Santa Clarita Valley History In Pictures
> MELODY RANCH   > FIRES/DISASTERS
Olive View Sanitarium Burns
Sylmar, California


Click image to enlarge

FIRE 8-28-1962
San Fernando Valley

thumbnail Olive View 8-28-1962

thumbnail Olive View Aftermath (1962)

thumbnail SFV Aerial 8-28-1962

August 29, 1962 — The wildfire that broke out at the Circle J Ranch in Saugus didn't stop after it devastated Gene Autry's Melody Ranch movie town in Placerita Canyon. It kept going, cresting the ridge and continuing to Sylmar where it hit the Olive View Sanatorium (tuberculosis hospital).

Associated Press Wirephoto, 6x8 inches, glossy. This copy date-stamped Aug. 29, 1962, by the (New York) Daily News. Published caption reads:

Two flags remain untouched by the flames of brush fire sweeping the Olive View Sanitarium in San Fernando, Calif. Some 800 persons were evacuated. (AP)


About Olive View

Olive View Sanatorium opened Oct. 27, 1920, as care facility for tuberculosis patients. In 1962 the San Fernando Valley's first successful open-heart surgery was performed there. That same year, on Aug. 28, a brush fire that started at the Circle J Ranch in Saugus was driven south by fierce Santa Ana winds, devastating Gene Autry's Melody Ranch movie town in Placerita Canyon before cresting the ridge and spreading to Sylmar, where it took out Olive View's infirmary-surgery building and two garages. Eight hundred patients were evacuated.

As medical science conquered tuberculosis and Olive View was no longer needed for that purpose, it aligned with the UCLA School of Medicine and became Olive View Medical Center, an 888-bed teaching hospital that opened in December 1970. Six weeks later, the 6.6-magnitude San Fernando-Sylmar Earthquake of Feb. 9, 1971 (which epicenter was in the Iron Canyon section of Sand Canyon in Santa Clarita) felled the hospital's four stairwell wings and its parking structure. The rest of the facility was damaged beyond repair; it was demolished in 1973.

Part of the county-funded healthcare system for medically indigent and low-income patients in the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys, the hospital's staff delivered care at a site in Van Nuys until May 8, 1987, when Olive View reopened as a 377-bed hospital. It became Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in 1992 and is the principal intake facility for North County patients experiencing a psychiatric emergency.


About the Fire(s)

The first blaze broke out just after noon in Hasley Canyon, north of Castaic Junction. The second broke out an hour later near the Circle J Ranch between Newhall and Saugus. High winds whipped the flames into the most intense inferno anyone had ever seen.

When the smoke cleared three days later, 17,200 acres had been scorched and 15 structures and numerous out-buildings were lost. No one was killed, but the Western street at Melody Ranch was gone.

"I had always planned to erect a Western museum there," Autry remembered in 1995, "but priceless Indian relics and a collection of rare guns, including a set used by Billy the Kid, went up in smoke. Thank God, the ranch hands and all 14 of our horses were uninjured."

Further Reading:

800 TB Patients Flee Fire; Homes, Autry Ranch Razed (AP 8-29-1962)

My Memories Of Melody Ranch by Gene Autry, 1995

Melody Ranch: Movie Magic in Placerita Canyon


LW2588: 19200 dpi jpeg from original wirephoto purchased 2014 by Leon Worden.
MELODY RANCH CATEGORIES:
• 1952-1962 Pre-Fire
• 1962 Fire
• 1962-1990 Post-Fire
• Veluzat Era 1991—

MELODY RANCH FIRE 8-28-1962

• AP Full Story
• AP Short Story


thumbnail

Melody 8-28-1962

thumbnail

Oil Tank 8-28-1962

thumbnail

SFV (Mult.)

thumbnail

Man Flees 8-28-1962

thumbnail

Melody 8-29-1962

thumbnail

Olive View: Aftermath 1962

thumbnail

Salvaged Buckle

thumbnail

Salvaged Whip

thumbnail

Salvaged Conchos

thumbnail

Salvaged Curb Bit

thumbnail

Salvaged Iron

RETURN TO TOP ]   RETURN TO MAIN INDEX ]   PHOTO CREDITS ]   BIBLIOGRAPHY ]   BOOKS FOR SALE ]
SCVHistory.com is another service of SCVTV, a 501c3 Nonprofit • Site contents ©SCVTV
The site owner makes no assertions as to ownership of any original copyrights to digitized images. However, these images are intended for Personal or Research use only. Any other kind of use, including but not limited to commercial or scholarly publication in any medium or format, public exhibition, or use online or in a web site, may be subject to additional restrictions including but not limited to the copyrights held by parties other than the site owner. USERS ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE for determining the existence of such rights and for obtaining any permissions and/or paying associated fees necessary for the proposed use.