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Background
On July 1st 1985 fire broke out in the area both sides of Arastradero Road in Los Altos Hills, for just over a one-mile mile stretch, west of the intersection with Page Mill Rd.
The alarm came in to the local Fire Department at 3.14 p.m. and the fire was declared under control at 7.56 p.m. Approximately 60 emergency units responded
from 21 separate agencies. There were no human fatalities but numerous injuries were suffered by firefighters.
Subsequently it was determined that it had been deliberately set in a number of different spots by an arsonist, so that it threatened a fairly large area ranging from the cluster of homes
in the area served by Liddicoat Drive, Tracy Court and their various off-shoots, to the main residence and Horse Barn of the Flying Tail Farm (formerly located across the road from what later became the main Car Park of the
Pearson-Arastradero Preserve) all the way further west to the Stanford research lab at 1600 Arastradero which housed Center for the Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at the time,
but later on became occupied by Palo Alto University, a private, nonprofit university.
This was an early harbinger of the wild fires that would become an almost regular feature in and around the Bay Area as well as other parts of California as a whole.
The Los Altos Town Crier reported
"...The July 1, 1985, fire, an act of arson, ultimately charred approximately 150 acres and destroyed at least nine Los Altos Hills homes,
... causing an estimated total of $9 million in damage. Several firefighters battling the blaze sustained injuries and at least four horses died, but
no human casualties occurred..."
Besides the homes that were totally destroyed (subsequent reports revised this number to 13 with total damage estimated upwards of $15 million), many more suffered damage ranging from significant to relatively minor. However it is safe to say the net impact was felt by an even wider community - especially
as flaming shards of bark (from the Eucalyptus trees that lined part of Arastradero Road at that time) drifted on the thermal currents for some distance over the immediate neighborhood - making a lasting
impression on the neighbors who witnessed the events of that afternoon at close quarters.
This fire was an early warning of what would become a major cause for concern over the subsequent decades. It still serves as an object lesson in what can happen unless more attention
is placed on preventing (or at least mitigating) further occurrences of this kind within our town.
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