Rattled area businesses try to learn lessons from fire.

JEREMY Brewer was not only nervous, but astonished. He could not only see the fire from the roof of Simi Valley Hospital, but he could also see it approach the facility from his perch just two miles away from the edge of the flames.

"I had never seen anything like it and frankly, it scared me," said Brewer, marketing director at the hospital who saw the flames stop about a mile short of the hospital thanks to the efforts of firefighters.

Only 13 of the hospital's 107 patients had to be evacuated, due to the fire. But 50 ambulances were at the hospital ready to evacuate the remainder if needed, Brewer said.

Just a few miles away, Debra Early and her husband Don could do little but watch as their Big Sky movie ranch burned to the ground.

But even as the Earlys tally their losses and hospital officials thank firefighters for their work, business owners in Simi Valley, Chatsworth, and Stevenson Ranch are breathing a sigh of relief while mulling over options of how to avoid the next big fire like the one that ravaged their areas the last week of October.

"We all need to think about ways to avoid having another one later," said Carol Reniger, owner of Basket n' Bows, a small gift shop located near the 118 freeway and the edge of the fire in Simi Valley.

While no businesses burned in Simi, Chatsworth and Stevenson Ranch, Reniger and other business owners maintain that next time, they may not be as lucky.

"At one point, I thought I was going to lose everything, but they stopped the fire, it made you think about what could have happened," she said.

While many business owners contacted by the Business Journal declined comment, others felt new regulations for fire safety must be developed to protect their communities and businesses from the next wildfire.

"You can expect that we'll be working closely with homeowners and government officials to look at development in this area and fire safety," said Bill Powers, chairman of the United Chambers of Commerce board of directors.

Powers, who is also a vice president with the Chatsworth/Porter Ranch Chamber of Commerce, said vacant land that had been ear-marked for large residential projects was overrun and scorched by the fast moving fires.

"If homes were there, there would have been nothing left of them," Powers said.

Concerned about development

While the fire was halted right on the edges of residential properties in Indian Hill and Simi Valley, thanks to firefighters, Powers said he was concerned about growing number of developments bordering fire zones.

But business owners like Joe Bowman of Joe's Italian Pizza in Simi Valley, said more must be done to keep fires from approaching the area as close as this latest wildfire did.

"We had to close for a couple of days because the fire was moving so fast," he said.

"We lost a lot of business and so did a lot of other businesses which closed down because of the fire."

Leigh Nixon, executive director of the Simi Valley Chamber of Commerce, said much of downtown Simi shut down when the fire reached the outskirts of the city on Sunday, Oct. 26.

"There were some retail stores that stayed open, but virtually everybody else closed and the city was a virtual ghost town," she said.

Many businesses remained closed the following Monday, only to reopen a day or two later, depending on the business.

In Santa Clarita, businesses remained open even as smoke darkened the sky and fire trucks sped by.

"We could see the fire, but there were a lot of fire trucks between us and the fire," said Roy Johnson, a certified public accountant with an office near Stevenson Ranch in Santa Clarita.

As for the future, Assemblyman Keith Richman, R-Northridge, says more homes will continue to be built near fire danger zones as communities encroach on open land in areas like Santa Clarita and the Antelope Valley.

"There's no other way to go if you want to build homes to accommodate all these new people that come into this state," he said.

"But we can be rigorous in building codes and safety planning for our open areas."

David T. Russell, an assistant professor of finance at Cal State Northridge and author of "It's a Disaster: The Money and Politics That Follow Earthquakes, Hurricanes and Other Catastrophic Losses," said the fires would help business owners realize the potential risks of damage to their businesses.

"Businesses need to deal with the realities of fire," he said. "They need to think of contingencies like what if your main supplier burns up? Then you might as well burn up too."

Not only must business owners re-examine their insurance coverage, but at ways to reduce their damage risks, he said.

"You can get insurance for loss of income, for instance, and you develop a backup business plan," he said.

"Earthquakes, fires and landslides are things that are going to happen in the Valley so why not be prepared?"