CHATSWORTH, Ca., Sept. 28 – The Spahn movie ranch in the Simi Hills above this community was one of the victims of the weekend brush fires, and no doubt some will call its fate a cleansing scourge.

For it was to this old western movie set that Charles Manson came in 1968 — to put down roots, to tend his nomadic flock, to sing of love and talk of hate.

And, according to testimony at the Tate murder trial, it was from the ranch, almost a year after his arrival, that Manson sent five of his “family” on missions of murder.

During the year before and the year after the Tate-LaBianca slayings, 81-year-old George Christian Spahn, owner of the ranch, has kept his own quiet counsel.

His life has been rooted in a no-longer-existing movie-making past and in the turbulent, all-too-real present of hippie communes.

The old man has been fed breakfast by young women now accused of cruel crimes. He has talked quietly with young men he grew to like, and listened without emotion to tales of crimes others said they had committed.

Yesterday, Spahn sat in the cab of a dented pickup truck and tried to fit the latest events into the pattern of the past and future.

“I guess the fire came up the canyon mouth,” he said. “It didn’t take long, about an hour. Now there’s nothing left — at least that’s what they say.”

Spahn has been blind five years. He has never seen Manson or members of the family. He could not see the three black forms bulging out of the bubble near his parked truck. They were the charred corpses of three horses.

“We saved most of our string of 60,” Spahn said, “but the three dead ones bolted into the flames.”

Spahn got out of the fire with the clothes he was wearing, his pickup and 57 horses. Lost was his house, the stable, a row of movie-set buildings and a western stagecoach.

Told that some people might rejoice in his loss as a God-driven hand of punishment, the old man nodded: “They might, I guess.”

After the arrest of the Manson clan, the Spahn ranch became the most publicized hippie commune since the Haight was in its heyday. Spahn refused to evict Manson’s remaining followers.

He told reporters he didn’t condone murder, but didn’t want to judge all “the kids” on the basis of charges against a few. Yesterday he gave another reason.

“After everything happened,” he said, “our cowboys left and the only help we had was the kids. We ain’t paid nobody to work for us for years.”

“We just let anybody stay here that wanted to and hoped they’d help tend the horses and keep the place looking good.”

Before the murders, Spahn said, his ranch usually took in about $1,000 on holiday weekends by renting horses. The income dropped to about $60 after the arrests, he said.

“The people were scared of the kids,” he said. “The ones that were still here had all been cleared (by the police), but the people just didn’t feel easy around them.”

Mrs. Ruby Pearl, the ranch manager, said most of the original Manson followers left the ranch after the slayings, but “a few of the girls” stayed on.

“You never know who you’ll find here,” she said. “They drift in and out.”

Three of the girls were at the ranch the day of the fire, Mrs. Pearl said, but have since left.

Sunday, there were only two young men poking about the rubble. One said he had known Manson, the other said he had not. Both refused to say who they were.

“You know, I really like some of these kids,” Spahn said. “And, by God, don’t think some of them ain’t real nice people.

“It’s just, well, I don’t know, they just got these funny ideas sometimes.”

By ROBERT KISTLER