Trash tycoon reveals how ‘miracle’ Malibu house survived wildfires when everyone else’s burned
In a scene that could have been lifted from a disaster movie, there is one house that appears to stand alone, untouched, amid a sea of smoldering ruins.
The $9 million Malibu mansion is owned by David Steiner, a retired waste management magnate from Texas and a married father of three.
As the Los Angeles wildfires consumed everything in their path and burned neighborhoods to ashes, Steiner’s three-story home remained defiantly intact.
The gleaming white of the building seemed to stand out against the backdrop of destruction. But the survival of Steiner’s 4,200-square-foot, four-bedroom home is no coincidence, he believes.
Designed to withstand earthquakes, the property features ultra-sturdy construction, including stucco and stone walls, a fireproof roof and poles driven 50 feet deep into the bedrock to withstand the pounding surf below.
“To be completely honest, I never in a million years thought a wildfire would jump to the Pacific Coast Highway and start a fire,” Steiner said. told The New York Post on Friday.
“I thought, ‘If we ever have an earthquake, this would be the last thing we’ll do.’ I honestly didn’t think that if a fire broke out, it would be the last thing we would do. The architecture is quite nice. But the plasterwork and the fire-resistant roof are very beautiful.’
But the fire-resistant design seems to have proven its worth by turning it into a fortress against flames.
One house appears to stand alone, untouched, amid a sea of smoldering ruins during the Palisades fire in Malibu, California
The $9 million Malibu mansion is owned by David Steiner, a retired Texas waste management magnate and married father of three
Steiner’s house seemed to emerge as the unlikely sole survivor along the devastated coastline
The realization that his house survived the inferno against the odds came as a complete shock.
“It’s a miracle – miracles never end,” the 64-year-old said.
Steiner thought his property, like so many others, might have succumbed to the flames after he was told Tuesday about the possible destruction of his oceanfront property.
He received a video from a local contractor who had been monitoring the advancing Palisades Fire.
The footage showed flames licking the edges of Steiner’s vacant home as the inferno had already consumed neighboring multimillion-dollar homes.
‘[The contractor] was watching the news reports and saw my neighbor’s house collapsing and said to me, ‘It looks like your house is going down too,'” Steiner recalled.
The video painted a grim picture: thick smoke, roaring flames and destruction everywhere.
“It seemed like nothing could ever have survived that, and I thought we had lost the house,” he admitted.
The three-story house looks almost pristine after the fires destroyed everything around it
This aerial view taken from a helicopter shows burned homes during the Palisades fire in the Malibu area of Los Angeles County, California
Steiner seemed humbled that his house has been preserved, especially since it is not the retired director’s main property and did not contain any valuable family mementos
But remarkably, the Steiner house seemed to emerge as the unlikely sole survivor.
“People started contacting me and saying, ‘Your house is all over the news,’” Steiner said.
Photos poured in, showing the striking white building still standing, surrounded by charred rubble.
“I started taking pictures and realized we had gotten through,” he said.
Despite the miraculous survival of his property, Steiner is quick to downplay his good fortune.
“It was not a happy time,” he said as he watched 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 acquaintances during the ordeal, with many expressing sadness at what they thought was a total loss.
From the air the destruction is total, apart from a few houses that escaped the flames
Parts of Malibu’s coastline lie in ruins, with smoke blanketing the sky and a pungent odor permeating nearly every building
“I got texts from people saying, ‘We’re praying for you. It’s so terrible,” he said.
But his response was one of humility: ‘I said, ‘Don’t pray for me; what I have lost is material goods.’ … I lost a property, but others lost their homes.”
Steiner explained that the Malibu house, while important, is not his main family home.
He bought the house many years ago when two of his sons were in the area attending school and the family no longer used the home regularly.
“I didn’t have the memories of my family there,” he noted, adding, “My heart really goes out to those who lost everything.”
“My wife sent me something this morning that said, ‘The last house standing,’” he said, “and it put a pretty big smile on my face at a pretty bad time,” he said.
Fires are raging in the Los Angeles area some 10,000 structures were reduced to ash and rubble, at least ten people were killed, thousands of others were displaced and scattered across an area larger than the size of San Francisco.
The fires that raged in the LA area reduced some 10,000 buildings to ash and rubble, killed at least ten people, displaced thousands of others and spread across an area larger than the size of San Francisco.
A view of burned buildings on Topanga Beach during Palisades wildfire in Topanga, Los Angeles
The structures on the beach have burned so badly that nothing is left but the steel frames
The devastation of the Eaton Fire is shown Friday in an Altadena neighborhood
Kenneth Snowden, left, looks at the damage to his fire-damaged property after the Eaton fire with his brother Ronnie
Cars are left charred at a dealership Friday in the aftermath of the Eaton fire
The fires started Tuesday, driven by gusts from Santa Ana winds that subsided Thursday, though forecasters warn they could flare up again later this weekend.
Los Angeles city and county officials said Friday that the fires that devastated the Palisades were 8 percent contained, while the Altadena fire was only 3 percent contained.
The death toll is still not completely 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 further inland.
The financial impact of the damage is also still unclear, although an estimate from AccuWeather, a private weather data company, puts the toll at about $135 billion to $150 billion. Government officials have not yet provided an estimate of the damage.
More than 5,300 buildings have been damaged or destroyed in the hilly coastal Pacific Palisades neighborhood, making this the most destructive fire in Los Angeles history.
Dozens of blocks were flattened into smoldering rubble, leaving only the outlines of houses and their chimneys.
Among those whose homes were destroyed were a number of celebrities, including Jamie Lee Curtis and Billy Crystal.