The Facebook page speaks volumes: love and pride. Malibu mother of two Jana Hinton Blake posted a picture of her elder son, Connor, in a protective mask. A local Volunteer on Patrol, Connor worked tirelessly throughout the Woolsey fire in an effort to help keep the community safe despite the loss of his family’s home.
Blake’s husband, Guy Blake, who’s been a VOP for five-and-a-half years, was on patrol Thursday, Nov. 8, before the conflagration started. In the afternoon, the VOPs were deployed to Calabasas to begin evacuations. At 7 a.m. on Friday, when the fire crossed the Ventura (101) Freeway, the VOPs were released to evacuate their own homes.
“We were chased by the fire through Kanan and got back to Malibu just in time to evacuate,” Guy told The Malibu Times. However, four of the 15-member VOP team lost homes.
When Guy and Jana’s oldest son Connor heard about the fire Thursday night, it still wasn’t a threat to Malibu. Connor, who’s been a VOP for three years, stayed with his mother at home and prepared for a possible evacuation.
“The next morning, I was woken up with the evacuation order,” Connor said. The Blakes say they immediately left their house, grabbing what they could. The family went to Zuma Beach where “we watched the fire come over the hill into our neighborhood. Once we saw that, we decided to take off down PCH and get out.”
It took four hours for the Blakes to get to Topanga.
Once the family was set up in a hotel room, Connor immediately headed straight back to Malibu. After talking his way through a few roadblocks, by evening he was back on duty.
“Malibu was nothing short of an inferno,” Connor said. That night, Connor found out their home was gone. “Initially, I wanted to check the neighborhood, but it was too hazardous with downed power lines and fire.” He finally made his way to Malibu Park and was able to confirm the devastating news.
On Friday night, with the option of driving far out of Malibu to join his family at a hotel, Connor opted to sleep in his patrol uniform—including shoes—on a couch at City Hall, because he could see the fire was headed toward the building and wanted to be prepared.
“There was a good 24-hour period or longer where I did not take off my uniform,” he recalled. The next three days were 19-hour shifts for the 21-year-old. The senior at Loyola Marymount University eventually had to return to school, but managed to log 17-hours shifts volunteering for two weeks. “It was a necessity for me to go back to Malibu,” he said.
During the evacuation period, the VOPs handled critical escorts to get supplies of medicine, food and water to Malibu. They even picked up Council Member Jefferson “Zuma Jay” Wagner from UCLA Hospital and escorted him back into town.
“Our missions were critical relief supply, welfare checks on people, homes and schools,” said VOP team leader Mark Russo. “We put eyes on locations to see if things burned and if people were OK. The crew kept a high profile for looter suppression.” Russo himself volunteered from Nov. 9 to Dec. 8 with no days off, saying it was a “mission” with no time for exhaustion.
VOP, a unit of the LACO Sheriff’s Department, is comprised entirely of volunteers with a specialized practice of patrol. Assigned out of the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station, the group mainly patrols Malibu. During emergencies, they may be deployed to other nearby cities policed by Lost Hills. You may find them at major traffic accidents or unexpected events.
Although an arm of the sheriff’s department, the program is underwritten by the City of Malibu. Members have 150 hours of training with the sheriff’s department and are required to contribute 20 hours per month of patrol, but Russo says they typically work more. Most are Malibu residents.
“We’re embedded in the community. We live here. We’re an important bridge with the Sheriff’s Department for localism,” according to Russo.
Under Jana Blake’s Facebook post of Connor, she wrote, “This is what a hero looks like.”
His father Guy said, “He’s the embodiment of everything you want in a son, in a man and as a citizen. He’s given back to his community and totally selfless about it. He loves doing it. He’s absolutely been a hero to our family. We couldn’t be more proud of him.”
To join the team, which was founded in 2012, email MalibuVOP@gmail.com.
