The Night the Ridge Burned: Burbank's Fire History
The La Tuna Fire, from Burbank's side of the ridge
The fire started on September 1, 2017 in La Tuna Canyon, on the far side of the Verdugos. Most coverage tells the Sunland-Tujunga story. Burbank's story is what happened when it came over the top.
By that evening the fire had crossed into Burbank city limits. In 101-degree heat, mandatory evacuations went out for the streets around DeBell Golf Course and Brace Canyon Park, with voluntary evacuations near Haynes Canyon and Reverie Road. McCambridge Park on Glenoaks Boulevard opened as an evacuation center. At the peak, roughly 300 Burbank households were under orders to leave.
The fire burned 7,194 acres of the Verdugo Mountains before full containment on September 9. More than 1,000 firefighters worked it, and Interstate 210 closed for days. Among the handful of homes lost was a residence on Verdugo Crestline Drive in Burbank, on exactly the kind of hillside street this site exists for.
Burbank's own fire department, alongside LAFD, Los Angeles County, and state resources, kept the losses that small. The margin was firefighting, not luck of geography. The Verdugos have not gotten less flammable since.
One mountain range, one fire problem
Burbank is unusual among wildfire-exposed cities: its entire fire problem comes from one direction. The Verdugo Mountains rise directly behind the hillside districts above Sunset Canyon Boulevard, the streets along Country Club Drive, and the canyons at Stough and Wildwood.
That geography is why the 2025 CAL FIRE hazard remap keeps Burbank's Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone concentrated along the mountain front, and why Zone 0 lands hardest on a specific, identifiable set of Burbank streets. If you hike from the Stough Canyon Nature Center or tee off at DeBell, you are standing in the middle of it.
Burbank fire history questions
Has a wildfire ever actually entered Burbank?
Yes. On September 1, 2017, the La Tuna Fire crossed the Verdugo ridge into Burbank city limits. Mandatory evacuations were ordered around DeBell Golf Course and Brace Canyon Park, with voluntary evacuations near Haynes Canyon and Reverie Road, and a home on Verdugo Crestline Drive was destroyed.
How big was the La Tuna Fire?
It burned 7,194 acres of the Verdugo Mountains between September 1 and September 9, 2017, and was described at the time as one of the largest fires in Los Angeles city history by acreage. More than 1,000 firefighters worked it at the peak, and Interstate 210 was closed for days.
Why does a fire from 2017 matter for a 2026 law?
Because it showed how a brush fire in the Verdugos becomes a structure threat in Burbank within hours. The homes threatened were not lost to a flame front; the danger was embers landing in the material closest to structures. That first-5-feet problem is exactly what AB 3074 and the Zone 0 regulations were written to fix.
The ridge will burn again. Your five feet decide the rest.
A free assessment tells you exactly what your property needs before the next wind event, and before the deadlines.