FIRESTORM ERUPTS : WINDS FAN FLAMES FROM CALABASAS TO MALIBU LESSONS FROM '93 HELP LIMIT DAMAGE.

Byline: Dennis Love and Jaxon Van Derbeken Daily News Staff Writers

A fast-moving brush fire shoved along by heavy Santa Ana winds crackled from Calabasas to Malibu and the Pacific Ocean on Monday, blackening more than 12,000 acres of brush and forcing widespread evacuations.

While the fire swept past numerous expensive canyon homes on its way to the sea, firefighters reported that only two homes had burned by midnight. No injuries were reported. The cause of the fire was undetermined.

At least some of the credit for the minimal damage may go to brush clearing and other precautions taken by canyon residents following a devastating fire in 1993 that destroyed hundreds of homes in a similar march to the sea.

``A lot of it was luck of the draw, the way the fire was moving, but a lot of it was fire prevention,'' said Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. ``These kinds of things make all the difference in the world.''

Hundreds of firefighters and a squadron of water- and retardant-dropping aircraft were dispatched to battle the blaze, which began at 10:34 a.m. just east of Las Virgenes Road near the Ventura Freeway.

The fire chewed through largely open land, jumped Mulholland Highway, sprinted through Stokes Canyon and past Monte Nido, and by late afternoon had zeroed in on the Malibu Bowl area, where firefighters amassed to make a stand.

Evacuations were made in Stokes Canyon, Camp Gonzales, Monte Nido, Malibu Bowl, Malibu Hills and El Nido.

As the fire hopscotched its way through the canyons, firefighters and residents alike were praising the work of the SuperScooper aircraft and the apparently effective brush-clearing efforts launched in the wake of the catastrophic Old Topanga Fire of 1993.

``When they talk about getting rid of those things (SuperScoopers), they're crazy,'' said Malibu Bowl resident and evacuee Debbie Pierson as a SuperScooper roared by and deposited a wall of ocean water on the fire near the intersection of Corral Canyon Road and Pacific Coast Highway. ``See what it does? They're great.''

The first major fire of the season snarled traffic along the Ventura Freeway, Pacific Coast Highway and in the affected canyons.

While nowhere near the scope and intensity of the deadly 1993 inferno, Monday's fire posed a series of super-heated challenges for firefighters, businesses, schools and residents in its path.

As a gigantic plume of gray smoke visible for miles rose up against the sky, many homeowners took to rooftops with hoses to dampen the structures in anticipation of the approaching flames.

The fire was spread quickly by heavy winds blowing toward the ocean.

Initially, firefighters had hoped to stop the fire's advance at Mulholland Highway, but the fire jumped the east-west highway about 1:30 p.m. Scott Smith, a captain with the Los Angeles County Fire Department in West Hollywood, said he was in the mountains when the fire jumped Mulholland Highway.

``I knew if it got across Mulholland Highway it was going all the way to the beach,'' he said. ``That's all wild land. The winds are just blowing the fire all over the place.

``For as fast as that fire was moving, those guys (firefighters) did a hell of a job.''

Even before Mulholland Highway was breached, students from A.E. Wright Middle School had been evacuated to Agoura High School, north of the freeway, as had K-12 students at the private Viewpoint School in Calabasas.

``We have evacuated our students, and we've taken them to our evacuation site for safety reasons only,'' said Patti Martin, assistant to Viewpoint's business manager. ``We're not in any danger, but we have a lot of smoke and ash.''

Camp David Gonzales, a Los Angeles County juvenile probation camp at the intersection of Las Virgenes and Malibu Canyon roads, was evacuated about 2:30 p.m. as the fire moved within a mile of the facility, said Craig Levy, the Probation Department's media relations officer.

The camp's 128 teens, all males between 13 and 18 serving sentences for a variety of offenses, and 12 staff members were moved to other facilities, Levy said.

Students from Soka University also were evacuated, according to a frenzied receptionist, who said she didn't ``have time to talk to reporters.''

Along Stokes Canyon Road, the rapidly approaching fire sent residents fleeing, many with horse trailers in tow. In Monte Nido, where there were no reports of injuries or damage, that community may have been spared by the lack of combustible brush, according to Cliff Dysart, battalion chief with the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

He said brush on the east side of the rural hamlet was burned out by the 1993 Old Topanga Fire. With no fuel to burn in that area, the fire moved to the west, sparing the little community again.

``The fire burned almost all the way around them. They were lucky,'' Dysart said.

Firefighters at the scene said each engine company was assigned to protect a home as flames approached by spraying water and foam on it.

Pockets of flames continued to flare up in heavy brush areas late Monday and firefighters remained on the scene to deal with the hot spots. Access to the area was limited to residents only.

The managers of the Malibu Valley Farm on Stokes Canyon Road a few miles north of Monte Nido weren't so lucky. The fire destroyed their doublewide mobile home at the farm containing practically all of their belongings.

``It's gone. There's nothing left,'' said Mark Cardiel, who surveyed the scene with his wife and co-manager, Juana, their faces and fingernails black with soot.

The couple has managed the horse farm for the past 14 years. They said none of the 60 horses boarded there was harmed.

Larry Girardi, a graphic designer, called his wife, Carol, to warn her about the fire, worried that it could progress to the Woodbluff Road home the family has occupied near Monte Nido for 12 years.

Three years ago, the Old Topanga Fire skirted their property, but the erratic winds Monday and the towering plume in the distance troubled the Girardis, and Carol's mother, Mary Margaret Remondini.

``We'll probably stay,'' said Larry Girardi. He armed the family with hoses.

``I'm surprised it's gotten over this far,'' Carol Girardi said. ``When it's out of control and the winds are going like this anything can happen. It's best to stay calm. But when you see embers it's scary.''

By the time the blaze began its inevitable descent toward the ocean, veterans of Malibu firestorms past were coping with the evacuations and the cyclical, natural dangers of the coastal region.

At one point, as the fire raced along Corral Canyon Road, a horse bolted from the flames and finally was recaptured by its owner, Bill Raffin, who owns a ranch in the El Nido area. Raffin was taking provisions and the horse down from the ranch when the animal broke free.

The fire ``took me by surprise,'' Raffin said as the horse took a drink from a creek. ``That fire, you don't know what it's gonna do.'' He said the blaze came within about 75 yards of his ranch.

Along the coast the fire picked up a little after 8 p.m. requiring the evacuation of a shelter that had been set up at the Michael Landon Center on Pacific Coast Highway.

The flames spread toward a condominium complex near PCH and Malibu Canyon.

Renee Tab, 19, came rushing down Pacific Coast Highway in a caravan of four cars driven by a brother, a sister and her mother.

``I was taking a nap, because I thought it was all over with. Then my neighbor started screaming and and I looked outside and we could see the fire coming,'' Tab said. ``I'm sick of living in Malibu.''

At Pepperdine University in Malibu, where firefighters defended campus buildings from the fire that ate at landscaping, worried students and nearby residents evacuated to the campus hunkered down in the gym, cafeteria and student center.

``Four hours ago I was thinking of my midterm and now it doesn't matter,'' student Christina Cunha, 20, of Madera, said through tears. ``It's funny how life is.''

Of the fire, Pepperdine President David Davenport said: ``We're optimistic that they can contain it. The winds are unpredictable, but we should be fine.''

On campus, the lines were long at the public telephones where students phoned home to try to reassure parents.

At the Beau Rivage Mediterranean Restaurant on PCH just south of Corral Canyon Road, owners Daniel and Luciana Forge watched as the yellow-and-red SuperScoopers doused the hillside only a few feet away from the restaurant. Meanwhile, restaurant workers doused the tile roof with water and firefighters were stationed in the parking lot.

Luciana Forge said the restaurant has survived the recent rash of natural calamities with flying colors. ``We've been through fire and a earthquake and nothing happened because the Chumash are watching over us,'' she said, referring to the American Indian tribe that once lived along the coast.

And the firefighters? ``They get the credit, too,'' she said.

CAPTION(S):

4 Photos, map

PHOTO (1 -- color) A Malibu Sea Food employee runsfrom flames and blowing embers Monday after trying to prevent the fire from reaching the business on Pacific Coast Highway.

Hans Gutknecht/Daily News

(2 -- 3 -- color) A helicopter, far left, flies through heavy smoke to make a water drop along Las Virgenes Canyon Road, while a Malibu Sea Food worker, left, battles the fire with a bucket of water. As of Monday night, the fire had blackened about 12,000 acres.

Gene Raymond Blevins/Special to the Daily News

(4 -- color) A Los Angeles city firefighter hoses down a burning motor home on Las Virgenes Canyon Road. Hundreds of firefighters were dispatched to battle the blaze.

Gene Raymond Blevins/Special to the Daily News

MAP: Calabasas fire

Gregg Miller/Daily News