Life imitates art as Malibu goes to blazes: Californians flee inferno with surfboards and pets

A WALL of fire fanned by desert winds and fed by mountain brush until it reached the sea. Police with guns drawn trying to keep residents away, while others fled in their Porsches and Jeeps, or gathered in frightened groups on the beaches of Malibu.

The Hollywood set who stood in Nature's path could not have devised more extraordinary scenes.

As the sun rose over the Pacific coast yesterday, the wreckage of scores of luxury mansions delivered yet another reminder to Californians that there is a price to pay for populating a semi-desert and for trying to live the American Dream in the equivalent of a fire-trap.

The fire started in the Santa Monica mountains, north-west of Los Angeles, but swiftly spread, fanned by the seasonal hot, dry Santa Ana winds and fuelled by tons of bone-dry chaparral (brush). Within six hours it had developed into a firestorm which descended on the seaside community of Malibu, the surfers' Mecca and hideaway for numerous Hollywood celebrities.

As it roared down the hillside, turning palm trees into giant ember-spewing Roman candles and blackening the sky, it reportedly burnt out homes belonging to Rod Steiger and Sean Penn, and damaged those of George C Scott and Charles Bronson. But the Malibu Colony, a beachside enclave where Ali McGraw, Danny DeVito, Larry Hagman and other celebrities live, escaped damage, although the flames came within 100 yards.

Yesterday the fires, still out of control in some areas, flared up in a canyon two miles from the J Paul Getty Museum on the Pacific coast, home of many priceless works of art including Van Gogh's Irises and Titian's Venus and Adonis. The museum said some treaures were removed to a vault. Staff were 'confident' the museum would be safe.

The fires, which started on Tuesday morning, continued throughout the following night while a fleet of fire-fighting aircraft bombarded it with water and chemicals. Firefighters formed a battleline along the Pacific Coast Highway to protect multi-million dollar beachside homes. Thousands of residents fled, their cars packed with surfboards, pets and paintings. Some tried to return and were stopped at gunpoint by the police. Others gathered on the beaches, while a US Coastguard vessel bobbed offshore.

Although no one was reported killed, dozens were injured, including Duncan Gibbins, a British screenwriter-director who was last night said by doctors to be in critical condition.

The authorities said Mr Gibbins, whose films credits include Eve of Destruction, Fire With Fire and Third-Degree Burn, was badly burnt after attempting to rescue a cat.

The conflagration comes a week after 14 big fires swept across southern California, causing more than dollars 500m ( pounds 337m) damage and destroying at least 700 homes.

The cost of the Malibu fire, in which more than 200 homes were destroyed, is still unknown.

But a deeper fear lurks behind all these unpleasant statistics. The fire authorities believe that arsonists may be responsible. Battered by recession, riots, earthquakes and now fires, Californians face the terrifying prospect that someone may be trying to burn them out.

(Photograph omitted)