Bixby Mountain Fire Entrapment Fatality 1939

Joseph Calandra, Assistant State Forest Ranger with the California Department of Forestry (Now CAL FIRE), was entrapped by fire on the Bixby Mountain Fire in Big Sur, Monterey County, California. Calandra and another firefighter attempted to escape the fire, but Calandra succumbed to his burn injuries. His companion escaped to the highway and was picked up and taken to the hospital with severe burns. The Bixby Mountain Fire appears in the California Fire History Database (maintained by CAL FIRE) as a fire on the Los Padres National Forest totaling 2,434 acres. 

A local fire lookout tower on Williams Hill Mountain, Casandra Lookout, was named for Joseph Calandra. A stone and concrete monument at this lookout site has a bronze plaque that reads: "Calandra Lookout is named in honor of Assistant State Forest Ranger Joseph Calandra who saved his companion but lost his life in the Bixby Mountain Fire of 1939."

Entrapment, Fatality, Burn Injury