LA home spared during fires split in half by mudslide, raising new concerns for officals

A $2 million oceanfront home that mercilessly survived the destructive Pacific Palisades fires was split in half by a mudslide — raising new concerns about similar potential disasters amid the deadly infernos.

The Los Angeles home, which is based near the Pacific Coast Highway, was destroyed when water runoff from firefighters battling the deadly inferno and crumbling hillside caused a landslide, according to KTLA.

The property narrowly survived the path of the fire and was largely untouched by flame.

Bryan Kirkwood, a security guard hired to protect homes in the area from looters, pointed out that the natural disaster originated from a neighboring home.

It’s unclear when the mudslide hit the home and split it in half.

“This is not good,” Kirkwood told KTLA near a mixture of mud and debris from houses destroyed during the fires.

The security guard described the mudslide as “devastating” and was unaware of how “bad” things had become after the fires.

“I didn’t see the news, got out here and looked and it didn’t hit me until now,” Kirkwood said. “Wow. This is a big deal.” 

According to Fox LA, the one-bedroom home was sold for nearly $2 million and rented for $14,000 per month.

Director of Los Angeles County Public Works, Mark Pestrella, warned residents on Thursday during a press conference to be “very careful” of returning to their homes if they are located on or near hillsides.

“A warning to all the residents, no matter where you live in (Los Angeles) County, if you have slopes behind your homes, or if you’re located on top of a slope, these slopes have become fragile,” Pestrella said.

“The soil that is supporting your home has all become fragile and damaged, due to the events that we’ve had … There are mud and debris flow hazards that are existing even when it’s not raining. So we want people to be very careful.”

He also warned residents to be on alert for “any of these conditions in and around their property” regardless of whether their homes were “in the fire area or outside.”

Pastella said county officials have been assessing the “watershed areas, including geology soils, and water conditions in both watersheds that have been burned” during the fire.

A senior service hydrologist for the National Weather Service office in Los Angeles, Jayme Labor, told KTLA 5, “all areas within and downstream of the burned areas will be at risk,” and that burn scar “generally takes five to seven years to recover from a wildfire.”

The US Geological Survey (USGS) warns that wildfires drastically increase the risk of mudslides and landslides.

The agency said “highly destructive” post-fire landslides could happen with “little warning, exert great impulsive loads on objects in their paths, strip vegetation, block drainage ways, damage structures, and endanger human life.”

The wildfires continued raging in and around LA, driven by dangerous Santa Ana winds.

The deadly fires have killed at least 27 people and swept through residential communities.

More than 40,000 acres have been burned, destroying over 12,300 structures and forcing thousands of people to evacuate.

The Palisades Fire, the most destructive of the blazes that annihilated the star-studded coastal community of Pacific Palisades last week, was 27% contained, while the Eaton Fire burning outside Pasadena, CA, was 55% contained as of early Friday morning.