In a scene that could have been plucked from a disaster movie, there is one home that appears to be standing alone, untouched, amidst a sea of smoldering ruins.
The $9 million Malibu mansion belongs to David Steiner, a retired waste-management mogul from Texas and a married father-of-three.
As the Los Angeles wildfires consumed everything in their path, leaving neighborhoods in ashes, incredibly Steiner’s three-story home remained, defiantly intact.
The gleaming white of the building appeared to stand out against the backdrop of destruction. But the survival of Steiner’s 4,200-square-foot, four-bedroom home is no accident, he believes.
The property was designed to withstand earthquakes and features ultra-sturdy construction, including stucco and stone walls, a fireproof roof, and pilings driven 50 feet into bedrock to withstand the pounding surf below.
‘To be totally honest with you, I never in a million years thought a wildfire would jump to the Pacific Coast Highway and start a fire,’ Steiner told The New York Post on Friday.
‘I thought, ‘If we ever have an earthquake, this would be the last thing to go.’ I honestly didn’t think that if we had a fire, this would be the last thing to go. The architecture is pretty nice. But the stucco and fireproof roof are real nice.’
But the fireproof design appears to have proved its worth turning into a fortress against flames.
One home appears to be standing alone, untouched, amidst a sea of smoldering ruins in the Palisades fire in Malibu, California
The $9 million Malibu mansion belongs to David Steiner, a retired waste-management mogul from Texas and a married father of three
Steiner’s home seemed to emerge as the improbable lone survivor along the ravaged coastline
Realizing his home survived the inferno against the odds came as a complete shock.
‘It’s a miracle – miracles never cease,’ the 64-year-old said.
Steiner thought his property would have succumbed to the flames like so many others after being told about the potential destruction to his ocean front property on Tuesday.
He received a video from a local contractor who had been monitoring the encroaching Palisades Fire.
The footage showed flames licking at the edges of Steiner’s vacant home with the inferno having already consumed neighboring multimillion-dollar houses.
‘[The contractor] was watching the news reports and saw my neighbor’s house going down and told me, ‘It looks like your house is going, too,’ Steiner recalled.
The video painted a grim picture: thick smoke, roaring flames, and devastation everywhere.
‘It looked like nothing could have possibly survived that, and I thought we had lost the house,’ he admitted.
The three-storey home appears almost pristine following thing the fires the devastated everything around it
In this aerial view taken from a helicopter, burned homes are seen during the Palisades fire in the Malibu area of Los Angeles county, California
Steiner appeared humble that his home has survived, particularly as it is not the retired executive’s main property and there were no valuable family mementos present
But remarkably, Steiner’s home seemed to emerge as the improbable lone survivor.
‘People started contacting me, saying, “Your house is all over the news,”‘ Steiner said.
Photos began flooding in, showing the striking white structure still standing tall, surrounded by charred debris.
‘I started getting pictures and realized we had made it through,’ he said.
Despite the miraculous survival of his property, Steiner is quick to downplay his good fortune.
‘It wasn’t a happy time,’ he said of watching the inferno unfold. ‘But I can replace it. It’s not a person.’
Steiner said he has received an outpouring of support from friends and acquaintance during the ordeal, with many expressing sorrow for what they thought was a total loss.
From the air the devastation is total save for a few homes that escaped the flames
Swaths of the Malibu coastline lie in ruins, with smoke blanketing the sky and an acrid smell pervading almost every building
‘I was getting texts from people saying, ‘We’re praying for you. It’s so horrible,’ he said.
But his response was one of humility: ‘I said, “Don’t pray for me – what I lost is material goods.” … I lost a property, but others lost their homes.’
Steiner explained that the Malibu house, while significant, is not his main family home.
He purchased the home many years ago when two of his sons were in the area for school and the family no longer regularly use the place.
‘I didn’t have my family’s mementos there,’ he noted, adding, ‘My heart truly goes out to those who lost everything.
‘My wife sent me something this morning that said, “Last house standing,” he shared, ‘and it brought a pretty big smile to my face at a pretty bad time,’ he said.
Fires raging in the Los Angeles area reduced some 10,000 structures to ash and rubble, killed at least 10, displaced thousands of others and spread over an area larger than the size of San Francisco.
Fires raging in the LA s area reduced some 10,000 structures to ash and rubble, killed at least 10, displaced thousands of others and spread over an area larger than the size of San Francisco
A view of burnt structures at Topanga Beach during Palisades wildfire in Topanga, Los Angeles
Beachfront structures have been burned so badly nothing remains except their steel frames
The devastation of the Eaton Fire is shown in a neighborhood in Altadena on Friday
Kenneth Snowden, left, surveys the damage to his fire-ravaged property with his brother Ronnie following the Eaton fire
Cars are left charred inside a dealership in the aftermath of the Eaton Fire on Friday
The blazes started on Tuesday, powered by gusts from the Santa Ana winds which slowed on Thursday, though forecasters warn they could pick back up later this weekend.
Los Angeles city and county officials said on Friday that the blazes ravaging the Palisades were 8 percent contained while the fire burning in Altadena was just 3 percent contained.
The death toll still isn’t entirely clear, but officials have said at least 10 have died, including two in the Palisades Fire along the coast and five in the Eaton Fire more inland.
Still unclear as well is the financial impact from the damage, though an estimate from AccuWeather, a private firm that provides weather data, estimated the toll to be about $135 billion to $150 billion. Government officials haven’t given a damage estimate yet.
More than 5,300 structures have been damaged or destroyed in the hilly coastal neighborhood of Pacific Palisades, making it the most destructive fire in Los Angeles history.
Dozens of blocks were flattened to smoldering rubble, with only the outlines of homes and their chimneys left.
Among those whose homes were destroyed were a number of celebrities including Jamie Lee Curtis and Billy Crystal.
