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Fire HistoryChatsworth Fire History: The Fires Behind the Five-Foot Rule
The Sesnon Fire: Chatsworth's anchor event
On October 13, 2008, during a Santa Ana wind event, a power line fell onto dry brush near a drainage by the Oat Mountain oil fields north of Porter Ranch. Within days the Sesnon Fire had burned 14,703 acres, roughly 22 square miles across the ridge country that forms Chatsworth's northern and western horizon.
The fire ran through Aliso Canyon and pushed into Box Canyon and the slopes west of Valley Circle Boulevard, the seam where Chatsworth's streets meet open chaparral. It destroyed 15 residences and 63 outbuildings, injured 30 firefighters, and caused one death on the highways when smoke cut visibility. Damage was estimated at 12.6 million dollars. It was contained October 18, burning simultaneously with the larger Sayre Fire to the east in one of the worst fire weeks in Valley history.
The lesson written into the losses: the homes that burned were lost to embers and near-structure fuels, the fences, brush, and stored material that carried fire the last few feet. That is precisely the band Zone 0 now regulates.
Topanga Fire, 2005
- StartSeptember 28, 2005
- OriginSanta Susana Mtns, NW of Chatsworth
- Acres24,175
- EvacuatedAbout 1,500 residents
Sources: CAL FIRE incident records and the Wikipedia incident summary compiled from contemporaneous coverage.
The Topanga Fire and the Pass corridor
Three years before Sesnon, the Topanga Fire ignited in the Santa Susana Mountains northwest of Chatsworth and burned 24,175 acres, mostly driving west and south into the Simi Hills. Despite the name, this was Chatsworth's fire more than Topanga's: the ignition zone and the eastern flank sat directly above the neighborhood, and the burn crossed the Santa Susana Field Laboratory property in the hills over Box Canyon.
The 2019 Saddleridge Fire told the same story on the parallel corridor east of here, running from Sylmar west through Granada Hills and Porter Ranch. Those communities' own Zone Zero guides cover it in detail; for Chatsworth it was a reminder that the rim can light from either direction.
Chatsworth has lived with this landscape a long time. The sandstone of Stoney Point and Santa Susana Pass State Historic Park, the 1904 rail tunnels through the Pass, the old Stage Road: the same terrain that made the neighborhood's history also channels its wind and fire. The Chatsworth Historical Society's Homestead Acre, the last intact homestead cottage in the Valley, has stood at Chatsworth Park South through every one of these fires. Keeping places like that standing is what defensible space is for.
Chatsworth's fire record, answered
What was the Sesnon Fire?
A wind-driven fire that started October 13, 2008 when a power line fell onto dry brush near the Oat Mountain oil fields above Porter Ranch. It burned 14,703 acres in five days, destroyed 15 residences and 63 outbuildings, and reached Box Canyon and the slopes west of Valley Circle Boulevard on Chatsworth's western edge.
Did the 2005 Topanga Fire actually threaten Chatsworth?
Yes. It ignited September 28, 2005 in the Santa Susana Mountains northwest of Chatsworth and burned 24,175 acres, mostly westward into the Simi Hills and eastern Ventura County. Around 1,500 residents were under mandatory evacuation, and it burned across the Santa Susana Field Laboratory property in the hills above the neighborhood.
Why does fire keep arriving from the same direction?
Terrain. The Santa Susana Pass and Oat Mountain corridors funnel Santa Ana winds off the mountains and across the neighborhood's northwest rim. Sesnon in 2008 and Topanga in 2005 both ran on that alignment, and the 2019 Saddleridge Fire ran the parallel corridor to the east through Porter Ranch and Granada Hills. Zone 0 exists because embers from these wind-driven fires land in the first five feet.
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