Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 8, 1993 TAG: 9311080129
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MALIBU, CALIF. LENGTH: Medium
Neighbors rushing to save their possessions weren't concerned. The Yarrows were fixtures in Carbon Canyon, experienced survivors of the cycle of fire and flood.
But something went wrong. The Yarrows may have misread the awful speed of the fire and lingered too long. Two days later, their bodies were found behind an aspen-topped knoll, where the firestorm overtook them a few hundred yards into their attempted escape.
"They were real pioneers," said neighbor Janet Graham. "When I used to worry about the fires and the coyotes, Amy would tell me that if you learned about the land, there'd be nothing to be scared about."
A search helicopter made the sad discovery at dusk on Thursday. One body was in the driver's seat; another outside the pickup. The intense heat had incinerated the tires, melted the windshield and baked the truck's paint into flaky patches of white.
An impassive plaster Buddha, smudged with soot, contemplated the still scene from a nearby rise where it had been placed long ago by the Yarrows.
The couple had come to Carbon Canyon in the 1940s, spending $150 for a 30-acre chunk of paradise they named Starlight Ranch. They lived in a succession of abandoned cars, trucks and trailers, relying on cisterns for water and solar collectors and car batteries for electricity.
Acquaintances say the Yarrows couldn't afford a fixed structure as required by Malibu ordinances. But no one ever challenged their right to live in the sparsely populated canyon.
"The Malibu hills are full of people who moved in the 1930s and 1940s," said Harold Hutchinson, who knew the couple for 30 years. "These were real people. When the high society folks moved in, the Yarrows just went on with their lives and the bureaucracy left them alone."
Amy was 67, a slight woman with short dark hair who worked as a postal clerk in nearby Santa Monica for 27 years. She had recently gone to work for Hutchinson, doing odd jobs in his gauge-making factory.
"She reminded me of a pioneer going across the country in 1860," Hutchinson said. "She could take care of herself."
Donn was in his 80s, short and stocky with gray hair. Despite recent hip surgery, he could be seen hobbling down the narrow trails lined with chaparral, oleander and eucalyptus trees.
"He had a wonderful smile," Graham said. "If you saw him hiking he would always welcome you to his land. He was very proud of it."
The couple was private. What people knew of them came in small snatches of conversation. Amy had been a school teacher; Donn, a college professor. The couple had two sons.
"They were very pleasant people, but they weren't into socializing," said Richard Feinstein, another neighbor. "They were devoted to each other and that seemed to be enough."
It was that devotion that sent Amy rushing out of Hutchinson's Santa Monica factory Tuesday when word came of another wildfire in the mountains.
Neighbors saw her between noon and 1 p.m. By that time the fire had crested the sharp summit of Saddle Peak and was rushing down the steep canyon walls.
Matt Sorum, drummer for the rock group Guns N' Roses who had just moved into the canyon, saw her disappear down the narrow, rock-strewn road.
"The fire seemed pretty close by then, but she was a gutsy lady," he said. "I figured she had enough time to go in and get him."
No one saw them again.
No one will know what happened to the Yarrows, hidden by the privacy they relished. Did they consider a stand to save their home? Did they take too long to gather possessions?
The firestorm left no clues.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB