Skirball fire The fire erupted near the 405 Freeway on Wednesday around 4:50 a.m., fanned by 25 mph winds. Several homes were destroyed in the Bel-Air area.

As of 3 p.m.

Wednesday

101

134

405

Mulholland Drive

Approximate fire location Mandeville Canyon Park GETTY CENTER

Bundy Canyon

Mandatory evacuation area Bel-Air set

n Su UCLA

d.

Blv

Hollywood

Beverly Hills

101

Los Angeles 2 MILES

Sources: Mapzen, OpenStreetMap

10 Los Angeles Times

A BURNED-OUT car lies among the ruins in Bel-Air. The Skirball fire brought back memories of the 1961 Bel-Air fire, which destroyed 500 homes in the area.

flames in a portion of the 13acre Moraga Vineyards, which Murdoch bought in 2013. The firefighter radioed others, who within minutes showed up and pried open the gate at the bottom of the property.

When winds picked up again, the vineyard — covering an area from the canyon floor to the eastern ridge — was a big target. Although the vines in October’s fires in Northern California’s wine country mostly survived, winery buildings did not fare

as well.

“It’s coming,” said Don Batiste, an engineer with the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Scanning the terrain, he and the others determined it would easier to fight from the air or the ridge.

Three helicopter water drops were made on the spot as smoke continued to spiral into the air.

Murdoch released a statement Wednesday saying television footage showed there may be dam-

age to some buildings in the upper vineyard area, but the house and the winery appeared to be intact.

“The situation at Moraga Bel Air is very fluid at the moment,” he said in the statement. “We are monitoring the situation as closely as we can and are grateful to the efforts of all the first responders. Some of our neighbors have suffered heavy losses, and our thoughts and prayers are with them at this difficult time.”

By afternoon, the blaze had subsided, but firefighters continued to guard the multimillion-dollar homes.

The winds were expected to hit hard again starting about 10 p.m. Wednesday, and the fire was only 5% contained.

On Moraga Drive, a gated community of about 36 homes, one firetruck guarded every three houses, Batiste said. Neighbors said public figures and celebrities such as Jerry West and Magic Johnson have lived or still do live on the street.

While residents could only wait to see what the night would bring, firefighters employed hand crews

and retardant drops to establish a hard line to keep the fire from spreading into Brentwood, as the flames did in 1961, when they destroyed 500 homes in total and consumed 16,000 acres.

“When the winds come up, they’re going to come out of the northeast,” said Los Angeles Fire Deputy Chief Chuck Butler, “and they’re going to want to push the fire across the 405.” melissa.etehad @latimes.com Twitter: @melissaetehad laura.nelson@latimes.com Twitter: @laura_nelson joe.mozingo@latimes.com Twitter: @joemozingo

L AT I ME S . CO M

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T H UR S DAY, D E C E MB E R 7 , 2 017

A11

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES

Al Seib Los Angeles Times

THE THOMAS fire, in its third day, advances toward the Pacific Ocean between Solimar and Faria beaches north of downtown Ventura on Wednesday.

Ojai residents ask: Is town going to burn?

[Ojai, from A1] southeast part of the Ojai Valley in a bid to protect the town of about 7,000 from the devastation that befell other areas. The fire, which began near Thomas Aquinas College on Monday, destroyed communities in Ventura, Santa Paula and elsewhere, consuming more than 150 structures. About 50,000 people have been evacuated throughout Ventura County.

The 65,500-acre fire continued burning from the Pacific Ocean to the inland mountains Wednesday, with its northern edge coursing northeast from Ventura along a 20-mile front that extended along the southern border of the Ojai Valley.

“The fire is here, and wrapped around the community,” said Shane Lauderdale, a Cal Fire branch director, as he huddled with other officials in a downtown parking lot.

Santa Ana winds, which have driven the devastating wildfires across Southern California, were somewhat weaker Wednesday, but they were expected to ramp up after midnight Thursday and reach “extreme” speeds of up to 70 mph. Such winds can expand fires by miles in a matter of minutes and were of great concern to fire officials preparing to defend Ojai.

At a morning briefing for firefighters, officials emphasized the importance of keeping the fire’s northern

boundary from reaching Ojai. Cal Fire Operations Chief Mark Higgins urged crews to extinguish even the smallest smoldering areas.

“Don’t pass that bush on fire,” Higgins said. “Get in there, get dirty and work hard.”

Looking over a map of the Ojai Valley spread over the hood of a vehicle as ash fell around him, Lauderdale said crews were cutting fire lines on the outskirts of town and moving heavy equipment into place in anticipation of a wind-whipped surge of fire Thursday.

“We’re taking advantage of the current calm to concentrate resources along a defensive line,” he said.

“We’re going to get a lot more work done today.”

Fire has damaged Ojai and its surrounding region in the past, including a 1917 blaze that burned the town.

But authorities and citizens said this year’s wine country fires, which left 44 dead and entire suburban neighborhoods in rubble, intensified fears.

“Until we have fog drifting in from the west and light rain, we won’t feel like this thing is behind us,” said City Manager Steve McClary.

Eastern portions of the valley were under mandatory evacuation orders. In town, there were no evacuation orders in effect, but many residents and business owners were leaving voluntarily.

Wally Skalij Los Angeles Times

VIOLET CHOHEN sweeps up outside her store on Highway 150 in Ojai. The town was covered in a dusting of

ash Wednesday, and “closed” signs hung in windows of boutiques, restaurants and bed-and-breakfasts.

The town, known for its Spanish architecture and distinctive bell tower, was covered in a dusting of ash Wednesday. “Closed” signs hung in windows of boutiques, restaurants and bedand-breakfasts. The Ojai Valley Inn, a nationally renowned resort and the site of celebrity weddings, was among the businesses closed.

“I’ve been telling people, ‘If you can get your loved ones and valuables to a safe place, you should,’ ” McClary said. “That’s a tough answer to give. I wish I could be more specific. But this is no time for false promises.”

On Wednesday morning, Doug LaBarre, 70, was among many residents who bellied up to the counter of a downtown fire station with an urgent question for Capt.

Paul Berrera. “The city itself is not threatened, right?”

LaBarre asked. “My 95-yearold father lives in my guesthouse. So are we safe?”

“All I can tell you,” Berrera said with a sympathetic smile, “is this: To ensure your father’s safety, prepare to leave if necessary.”

The fire transformed some of the features visitors and residents love most about Ojai — including its sense of isolation — into dangers. The only ways in and out of town are two-lane country roads.

The blaze also made its treasured oak trees — the remnants of an ancient oak forest — into weapons. The powerful winds knocked over many of the enormous trees, and there were fears that falling ash could start fires in their sprawling branches.

At daybreak, Juan Hernandez, 32, stood on the trunk of a toppled oak for a better view of flames kicking

up on the ridgelines just north of town.

“This tree was huge and strong,” he said, shaking his head. “But it was no match for those winds.”

Long known as a spiritual hub, Ojai is home to numerous retreat centers, meditation houses and campuses for new age movements.

Many closed temporarily or limited their hours.

At Meditation Mount in the Upper Ojai Valley, the fire burned one building and damaged the group’s gardens, according to the organization’s Facebook page.

The page showed a photo from last year of their idyllic campus, asking followers: “Hold *this* Mount in your heart as you cultivate love and compassion.”

Ojai Retreat, a bed-andbreakfast with a spiritual bent on a hilltop near downtown Ojai, was untouched by the fire, but founder Ulrich

Brugger, 73, briefly evacuated, only to return late Tuesday. Brugger came to Ojai from Switzerland nearly three decades ago after meeting Jiddu Krishnamurti, a new age philosopher who taught there. He said the spirituality that seems imbued in the town has also equipped him to respond to such a potential catastrophe.

“One thing I learned from Krishnamurti: don’t be attached to anything, including property. That’s not the main thing.” louis.sahagun @latimes.com matt.hamilton @latimes.com harriet.ryan@latimes.com Sahagun and Hamilton reported from Ojai; Ryan from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Doug Smith and Sarah Parvini contributed to this report.

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latimes.com

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2017

FRANKEN HEEDS CALLS TO QUIT SENATE Democrat says he will resign amid allegations of sexual misconduct, as will GOP Rep. Franks.

By Cathleen Decker WASHINGTON — Al Franken announced Thursday he would resign his Senate seat, falling to a whirlwind of sexual misconduct allegations like those that have enmeshed other politicians, business leaders and media figures across the country in recent months.

Hours later, Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona, a Republican who is the ideological opposite of the Minnesota Democrat, announced his resignation after the House Ethics Committee revealed it had opened an investigation of sexual harassment allegations against him. In a statement, Franks admitted he had asked two female subordinates about bearing a child for him by surrogacy.

In a brief but emotional speech on the Senate floor, with 22 Democratic colleagues and one Republican looking on, Franken invoked the accusations that have swirled around President Trump and the Republican candidate in next week’s special election for an Alabama seat in the Senate, Roy Moore.

“There is some irony that I am leaving while a man who bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault sits [See Franken, A10]

Wally Skalij Los Angeles Times

EVA SMATHERS reacts to the flames from the Thomas fire bearing down on the coastal enclave of La Conchita in Ventura County.

Flames roar through wide swaths of land Santa Ana corridors The hot, dry Santa Ana winds that can fan a wildfire into a monster blaze don’t blow uniformly across Southern California.

More exposure

As weeks passed, LAPD cadets frolicked New details raise question of how alleged antics went unnoticed so long.

By James Queally and Kate Mather If the group of young Los Angeles police cadets accused of stealing department vehicles had any fear of getting caught, they certainly didn’t show it.

For weeks, according to documents, the teens drove to and from LAPD-related events and on joyrides as far away as Corona and Santa Clarita. Some of the cadets used the cars to perform “doughnuts” behind an Inglewood store, and one drove a stolen LAPD vehicle to his job at a Ross Dress for Less store.

There were other blatant actions: A high-ranking cadet described as the “ringleader” of the group asked someone to film him driving a cruiser, and they often drove with lights flashing and sirens blaring — in one instance racing through South L.A. to Hawthorne to move one teen’s personal vehicle before it was towed.

Still, it took Los Angeles police nearly two months to discover the cadets’ alleged misbehavior and take action.

The new details about the alleged activities are [See LAPD, A11]

Less exposure KERN COUNTY

SANTA BARBARA COUNTY

VENTURA COUNTY

SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY

Soledad Pass

Santa Barbara

L.A. COUNTY

Malibu

By Louis Sahagun, Sarah Parvini, Ruben Vives and Jaclyn Cosgrove

Cajon Pass

Los Angeles

San Gorgonio Pass

ORANGE COUNTY

Pacific Ocean

RIVERSIDE COUNTY

Active fires

SAN DIEGO COUNTY

50 MILES

San Diego Sources: American Geophysical Union, Max Moritz

IMPERIAL COUNTY

Los Angeles Times

Dry gusts determine level of destruction

By Bettina Boxall When Forest Service meteorologist Tom Rolinski heard that a wildfire had broken out Monday evening in Ventura County, he knew it was going to be bad.

The Thomas fire started in a known wind corridor on the first day of dry Santa Ana winds that are expected to buffet Southern California through the weekend.

Thomas fire could burn for weeks in Ventura County

What’s more, it has been a good eight months since a decent rainfall soaked the chaparral hillsides.

“Fires will spread very rapidly in these conditions and basically will be uncontrollable,” Rolinski said.

By Thursday morning, the Thomas fire had scorched 115,000 acres and destroyed 439 buildings in the Ventura area. It was yet another in the string of harrowing wildfires that are searing

2017 into the state’s record books.

They all have had one thing in common — fierce, dry winds from the interior that quickly turn a fire into an inferno.

More than drought or heat, winds can determine whether California burns or doesn’t.

October’s devastating Northern California wildfires exploded on a night [See Winds, A9]

Fiery tornadoes churned up the slopes of Matilija Canyon, eating only brush for now.

Jayson Kaufman kept his eye on them and the smoke closing in. Ignoring a mandatory evacuation order, he figured he still he had time to pack and escape if the flames made a run toward his cabin in the remote box canyon.

Driven by erratic winds through parched narrow canyons, the hydra-headed Thomas fire in Ventura County continued its onslaught on many fronts Thursday, roaring through beach communities, suburbs, fruit orchards and rugged mountain redoubts.

While firefighters gained ground in containing other wildfires around the region, in Ventura County they feared wind could drive the flames into Carpinteria on the coast. Without rain, they said, the fire could burn for weeks in remote parts of the Los Padres National Forest.

“My hope is that within a week, the issues around the population areas are going to be gone, but then it’s still

going to be up in the forest in the wilderness areas,” Ventura County Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen said. “The size and the scope of this thing is going to be enormous….

There’s no road out there, and the wind is pushing it.

You can’t put anybody out in front of it.”

Fire crews succeeded in keeping the flames out of the resort town of Ojai overnight Wednesday and into Thursday morning. City officials called it “a miracle” that the winds abated just in time.

“We were waiting for them, but they didn’t come,” [See Fires, A8]

Life in the land of winds and fire To a Southern Californian, there is no more frightening word combination than “Santa Ana winds” and “high fire risk,” writes Robin Abcarian. CALIFORNIA, B1

latimes.com /local

Live coverage Go online for the latest news on the major Southern California wildfires. Follow Times reporters on Twitter and share your experience.

An island not for visitors Japan’s sacred site is open to select male priests only

By Jonathan Kaiman

Jiji Press

A SHINTO priest holds a ceremony at the shrine on

Japan’s Okinoshima island, a World Heritage site.

MUNAKATA, Japan — Okinoshima is a sacred island in the Sea of Japan, shrouded in mystery and strewn with ancient treasures.

For centuries, the island was forbidden to all but about 200 men, who could wade ashore only one day a year after “purifying” themselves, naked, in the freezing

sea. Women were banned.

Photographs were banned.

Even talking about a visit to the island was long verboten.

Then, in July, after a years-long lobbying effort

by Japanese officials, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared Okinoshima a World Heritage site, placing it alongside more than 1,000 high-profile attractions, in-

cluding the Taj Mahal, Machu Picchu and the Great Wall of China.

The designation alarmed the keepers of Okinoshima’s tradition and raised questions about how communities keep traditions intact — and secrets secret — in the modern world.

Local fishermen — the island’s traditional guardians — wrung their hands. What if tourists flood the island?

[See Japan, A4]

A8

F R IDAY , D E CE M B E R 8 , 2 017

SS

L AT I ME S . CO M

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES

Wally Skalij Los Angeles Times

A FIREFIGHTER runs from a house in La Conchita early Thursday as flames bear down. The Thomas fire continued to move, threatening coastal communities.

Crews face fire on new fronts [Fires, from A1] said Rudy Livingston, Ojai’s finance director. “All I can say is, ‘Thank God.’ If they came, it would have been very ugly here.”

But as winds ebbed, then bellowed, then ebbed again, residents on different sides of the fire were on high alert throughout the day.

A good quarter of the 60 or so denizens of Matilija Canyon — known for survivalist types and back-to-thelanders living in rugged cabins, trailers and geodesic domes — ignored the evacuation orders to save their homes. They were briefly trapped, had they cared to leave, when wind and fire knocked down power lines, telephone poles and boulders on Highway 33 north of Ojai.

By late morning the debris was cleared and fire engines were on the way. Kaufman watched as clouds of red, orange and gray smoke rose from ridges. The smoke began to gather into a giant pyroclastic cloud, looming like a thunderhead over the Ojai Valley.

“It’s looking pretty bad out there,” Kaufman said.

“But it’s still not time to leave.”

Across the county, the fire had consumed 115,000 acres, destroyed 439 buildings and damaged 85 others as it continued to move. A woman’s body was found Wednesday night at the site of a car accident on Wheeler Canyon Road. The cause of death and the woman’s identity have not been determined, Ventura County Sheriff ’s Sgt. Kevin Donoghue said.

With relative humidities in the single digits along the coastal mountains, the air is the driest it’s been in recorded history, said UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain.

“The [relative] humidities right now along the coast are much drier than what you’d normally see in the interior desert in the summertime,” Swain said.

“Once you get down to 1% or 2% you’re down almost as low as is physically possible.”

That air combined catastrophically with vegetation that grew thick in a wet winter and withered through summer and a hot, dry fall.

In addition to fires burning in Sylmar, Santa Clarita, San Bernardino and Bel-Air, new ones erupted Thursday afternoon in Murrieta and San Diego County, prompting evacuations. The windfanned fire in the Bonsall area of San Diego County destroyed 20 structures and was threatening 2,000 more, fire officials said.

In Ventura County, more than 2,500 fire personnel were working Thursday to contain the Thomas fire, using 471 engines, 12 helicopters and 26 bulldozers, officials said.

In the coastal enclave of La Conchita, where 10 people died in a landslide in

Wally Skalij Los Angeles Times

LAURA HINZ tries to find a ride out of La Conchita as the fire approached in the early morning hours. The

blaze in Ventura County had consumed 115,000 acres, destroyed 439 buildings and damaged 85 others.

Marcus Yam Los Angeles Times

FIREFIGHTERS douse flames on North Rice Road outside Ojai. Assisted by winds that abated just in time,

crews were able to keep the fire out of the resort town overnight Wednesday and into Thursday morning.

2005, the orange glow at night was too ominous for many residents to risk staying. Steve Holmstrom, 62, drove up to Carpinteria to stay with his children.

Thursday morning, he walked along the shoulder of the 101 Freeway to catch a glimpse of his little wood house on Fillmore Avenue.

It looked intact, even though the abandoned structure next door had burned down.

“These firefighters are amazing. This whole place could’ve gone,” he said. “I feel so much better. Last night was kind of a panic.”

The situation was more dire just down the coast at Faria Beach. Homeowners took to their roofs with hoses when midmorning gusts began driving the fire and embers out of the mountains and across the 101 and Pacific Coast Highway. A palm tree nursery caught fire, creating a blizzard of flaming debris.

A police car drove up and down the road with a megaphone blaring warnings: “Mandatory evacuation,” and, “Please go the other way, the road is closed.”

Fan palms in the neighborhood erupted.

Maurice Shimabuku, 67, tried to keep a tree in front of his house wet, but the water pressure had dropped.

“It was like shooting a water pistol on an elephant,” he said later.

He worried about wind damage as much as fire.

“These were some freakish winds,” he said.

Like the other neighborhoods clinging to a sliver of flat coastline north of Ventura, the three-quarter-mile single street of houses, cut off by freeway and sea, is a tight, funky community.

Alicia Stratton evacuated but didn’t go far. She

stood along the railroad tracks, watching the whorl of flames a few hundred feet away, talking to a friend on the phone who was watering her house.

“This fire kept migrating,” she said.

Fire officials said the winds were particularly hard to predict around the ocean, with gusts up to 50 mph.

With six engines at Faria Beach, firefighters saved the homes there. But Ventura County Fire Department spokesman Rich Macklin said the concern was shifting to the northwest and

Carpinteria, with a population of more than 13,000.

“We’re going to start moving with it,” he said.

Nearby Ventura had a respite from fire.

But firefighters still pored through neighborhoods putting out hot spots, particularly in mulch and ornamental shrubbery around homes, which can hold embers for days.

“If we do get an increase in winds, it will take a smoldering spot beneath a bush, the bush will start on fire and then we’ll have a fire in the neighborhood again,” said California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Bill Murphy.

Murphy said Santa Paula had a good fire line around it but could be affected by strong north or northeast winds.

“We’re talking 96,000 acres…. Every corner of the fire has a community that we need to address and pay attention to,” Murphy said.

Maria Calderon and her partner, Eric Schmidt, a ceramic artist, had decamped from Long Beach with their 3-year-old son, finding a barn and cottage in the hills above Ojai along Highway 33 where their young family could thrive.

They moved in barely a month ago and tried to make it their own. The barn was to be a studio for Schmidt. The 45-acre spread had native flowers and fruits that Calderon could use to make natural dyes and grow food.

As the fire crept across the Ojai Valley on Wednesday, Calderon and her partner had prepared to evacuate the property, about three miles north of Ojai city limits.

She packed up most of her textile art and loaded other possessions into the car. Meanwhile, she said, they used buckets to dump water on the roof and gardens to limit the chance of embers stoking a blaze. Finally, late Wednesday, they had to leave.

“My foot was shaking on the pedal,” Calderon said as she drove south, fleeing the approaching fire.

After waking up to images of her home in ruins, a pile of smoldering rubble, she finds herself facing a grim question: how to tally the loss of what could have been?

“We had never felt so at home before,” said Calderon, who came from Kansas to Southern California about six years ago. “After years of searching, we found the perfect place.” louis.sahagun @latimes.com sarah.parvini@latimes.com ruben.vives@latimes.com jaclyn.cosgrove @latimes.com Staff writers Joe Mozingo, Matt Hamilton, Joseph Serna and Sonali Kohli contributed to this report.

L AT I ME S . CO M

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F R I DAY, D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 017

A9

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES

Wally Skalij Los Angeles Times

A FIREFIGHTER battles the Thomas blaze Thursday in Ventura County. Meteorologists predict an above-average number of Santa Ana winds this fall and winter.

Return of extreme conditions [Winds, from A1] when Diablo winds raged across eight counties. The fire siege claimed 44 lives and incinerated 8,900 buildings. More than 5,600 of them burned in the Tubbs fire, which now tops the list of the state’s most destructive wildfires.

Southern California managed to escape major wildfires during the final years of the state’s big drought because the Santa Anas didn’t blow much.

But this year is different.

Fire meteorologists predict an above-average number of Santa Ana wind days this fall and winter.

There were 14 Santa Ana days — more than twice the norm — in October, when the Canyon 2 fire in Orange County burned dozens of buildings. December typically brings 10 Santa Ana days. By the end of the week, the region will already have been hit by six of them.

The fire danger was expected to peak Thursday, when the online Santa Ana Wildfire Threat Index placed Orange County, the Inland Empire and San Diego County under extreme fire threat and Los Angeles and Ventura counties under high threat. Not since October 2007 — when disastrous fires struck the region — has so much of the Southland faced extreme conditions.

Southern Californians need to be prepared, said Rolinski, who helped develop the index: Plan an escape route; know where family members are; make sure cellphones are charged.

“We’ve seen this over and

Al Seib Los Angeles Times

VENTURA COUNTY firefighter Andrew Rodriguez aims water at burning trees

Thursday in Faria Beach, where the blaze threatened homes near the 101 Freeway. over again. When that [online map] lights up and we get a fire in a wind-prone area, it’s going to be very difficult to control.”

Indeed, when the winds are in full force, firefighters don’t even try. They concentrate on defending structures and people.

It’s too dangerous to fly retardant- or water-dropping aircraft in high winds, which are also likely to blow any such drops off target.

Though fire officials often say wildfires are tougher to fight in dense scrublands that haven’t burned in decades, winddriven fires ignore the boundaries of old burns.

Researchers who studied

the 2007 fires found they blackened more than 50,000 acres that had burned a mere four years earlier during the region’s hellish 2003 fire season.

As for why this Santa Ana season is ramping up after several years of calm, Rolinski says the answer lies in sea

surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. In the last six months, that part of the sea has cooled, influencing weather patterns conducive to Santa Anas.

The cooler sea temperatures can cause high-pressure systems that push storms to the north and then

down into the Great Basin east of California.

The air in the higher-elevation interior is colder than at the coast, creating a pressure gradient that pulls air masses west. As they blow downslope to the coastal areas, they pick up speed, dry out and sometimes heat up.

This week’s winds have been relatively cool — about the only good thing you can say about them.

The current prolonged Santa Ana event is a function of the high-pressure ridge that is sitting over California, said atmospheric scientist Scott Capps, the principal of Atmospheric Data Solutions.

The fact that the winds started in Ventura County and are working their way south is typical, he added.

Wind strength can vary dramatically depending on the local topography. Tuesday morning, a weather station in the Santa Ana Mountains in Orange County, near Capps’ home, recorded gusts of 80 mph.

They tore the roof off his backyard chicken coop, but the chickens were safe.

Wednesday there was a lull in the winds, allowing fire

crews to make air drops and to begin to build containment lines around the Southland blazes that broke out this week.

On Thursday afternoon, the 7,000-acre Rye fire near Valencia was 15% contained; the 12,605-acre Creek fire on the edge of the San Fernando Valley was 10%. The Thomas was 5% contained, and the Skirball fire, which gnawed at multimillion-dollar homes in Bel-Air, was 20%.

As for whether climate change will diminish or strengthen Santa Ana seasons, there is conflicting research.

“It’s a tough question,” Capps said. “I could see it going either way.”

Just ask UCLA atmospheric sciences professor Alex Hall, who participated in studies that arrived at contradictory conclusions.

“I would say there’s not high confidence in any of these results because they do conflict,” he said. “What isn’t controversial is that we expect [Santa Anas] to be hotter and drier.” bettina.boxall @latimes.com Twitter: @boxall

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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2017

#METOO FELLS A SECOND STATE LEADER Matt Dababneh says his resignation from California Assembly isn’t an admission of sexual impropriety.

By Melanie Mason SACRAMENTO — Assemblyman Matt Dababneh said Friday that he is resigning from office at the end of the month, a decision that comes four days after he was publicly accused of masturbating in front of a lobbyist and other inappropriate behavior.

In a resignation letter, Dababneh said the allegations against him are untrue and said he expected a legislative investigation would “bring to light and into focus the significant and persuasive evidence of my innocence.”

“As we battle for change, we must remember that due process exists for a reason,” he wrote. “We should never fight injustice with injustice.”

Dababneh, a Democrat from Woodland Hills, told The Times that his resignation should not be construed as a tacit admission of wrongdoing.

“My stepping down isn’t out of guilt or out of fear. It’s out of an idea that I think it’s time for me to move on to new opportunities,” Dababneh said in an interview. He said that in the current environment, “it’d be very hard for me to represent my district and be able to pass the type of legislation that would be meaningful.”

Dababneh is the second legislator in two weeks to resign due to allegations of sexual misconduct. Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra (DPacoima) stepped down last month after multiple women accused him of making unwanted sexual advances.

Meanwhile, state Sen. Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia) has been stripped of leadership posts as he faces an investigation into alleged improper behavior with female staffers.

“Assemblymember Dababneh’s resignation is yet another sign that the culture is changing,” Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) said in a statement. “The Assembly will continue our work to hasten that change, to make the Legislature an institution where people are safe, survivors are helped, and perpetrators are held accountable.”

Dababneh, 36, was first elected to the Assembly in 2013, representing a strongly Democratic district in the [See Dababneh, A10]

Wally Skalij Los Angeles Times

CASEY RODRIQUEZ helps a friend recover belongings Friday from an apartment building in Ventura ravaged by the Thomas fire.

Santa Anas subside, but not fires’ threat Firefighters stay on high alert as a possible shift to ocean breezes could send flames in a new direction.

By Melissa Etehad, Louis Sahagun, Hailey Branson-Potts and Soumya Karlamangla

Sandy Huffaker AFP/Getty Images

AS THE Lilac fire races closer, volunteers evacuate horses at San Luis Rey Downs in Bonsall, Calif.

For horses, no place to flee

By Paul Sisson, Brittny Mejia and Harriet Ryan The evacuation of San Luis Rey Downs was orderly at first. Trainers at the 500stall facility for racehorses in northern San Diego County led thoroughbreds from the stables into trailers or onto a nearby racetrack.

Ohtani likes Angels’ pitch, so he might be a hit in Anaheim DYLAN HERNANDEZ You heard it when Japanese baseball star Shohei Ohtani informed the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox he wouldn’t sign with them.

You heard it again Friday when Ohtani decided to sign with the Angels instead of the Dodgers or Chicago Cubs.

Doesn’t Ohtani want to win?

Of course he does. He just wants to do it a certain

way — his way, as a two-way player.

He is a unique player — no one else can throw a fastball 100 mph and also hit tape-measure home runs.

He did that in Japan; he wants to show he can do that here. He signed with the Angels because he thinks they can help him realize that vision.

His representatives at CAA basically said as much Friday, when they released a statement that in part read, “In the end, he felt a strong connection with the Angels and believes they can best help him reach his goals in Major League Baseball.”

[See Hernandez, A10]

But as the Lilac fire raced closer, choking the paddocks with smoke and setting palm trees ablaze, the horses began to panic. By the time the barn roofs caught fire, the thousandpound animals were stampeding.

“It just started coming so fast that we couldn’t stay with it,” trainer Linda Thrash said. “Eventually, we

just had to turn them loose.

There was not time to do anything else.”

Some horses refused to leave their burning stables.

Some got out only to run back in. Some made it to safety on the track, only to collapse and die.

Human life has been remarkably preserved in the Southern California wildfires this week, with author-

ities confirming a single fatality. But for horses — animals born and bred to run — the toll has been staggering.

More than 66 animals are known to have died. At least 35 perished at San Luis Rey Downs on Thursday afternoon, and 29 at a Sylmar ranch overrun by the Creek fire Tuesday. There are reports of dead or missing [See Horses, A6]

The powerful Santa Ana winds that fueled a five-day fire siege across Southern California this week began to ease Friday, but the destructive toll of the blazes continued to grow and firefighters will remain on high alert through the weekend.

The fires, which stretched from Ojai to Oceanside, destroyed more than 500 structures and forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes. The smoke created air quality problems that officials said reached unprecedented levels in some areas.

As hot, dry Santa Anas faded, officials warned that breezes from the ocean could pick up, changing the direction of the flames, placing fire crews at higher risk of getting caught without an escape route.

A red flag warning — a combination of extremely low relative humidity and wind speeds that indicates a serious threat if a fire were to occur — is in effect through [See Fires, A7]

THE AGE OF HIP-HOP From the streets to cultural dominance: The 2018 Grammy nominations are overdue acknowledgment that hip-hop has shaped music and culture worldwide for decades. In this ongoing series, we track its rise and future.

The moment N.W.A changed the music world In this exclusive excerpt from “Parental Discretion Is Advised: The Rise of N.W.A and the Dawn of Gangsta Rap,” Times staff writer Gerrick D. Kennedy details the birth of the first major disruption in hip-hop.

CALENDAR, E1

Weather Partly sunny and warm.

L.A. Basin: 82/55. B6

Tony Barnard Los Angeles Times

A6

WST

S

L AT I ME S . CO M

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES

‘Unprecedented’ horse toll

[Horses, from A1] horses and ponies from farms and ranches throughout the region. Some owners won’t know the fate of their animals until evacuations are lifted and they can visit their properties.

“It’s just tragic,” said John Madigan, an expert in animal disaster rescue who teaches at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. He called the deaths “an unprecedented loss of life.”

Though stable fires caused by smoking, arson and electrical malfunctions have killed large numbers of horses, this week’s equine deaths appear to be a record for wildfires.

Santa Ana winds moved the fires so quickly and so unpredictably that those fleeing had only minutes to leave. In some cases, owners said they had to choose between saving themselves and their animals.

In the Creek fire in the mountains above Sylmar, Gail Thackray woke before dawn Tuesday to find her home edged by fire. She said she didn’t have time to gather any belongings let alone free her two ponies and horse.

“I felt like if we had taken an extra 30 seconds, we could have all been dead,” Thackray said.

The ponies died, but the horse, Swagman, managed to jump a fence and escape.

Nearby Rancho Padilla was not a place with show horses or equestrian events.

Jaime Padilla, whose family owns the ranch, said it was never meant to be a luxurious place, but one where “people could just escape.”

In the arena, they would hold Mexican rodeos known as charreadas. This Sunday they had planned to host an event for the Virgen de Guadalupe.

As walls of flame approached on Tuesday, Padilla family members said, a fire crew ordered them to flee immediately.

They left behind a barn filled

Patrick T. Fallon For The Times

A HORSE TRAILER heads down West Lilac Road in Bonsall. At least 35 horses died at San Luis Rey Downs on Thursday afternoon.

with their own horses and those they were boarding for others.

“All I could think about was the horses, the horses, the horses. And they were like, ‘Get out, get out, get out,’ ” said Patricia Padilla, whose family owns the ranch.

When a team from the county’s Department of Animal Care and Control arrived hours later, they found the barn burning.

“The officers could see and hear horses in distress and quickly retrieved two horses and a puppy,” a department statement said.

At least 10 horses were padlocked in their stalls, an apparent guard against theft that animal control of-

ficials criticized Thursday as dangerous and unacceptable. Officers broke the locks on 10 stalls and rescued some horses before the barn began to collapse.

After The Times published a story about the deaths of 29 horses, a member of the Padilla family said she was “receiving awful hate mail accusing me of being a horse-killer.” She threatened legal action against the paper, and relatives did not respond to further requests for comment.

In the aftermath of the calamity Wednesday, a young woman mentioned to the Padilla sisters that many of the stalls were locked.

“I know and we had told them to take them off,” Vir-

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ginia Padilla responded.

Oscar Martinez, who had boarded his horse Chikilin at Rancho Padilla for about five years, said the family had asked boarders not to put locks on stalls.

“Every single ranch has rules. If you rent and have a horse over there, when you rent they tell you not to lock the corral,” he said. “I don’t know why they locked the horses in.”

About three miles down from Rancho Padilla on Little Tujunga Canyon Road, several hundred horses were safely evacuated from Middle Ranch, a so-called show barn where horse owners work with trainers.

As soon as news came about the fire, all the trainers, who have haulers or rigs, were called to load up the horses and evacuate them.

The fire burned all around Middle Ranch and caused some damage, but all of the horses were already out by then, said office assistant Karen Rice.

“The fire started up by [Rancho Padilla], so they probably didn’t have time,” Rice said. “When it starts on top of you and you wake up and you have to get out with your life, that’s about all you have time to think of. I don’t know what happened really.”

Capt. Lucas Spelman of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said the deaths at the ranch left firefighters upset.

“All of us love animals and hate seeing that type of things. Especially firefighters — the way we feel about everything surviving. For us, zero percent is acceptable, so we go at everything 110% to make sure that every viable life can be saved, including animals,” Spelman said.

At the San Luis Rey Downs, the thoroughbred facility in Bonsall, some surviving horses were moved to the Del Mar Fairgrounds.

Officials expected that some

Paul Sisson San Diego Union-Tribune

A HORSE is rescued from the 500-stall San Luis Rey

Downs. The Lilac fire “just started coming so fast that we couldn’t stay with it,” one trainer said.

800 horses evacuated in the fires will be stabled there.

Many owners and trainers were struggling with memories of the chaotic afternoon that left so many prized horses dead.

“It went from one minute being, ‘Yeah, we’re going to be OK,’ to ‘Oh my God, what are we going to do?’ ” said trainer Doug O’Neill, repeating the words of his chief assistant Leandro Mora, who was there when the fire hit.

Madigan, the UC Davis professor, said he had watched video of the frantic scene and thought the trainers and stable hands, far outnumbered by the horses, had acted correctly as the blaze bore down by opening stalls and hoping that

horses would run to safety.

That many did not, he said, was “one of the most frustrating features of horses and fire.”

“They get afraid to leave or they actually try to reenter the spot that they previously knew as safe — the burning barn,” he said. paul.sisson @sduniontribune.com brittny.mejia@latimes.com harriet.ryan@latimes.com Sisson writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Times deputy sports editor John Cherwa and news researcher Scott Wilson,and Union-Tribune staff writers David Hernandez and Jay Posner contributed to this report.

A7

L AT I ME S . CO M

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES

Robert Gauthier Los Angeles Times

DOZENS of mobile homes in the Rancho Monserate Country Club near Fallbrook were reduced to rubble by the 4,100-acre Lilac fire in northern San Diego County.

Federal emergency declared [Fires, from A1] Sunday evening, said Tom Fisher, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

President Trump on Friday approved a California emergency declaration, ordering federal aid to the area and putting the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency in charge of relief efforts.

In northern San Diego County, the Lilac fire — which ignited Thursday off Interstate 15 — forced large swaths of Bonsall and Oceanside to evacuate.

More than 1,000 firefighters were battling the blaze, which held at 4,100 acres from the night before with no containment.

The Lilac fire destroyed at least 85 structures, including a number of mobile homes, authorities said Friday. Three people were injured, and 25 horses were killed at a thoroughbred training center.

“When a tornado hits the Midwest, there’s no stopping it. When a hurricane hits the East Coast, there’s no stopping it. When the Santa Ana winds come in, there’s no stopping them,” said Kendal Bortisser, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection in San Diego.

In Los Angeles County, firefighters on Thursday night took advantage of the calmest winds they had seen in days.

The 15,323-acre Creek fire near Sylmar was 40% contained as of Friday morning, and no more structures were threatened, authorities said.

At least 63 homes and other

Francine Orr Los Angeles Times

THE TOLL from the Lilac fire included at least 85 structures destroyed, three

people injured and 25 horses killed at a thoroughbred training center. structures were destroyed and an additional 45 damaged, though officials expect that number to increase as damage assessment crews continue to survey the area, said L.A. Fire Capt. Branden Silverman.

The 475-acre Skirball fire in Bel-Air was 30% contained. Six houses were destroyed.

The Thomas fire in Ventura County was still the largest, spanning 132,000 acres from Santa Paula to the coast, with significant growth north of Ojai. It was 10% contained as of Friday morning and had destroyed 401 structures.

More than 87,000 people had been evacuated because of the Thomas fire alone.

On Friday, the Ventura County medical examiner’s office identified a body

found at the site of a car accident on Wheeler Canyon Road on Wednesday night as 70-year-old Virginia Pesola of Santa Paula, the only death in the Thomas fire to date.

She died of blunt-force injuries with terminal smoke inhalation and thermal injuries, officials said. The death is being investigated by the California Highway Patrol and the Major Crimes Unit of the Ventura County Sheriff ’s Office.

Besides the flames, there was another major issue for residents to contend with: terrible air quality.

Pollution in Ojai was off the charts, said Phil Moyer, an air quality specialist with the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District.

“It’s the highest reading we’ve seen. It’s crazy num-

bers,” Moyer said.

The air quality index, a measurement of pollution in the air, is considered unhealthy at a rating of 151 or higher. The worst category is “hazardous” and covers ratings between 301 and 500, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Pollution levels in Ojai have been averaging over 500, with smoke from the Thomas fire trapped by the mountains that encircle the mountain town, Moyer said.

“Especially now that the Santa Anas have died down, there’s nothing to push the smoke out of the way, so it just kind of sits there,” he said.

At the Casitas Shopping Center in Carpinteria, just above the Santa Barbara County line, more than 100 people stood in a queue to

pick up masks as smoke and ash filled the air.

Among them was Gloria Rivera, who came to grab masks for herself, her husband, her two grandchildren — and her chihuahua, Mamba.

“I’m gonna try and put it on him,” she said.

Hospitals across Southern California reported high numbers of patients showing up in emergency rooms with breathing problems.

Health officials advise that people limit their outdoor activity, close windows, use air conditioning that recirculates inside air and wear N95 masks outside, which can protect from harmful particles.

On Friday afternoon, Jacklyn Mann, 29, sifted through the charred metal and debris where her house once stood, along with her brother Ben and her father, Roger.

They were some of the first residents on their block in Ventura, near Via Arroyo and Colina Vista, to return.

They came back with one goal in mind: to salvage all the household items with sentimental value that they could.

“I found another one!”

Jacklyn shouted to her dad.

In her hand was a dusty ceramic pinch pot that her other brother, Dixon Mann, made years ago in elementary school.

“Oh, cool! Sweet,” her father responded.

Lined on the side of their property were small items that the family had dug up that day, including Ben’s childhood swimming medals.

The family decided to spend their Friday digging

after finding a Christmas ornament that belonged to Jacklyn. It had been hanging on the tree they had just decorated Monday.

At a Red Cross shelter at Nordhoff High School in Ojai, Ken Williams leaned back in a folding chair and flipped on the switch of an amateur radio console.

He’d spent each morning listening to the chatter on emergency response channels to get a sense of the fire’s behavior.

But something remarkable happened when Williams turned on the radio at daybreak Friday: Silence.

“Man, that’s a good thing,” said Williams, 71, who lives in an Ojai mobile home.

“When the chatter calms down, it means things are definitely getting better.”

Sitting near Williams was John Wilson, 80, one of 118 people taking refuge at the school. Like many others, he was saddled with unanswered questions about the fate of his home — in his case just a mile west of the shelter.

“I sure am ready to go home,” said Wilson, who has lived in Ojai more than three decades.

“Having no idea what’s going to happen next is a brand new experience for me.” melissa.etehad @latimes.com louis.sahagun @latimes.com hailey.branson @latimes.com soumya.karlamangla @latimes.com Times staff writers Ruben Vives, Sonali Kohli and Joseph Serna contributed to this report.