A portable building used as a computer lab behind Our Lady of Malibu School in Malibu was among hundreds of structures destroyed this week in raging wildfires that caused hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate neighborhoods from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border.

Firefighters were able to save OLM's main buildings after parish staff evacuated the site early Sunday morning, Oct. 21, to escape the Malibu Canyon fire. Malibu Presbyterian Church, located up the hill from OLM, and Malibu Glass and Mirror, adjacent to the parish on Winter Canyon Road, were destroyed in the blaze which also burned at least nine other homes and businesses.

An OLM portable building used as a teachers' work room next to the burnt-out computer lab was scorched in the fire. Several junior high classroom windows cracked from the fire's intense heat and layers of ash were deposited on the church and hall. Post-fire preliminary assessments indicate some water, wind and smoke damage to parish buildings.

"Even though it's a big loss for a small school like us, in comparison to our neighbors, we are so fortunate," said OLM co-principal, Suzanne Ricci, who job-shares principal duties with Edie O'Brien. Forty-seven computers, two servers, printers and digital equipment were lost in the destroyed computer lab, a set-back to administrators' plans to focus on educational technology during the '07-'08 school year.

Former OLM principal and current Good Shepherd School principal, Terry Miller, who created the computer lab in OLM's portable in 1993 after moving the kindergarten to another portable classroom which survived last Sunday's fire, is sorry for the school's loss but grateful for the structures that were saved.

"It's just amazing how it skipped over the kindergarten, convent and church," said Miller. She was OLM principal during the devastating 1993 Malibu fire, which spared the school and church but burned several Malibu homes. In the early '70s, the church was repaired and enlarged following the Sept. 1970 Malibu wildfire that destroyed the roof and burned the parish hall and rectory to the ground.

Hours after the Oct. 21st fire at OLM, several members of St. Clare Church in Santa Clarita left a 2 p.m. parish community center dedication early when news reports of a nearby fire outbreak warned of pending local evacuations. The church was not in the fire's path, but some parishioners' homes were threatened.

"About the time we began the blessing, the fire started [in Agua Dulce]. Plumes of smoke were blotting out the sun," said San Fernando Region Auxiliary Bishop Gerald Wilkerson. That evening at St. Clare, between 75 to 100 neighbors near the church began spontaneously gathering in the church parking lot to share news and fellowship.

"There's a wonderful sense of community in parishes within the Santa Clarita area. They really do look out for one another," said Bishop Wilkerson, who was answering the phone at the San Fernando Regional Office in Mission Hills Oct. 22, since his secretary couldn't get into the office from her home in Santa Clarita.

Peggy Pigors, director of religious education at St. Clare, who has lived in the area for 40 years, said this week's fire came closer than any other in her memory, coming within 50 feet of the back door of one of her religious education teacher's home.

"I've lived through every catastrophe known to this area. When I drove around my [housing] tract, to see how close the fire was, it came right up to the levee and it looked ominous," said Pigors.