Rosemarie Ihde and her son valiantly defended their Big Rock home from the Palisades Fire
She steadfastly stood her ground. She was very prepared. She told the Palisades Fire to stand down — and, amazingly, it did.
She’s Rosemarie Ihde, 80, who, along with her son, Thomas Ihde, managed to save the family home in the Big Rock neighborhood — the home that Rosemarie and her husband bought in 1975. The home where they raised their family. The home where they made 50 years of memories.
When one asks Rosemarie about the experience, she recounts the details of the ordeal with surprising equanimity and, importantly, one discerns that she and her family did all they could to prepare. She epitomizes the colloquialism forewarned is forearmed.
She discussed the preventative measures she took around the home to prepare for fire. “I installed special vents and placed them on top of the roof and the side of the house,” Rosemarie explained. “I enclosed the deck with mesh so no sparks could get under the deck.”
Then, she discussed how it all went down on the day of the fire.
“We filled up the large trash bins with water and made sure we had on leather shoes, jeans, gloves, goggles and good jackets. I put on a cashmere sweater because wool doesn’t easily burn,” she said, “The flames came from Tuna Canyon into Big Rock and sparks were flying everywhere and the wind was howling.”
One has to be strategic and very smart to outsmart a merciless wildfire.
“When the neighbor’s shed caught fire, we decided we had to let it burn so that we could concentrate on the main house.” Rosemarie shared. “Overall, out of the 11 houses, we saved four houses on our street, including ours. It is so very painful to watch neighbors’ houses burn. We lost approximately 70 percent of the homes on Big Rock.”
The Ihdes’ home was assaulted by a lot of radiant heat, she noted, adding that one part of a rain gutter melted.However, luckily, the fire did not light up the roof.
All in all, she added, “Thomas, my son, and I were awake for 36 hours! We drank water and ate chocolates for quick energy.”
Thomas chimed in adding details.
“We had no firefighters providing structure protection on Big Rock as far as I know, at least not on Piedra Chica,” he said. “My mom and I were visited by, I think, a Los Angeles County Fire Department pickup truck around midnight on Jan. 8, the day after the fire started. They had heard from Chris Frost, I believe, that my mom and I were defending homes on that street and they came to check on our status.
“We told them ‘we’re defending!’ When asked to do so, we declined to evacuate. They wished us well and said to be safe, and then they drove away.”
Staying behind to fight a fire conjures up one’s greatest intestinal fortitude. Staying behind to fight a fire and save your home when you are a lady in her 80s is quite another thing. This is one of those times when a writer searches for proper adjectives to adequately describe someone. In this case, none are strong or apt enough. Rosemarie has moxie, guts, balls. She is a rugged individualist who is fiercely independent. Those phrases come somewhat close to describing Malibu’s Rosemarie Ihde.
“My mother being there at the fire gave me a sense of comfort and safety,” Thomas said. “Although I was worried about keeping track of her location because we relied on verbally shouting to one another at a distance. I am glad she was there to direct our firefighting efforts, spraying and wetting down the house and vegetation that was on fire and spotting new fires needing attention. She also helped to move the 200-foot-long hoses she had bought earlier and had hooked up to the fire hydrant by her mailbox.
“My mother was extremely determined to save our house — we looked around trying to figure out what we could quickly grab if we evacuated and, in our personal situation, we determined that it was easier to stay and defend — this was a very fast fire and we watched as one of our neighbors’ vegetation erupted into flames like an explosion and blew right over our heads, melting our rain gutter.”
When asked if he’d ever experienced a fire like that, Thomas recalled that in 1973, when he was 12, his father and another man saved the family home on Big Rock in a ferocious fire.
“I would like to emphasize that preparation is key — one needs to fire proof his home as much as possible.” Thomas shared. “Brush clearance and having defensible space are critical — people should strictly follow all of the recommendations from the LAFD.”
On the day of a fire, fill large garbage containers with water, he suggested, “because the water source is not reliable — we ran out at approximately midnight. People leave their sprinklers on when they flee from a fire and plumbing is often damaged.”
For his part, when The Malibu Times caught up with Frost, who is a member of the Malibu Fire Brigade, he spoke admiringly of Rosemarie and Thomas.
“I spoke with Rosemarie and her son about an hour before impact,” Frost said. “We were evacuating the neighborhood and prepping the structures. She was not going to leave. She said she had been in this situation before, and she was confident that she and her son could protect themselves and save their home.”
Like many rugged individualists such as Rosemarie and Thomas, Frost also speaks directly. Summing things up, he simply stated, “Strong woman. Strong son.”
