los angeles | Jeff and Liz Kramer and their three teenage sons could only watch and wait. The Sutton Valley residents paced the sidewalk in front of their home on Sept. 29, watching as the head of the Topanga Canyon fire crept along a ridge less than 800 yards away, consuming brush and sending up billows of smoke.
“We’ve been up all night watching it,” Liz Kramer said. “It started here at about 1 a.m.”
As the Ventura County Sheriff’s fire support helicopters doused flames with water assaults, the Kramers talked with neighbors about whether to evacuate.
“The firemen keep telling us we’re fine,” she said. “But our cars are loaded, and we’re ready to leave.”
While the Kramer home was spared and no other Jewish homes were known to have been lost, an iconic structure of Jewish Los Angeles was not so fortunate. In Simi Valley at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute, sparks fell and ignited a fire on the roof of the landmark House of the Book. The building’s interior was not apparently harmed. A detailed damage assessment is pending.
As of Monday, Oct. 3, when the fire was contained, some three homes and three business structures were destroyed.
The Topanga Canyon Fire erupted in Chatsworth off of Topanga Canyon Boulevard at 1:50 p.m., Sept. 27, amid high temperatures and dry Santa Ana winds. By Sept. 30 it had grown to engulf about 21,000 acres and required a multi-agency firefighting force of 3,000 from Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
Around the Conejo and West Valley, synagogues reported a similar situation. “So far we have more people offering space than need it,” said Rabbi Ted Riter of Temple Adat Elohim of Thousand Oaks.
The Conejo and West San Fernando valleys have become a magnet for Jewish families in recent years, so there were bound to be scores of Jewish families affected by the evacuation orders, not to mention the choking haze that hung over the region.
No synagogues were damaged, but area shuls removed their Torahs as a precaution.