Moving van hustles valuables from Bel-Air estate

 USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles

---

Photograph caption dated November 9, 1961 reads "Moving van hustles valuables from Bel-Air estate - But the move wasn't needed. The house escaped - narrowly - from the disastrous Bel-Air - Mandeville Canyon fire Monday. Not knowing it would, however, owner Charles Hornburg, 624 Nimes Rd., an automobile dealer, called a moving van at 10:30 a.m. Monday. The van arrived an hour later and by 4:30 most of the Hornburg valuables - clothes and furs - were loaded and out of the fire area. The house untouched, the valuables were taken back home Wednesday." The Bel Air Fire was a brush fire that began on November 5, 1961 in the Bel Air community of Los Angeles. 484 homes were destroyed and 16,090 acres were burned. As a direct result of the Bel Air Fire, Los Angeles initiated a series of laws and fire safety policies. These included the banning of wood shingle roofs in new construction and one of the most stringent brush clearance policies in the United States.