The owner of a £9 million Malibu mansion can’t believe that his property is still in tact after the Palisades fire tore through his neighbourhood.
With a confirmed death toll of 10, the Palisades Fire has so far destroyed over 5,000 homes and businesses, while the Eaton Fire near Pasadena has destroyed around 5,000 structures and spread to 14,000 acres.
Texas businessman David Steiner, 64, said it was ‘a miracle’ that his 4,200-square-foot, three-story house was spared after the LA wildfires have scorched over 35,000 acres of land.
Steiner said he had been receiving calls that ‘your house is all over the news‘ as the fires blazed across LA, however, it wasn’t for the reason that he’d initially expected.
“I started getting pictures and realised we had made it through,” he recalled to The New York Post.
“My wife sent me something this morning that said, ‘Last house standing’, and it brought a pretty big smile to my face at a pretty bad time.”
On why he thinks the structure survived, the lawyer and former head of Waste Management, Inc., in Houston, said: “It’s stucco and stone with a fireproof roof,” with pilings ‘like 50 feet into the bedrock’ to keep it steady when powerful waves crash into it.
“It’s actually built like a cruise ship. The fireplace chimney looks like the smoke stack of a boat,” Steiner explained.
“And then the back balcony looks like the balcony off a cruise ship. And it feels like a cruise ship because you’re right there on the water.”
Although, he admitted: “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.
“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,” he said of the 4,200-square-foot, four-bedroom home. “And it was. The architecture is pretty nice. But the stucco and fireproof roof are real nice.”
Expressing gratitude in these difficult times, Steiner said: “I was getting texts from people saying, ‘We’re praying for you’. It’s so horrible.
“I said, ‘Don’t pray for me — what I lost is material goods’. I lost a property, but others lost their homes.
“I didn’t have my family’s mementos there. It wasn’t my family home.
“My heart goes out to those who lost their homes.”
Amongst those who’ve lost their homes to the fires are numerous celebrities, including Paris Hilton, Billy Crystal, Eugene Levy and James Woods.
One of the fires, known as the Kenneth fire, is believed by police to have been started intentionally and a man has since been arrested on suspicion of arson.
