Wind-Driven Fires in Calif. Kill 1

A fire helicopter drops water over beach homes where a wildfire driven by powerful Santa Ana winds threatened a university and forced the evacuation of hundreds of homes, Sunday, Oct. 2, 2007, in Malibu, Calif. Flames destroyed a church and several homes, one of them a landmark castle. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill) (Mark J. Terrill - AP)

Faculty and staff at the 830-acre Pepperdine campus had been urged to evacuate in the morning, and students were told to gather in the cafeteria and the basketball arena. But by early afternoon, the campus was "secure," Freeman said.

The 138-acre, well-manicured campus sits is surrounded by rocky bluffs covered with trees and brush. Wildfires threatened the campus in 1993 and 1996, and in January a blaze came within a mile of the school.

About 200 homes had been evacuated in the communities of Malibu Colony, Puerco Canyon, Monte Nido and Sweetwater Canyon, Brown said.

Malibu, home to about 13,000 people, stretches along 27 miles of Pacific coastline. A Santa Ana-driven wildfire in January destroyed the home of actress Suzanne Somers and three other multimillion-dollar residences.

Several other blazes kept firefighters busy Sunday in Southern California, including one near Piru, a town of 1,200 in Ventura County, north of Los Angeles. A condor preserve was also potentially threatened.

In San Bernardino County, east of Los Angeles, three fires burned, officials said. One vacant home was destroyed, and five to 10 homes were threatened.

A second blaze near San Diego charred nearly 13 square miles in northern San Diego County near an area ravaged by two fires in 2003 and was threatening homes near Witch Creek, authorities said.

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Associated Press writers Andrew Dalton, Gary Gentile and Jacob Adelman in Los Angeles contributed to this report.