As the attorneys and Supreme Court justices. For background on each case, order your copy of the companion book, for 8. 95 online. Each week, American History tvs real america brings you or kooi archival films. A fire damaging produced by the los angeles Fire Department, this is a 1962 documentary, and examines the causes, and proposes actions to prevent problems in the future. Narrated by william conrad. Designed for disaster. The story of the bell air the atmosphere grows oppressive. People argue more. Even the suicide rate rises during the months of the santa ana. Warm, dry. And attracting more than 3,000 people a month to become permanent residents of los angeles. Settling into hotels, apartments, homes along the coast. Inland to the far reaches of the valley areas. And some move up to the secluded hill areas. Where lush vegetation goes for miles in every direction, and breezes blow clean. Increasingly strong during the late fall months of the santa ana, and dangerously dry when there has been no rain. Its during this period when firemen most fear the potential of 134 square miles classed by experts as the fastestburning ground cover in the western hemisphe hemisphere. On the morning of november 6th, 1961, Fire Department finds conditions far from the best. Winds are dry and gusty. And moisture component, rock bottom. At 8 03 a. M. , a condition of high hazard is called throughout the department. Then trouble strikes. At 8 15, an alert of fire is given. All units, a brush fire in the mountain area. 3600 stone canyon. They respond immediately. Clouds of smoke already visible on the ridge. They call for additional companies. The fire starting north of mu mullholland. And and there is no stopping it. Winds are driving the flames fast and hard. The chief declares a condition of major emergency. And support from air tankers is requested. All key personnel are dispatched along with equipment. Deputy and position chiefs rush in. Heading straight down the canyon. 31, 45, 46, 67, move directly into the fire. Fire has jumped mullholland, headed toward bel air. To these men, brush fires are routine. But this one is pushing them hard. The flames take a run along the canyon slopes. Heading toward the ridges. Firemen with highpressure hose streams knock the fire down as it tries to make the jump. But in the canyon between, traveling unchecked with the wind, there lies the problem. Rough terrain impedes fire crews from meeting the flames headon. And threatening residential areas ahead. Chief engineer William Miller arrives to take charge of fire operations. A quick sizeup of conditions prompts him to order everything available into the fire. Time is vital. Fire is spreading, growing by the minute. Air tankers sweep in. Fire danger is compounded by ground winds, the santa ana thriving through at 50 miles an hour. 100, 200, 300 feet ahead, other blazes are starting. Spot fires that appear from nowhere. All offduty firemen are called in. And embers blow ahead to fall on the opposite side. The fire is now west of stone canyon. I can see the fire on the west side, it jumped at least 500 feet further south. Its now out of control. Responding apparatus is brought in by helicopter. And equipment and manpower th thinning out, and flames spread at the rate of 13 acres per minute. Tactics change from offense to defense. Fire crews are directed to positions between structures, and approaching fire, to begin the hit and run firefighting technique. Get ahead of the fire. Make a stand. Knock it down. Move ahead again. Always stay ahead of the fire. Firemen almost in the dark, fighting to keep flames confined to single homes. But now fire is sweeping south, coming up on both sides of the ridges they stand on. Getting ahead of the men. The firemen are no longer ahead of the fire. The commanders request more and more help as the flames spread. Were going to begin losing more houses. Houses going on both sides, the 1700 block. At least 15 houses involved. We were using everything we have. But everything is not enough. Badlyneeded help has come from county firefighting units. 22 of their patrol rigs are at the fire. Ten more are on their way. Cat operators work ahead of the flames. 23 surrounding municipalities come in to cover. And decisions based on the prime consideration of any fire, safety to human life. Ahead of the fire, Police Officers are hardpressed to control the evacuation of residents. While they work, radios blare out messages of trouble. We need Police Assistance here to evacuate these people. A lady here, having difficulty breathing. A school bus trapped. The children and the driver are trapped. A report of four people trapped. We need help. An ambulance. Firemen. The house is on fire, and a lady is trapped. Congestion blocks fire trucks. Everyone must use the same narrow streets. And firefighters must drive miles to go around. Sight see sightseers crowd things. And its a disaster, on the canyons, hillsides, ridges, houses are burning. Smoke blacks out the sun. Firemen work in close, as fire brands come through windows, into ventilators, and into the eaves of houses. And a wind that bends highpressure hose streams. Where the men have water to fight with, theyre holding their own. And then, without warning, some dont have water. First the pressure, then the water itself recedes. The situation becoming one of scattered running battles, as fire crews pick individual targets. Water is drafted from swimming pools wherever possible. But homes that are burning must be passed by. Hundreds of others just starting to burn, and a difficult choice must be made. Which to fight, which to forfeit. Once extinguished, those close to brush catch fire again and again. Nevertheless, the firefighters continue to try. The planes do their best work in conjunction with ground crews to prevent fires spread. More equipment is moved in, as fire sweeps south at incredible speed. Every burning thing that can be torn loose is hurled head by the wind. Burning brands rain down. Spot fires appear everywhere. Spread, fused together to feed the parent blaze. A blaze which is no longer just a major brush fire, just a group of burning buildings. Its now a fullscale conflagration. On the move, heading to every residential section. Theres one chance. Every piece of firefighting equipment not actively involved is sent north. Fire storms boiling upward along residential stretches of the roads. There is no clearlydefined fire front. Its as if an enemy force had launched a strike behind the lines. Flames loom up in scores of homes on scores of streets. Firemen fight in smokeimposed darkness. Some have no water. In their concentration on the jobs at hand, none can know. But four new crises are taking form. Six miles northwest, a second major brush fire has broken loose. Destroyed nine homes. And is racing toward the main fire to eventually blacken 10,000 acres. Companies are pulled from upper stone canyon to help fight the new blaze. And benedict canyon, another brush fire is deliberately set. As crews respond, an air tanker is sent ahead. And in brentwood, a third crisis. A mile and a half west of bel air, an unexpected phenomenon takes place. Thousands of fire brands are dumped from the sky. In residential areas, the embers spread. 50 to 60 fires suddenly blaze up as if an aerial incendiary attack had been launched. Equipment is sent to the new front. At the same time, a fourth emergency sparks. Fire in the space of a few minutes leaps the largest manmade fire break in the city. And it seems hopeless, everything is being sent in the path of a conflagration that will not stop. Its a fight against time, and a 20mile perimeter of sweeping flames. Men do not know where the fire stops, or how far it will go. Or how much longer. Too many streets, too many homes, too many fires for only 3,000 men to fight. And to these men, the whole thing seems unreal. Water will not quench it. The wind will not stop. This is a fire that simply will not be whipped. Then the santa ana diminishes. And those still left in the burned area get a look at the path it has traveled. But there is no time for contemplation. Fire is still burning. And in the early evening, the wind strengthens, sending the fire west and northwest. As darkness moves in, apparat apparatuses moving in. Firemen stand by their lines, watching a sky full of smoke turn red from embers and refl t reflected flames. They begin their climb to the top to press over the ridge and shoot down, on a direct run to the homes below. And the fight begins. Firemen battle to keep their positions between homes and the first wave of fire. As they sweep the west canyon wall. Within minutes, the canyon is smothered in a maelstrom of smoke, cinders, and fire. And firefighters taking beatings in their stand between homes and fire. Endurance is tested, but the lines and the men hold. And the homes still stand after flames have blackened the canyon walls. As the fire swings northward, a great concentration of land forces moves in. And the citys most disastrous fire is beaten down to a slow, smoldering containment. On november 7th,the sun reveals the ruins of what yesterday were homes, now fireplaces stand as tombstones over row upon row of dead homes on dead streets. 484 times fire proved its deadly efficiency by incinerating, in a few roaring minutes, what families had taken years to acquire. 6,090 acres of blackened hills, canyons and neighborhoods. Over 3,000 men, 240 fire vehicles, and 16 aircraft tried to stop it. Did stop it. But only after a hard, driving santa ana died down and gave them a chance. They broke the fires back in 12 hours, saved over 2,200 homes, a major college. Not one single life was not. Not one critical burn case reported. Firemen had set a new record, according to National Fire experts. But still people wonder fire victims as well as those who merely read about the fire ask the same question. How can a brush fire get so far out of control within a wellprotected city and do the things it does . Lets analyze this fire and see what did happen. Some phases are difficult to explain. Why is a framework of bare wood left unharmed and a furnace of heat that crumbles masonry around it . Why does a roaring fire suddenly stop in heavy brush as if cut by a knife . Why do flames spare one house and consume identical dwellings on all sides . A general pattern of fire behavior, however, can be explained. When a brush fire is traveling downhill it is most receptive to extinguishment. A wide clearance around a house gives firemen a break to provide a stop, provided water is available, provided wind dozen not start spark fires across the canyon. And combustible roofs do not ignite from falling embers. The fire preheats canyons to ignition temperatures as flames move uphill the reaction can be almost explosive. A parallel to this reaction is demonstrated with a branch from a specimen of hillside brush. Held upright with fire moving downward the fire travels slowly. But reverse the situation, place the fuel above the fire. On a hill fire, burning brands carry over the top to start spot fires on the opposite side. Where those spot fires merge with the original blaze youll see fire that leaves only chimneys and brick work. No amount of wettingdown can stop it. Now lets take another look at fire in action. Brush fires create their own wind. Turbulence and heat bring winds of tornado velocity. Erratic, twisting, treacherous, and unpredictable. Even seasoned news cameramen can be trapped. Where these fire graphs are further compounded by the santa anna, results can be disastrous. On the morning of november 6th, santa ana winds were moving in a southwesterly direction from desert to coast. At the same time, numerous ridges of the Santa Monicas were channeling ground winds almost due south. So it was that winds were traveling in two directions at the time of the fire. When the fire reached bel air and consumed homes in such numbers that firestorms resulted, thermal heat lifted burning shingles and brands 2,000 to 3,000 feet in the air. Caught in the upperlevel wind currents these burning brands were carried well over a mile across sepulveda to rain down onto the redwood area. Scores of spot fires began spreading to present a new crisis. This is demonstrated in pictures taken by uclas meteorological department. Now the same picture increases to many times its original speed. Deep within the smoke, burning shingles carry a mile and a half to start new fires as shown by black smoke columns which grow to join the main fire approaching from the east. This leap frog phenomenon, couples with powerful ground winds, created a unique fire problem. As one of the nations foremost conflagration experts puts it no one has ever faced this problem before. No definite line of defense could be found. And when a Chain Reaction of this typo curse, a Fire Department can do nothing more than pick out individual houses and try to save them. But even in such attempts to save individual homes, firemen are further thwarted by the loss of water. How can a modern water system properly designed to meet emergency fire conditions fail to function . Lets look at this simplified diagram of houses on a hill being supplied by a water tank above. When thousands of outlets are opened below the hill, water pressure is lost in the overtaxed main, regardless of the amount of water above the houses. When the water supply comes from a distant location and supply pipes dead end on the hill, unnecessary use of too many outlets below the fire area simply drains the water out of the upper system. We have considered water, wind, and weather. Now theres the very real problem of how a house is constructed. And where. Suppose we live in a house above the congestion of the nak neighborhood below. Or in a stilt house built over the brush. Or in a typical home with a combustible roof. Wide, low eaves to catch sparks and fire. And a big picture window to let the fire inside. Under any such conditions, theres not much of a chance. In 1959, experts from the National FireProtection Association surveyed portions of los angeles. They found the Mountain Range within the city, combustibleroofed houses closely spaced, and brushcovered canyons and ridges serviced by narrow roads. They called it a design for disaster. They predicted the bel air fire, plus others which are sure to come, unless citizens and city officials Work Together on a definite plan of fire defense. The prediction was nothing new to firemen. They have their own ideas about people who dont like water pumping stations or fire stations in their neighborhood because they feel that theyre unsightly. Or homeowners who refuse to cut brush away from homes because it mars the Natural Beauty of the hills. Those groups who maintain to the last blowing ember that combustible roofs are not hazardous in fires areas, despite the fact that over 600 cities have outlawed them. Firefighters are thankful that such is not the thinking of the majority of citizens. But it does not take a majority to start a fire. Or to need a conflagration that burns out the careful along with the careless. You are only as safe as your neighborhood. You live in a hazardous area, youre gambling that fire wont start from hot ashes, a cigarette, children with matches, a faulty chimney, auto accidents, a firebug, fallen wires, or lightning. These are the odds. If you win, you get to keep what you already have. If you lose, fire, the winner, takes all. American history tv airs all weekend, every weekend, on cspan3 and in primetime on weeknights when congress is in recess. We cover all periods of American History and a wide diversity of topics. At our website, cspan. Org history, you can watch all of our programs, find our tv schedule, see youtube clips the of upcoming shows, and connect with us on twitter and facebook. This is American History tv, only on cspan3. Former naacp chairman julian bond died in august. On sunday, october 25th, American History tv features an oral history with mr. Bond where he remembers growing up in the segregated south. His involvement with the student nonviolent coordinating committee. And his later political career. This is one of several oral histories with Africanamerican Community leaders we feature in the coming weeks. They were conducted by the university of virginias explorations in black leadership project. Thats sunday, october 25th, at 10 00 a. M. Eastern here on American History tv on cspan3. A signature feature of book tv is our allday coverage of book fairs and festivals from across the country. With top nonfiction authors. Heres our schedule beginning this weekend. Were live from austin for the texas book festival. And the following weekend were live in the nations heartland for the wisconsin book festival in madison. At the end of the month well be in nashville for the southern festival of books. At the start of november were back on the east coast for the boston book festival. In the middle of the month its the louisiana book festival in baton rouge. At the end of november were live for the 18th year in a row from florida for the Miami Book Fair international. And the National Book awards from new york city. Just some of the fairs and festivals this fall