Joyce Bullock, a 32-year resident of Malibu, is lucky to have a daughter, Hollyn Bullock, and daughter-in-law, Kristin Crowley, who are both female trailblazers in the City of LA Fire Department. The duo—one off-duty and the other recently retired—saved not only Bullock’s home, but eight other houses on Avenida de la Encinal (near the intersection of PCH and Encinal Canyon Road).
On Nov. 9, the day the Woolsey Fire tore through Malibu, the couple dropped their three daughters off at school in Redondo Beach and headed to Malibu. They had been tracking the fire’s progress since the night before, and were going against traffic as they drove through town.
“Our original intent was to prep [the Bullock family house]” ahead of the fire, Crowley said in a phone interview with The Malibu Times. Prepping usually consists of removing anything flammable from the roof or around the house, like leaves, debris, stacked wood, brush and patio furniture cushions, and closing windows and vents.
Upon arrival at Encinal around 9 a.m., “We went right to work, and also talked to neighbors and helped other families prep their homes before evacuating,” Crowley continued. She and Bullock asked each homeowner to leave their houses unlocked and put spray nozzles on their garden hoses.
When the fire actually crested the hill around 11:30 a.m., the experienced firefighters knew they were going to be in for a long day. Both women had old personal protective equipment with them, which included brush gloves, hats, jackets, helmets and pants, which they put on.
Over the course of the next 16 hours, the two defended and saved a total of eight houses on the street. “We only lost one home,” Crowley said, “because it had no water supply. Neither of us had fought a brush fire for at least five years, but we went back to our training on how to protect a structure from a brush fire, and were using only garden hoses and buckets.”
“We even split up for a while and did our own work,” Crowley recalled—describing that the move goes against the standard fire department training of always working in pairs. “But I think that definitely made a difference. We knew we would lose homes if we didn’t split up, and there were some very intense moments for both of us. We knew where our safe areas would be, and had an idea of how we wanted to approach the fire.”
While working independently, Crowley headed up the street and saw a home threatened by multiple fires: vegetation around the front door; a plastic trash can in the driveway, a woodpile, two large pine trees and the tile roof over the patio. She spent over an hour dousing those flames, helped by the fact that the neighborhood’s gravity-fed 70,000 gallon tank continued to provide good water pressure.
By about 2 p.m., Bullock became concerned regarding Crowley’s whereabouts, as flames began rising from an additional ridge, smoke was thickening and a large ember cast was flying in the air. Crowley didn’t hear Bullock’s shouts or car horn because she was busy putting out burning palm fronds and railroad ties at another house, and then moved on to two more homes threatened by flames from a ravine, burning landscaping and a burning wooden deck.
At about 3:30 p.m., Crowley returned to the Bullock family house to meet up with her partner, and the two worked together moving from home to home and extinguishing spot fires that had reignited due to increased wind. Bullock used buckets of pool water to put out flames once water pressure was lost around 10 p.m. After midnight, the fire had moved on and Bullock and Crowley decided nothing more could be done.
When Crowley returned to the neighborhood on Nov. 12, she was happy to find all of the houses they defended remained intact.
“We clearly owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Kristin Crowley and Hollyn Bullock. Their fearless efforts on Nov. 9 undoubtedly saved not only Hollyn’s mother’s home, but many others,” neighbor Bruce Gipe, MD, wrote in a message to the newspaper.
Deputy Chief Kristin Crowley is the City of LA’s first female fire marshal, has been with LAFD for about 20 years and serves at the department’s headquarters in Downtown LA
Hollyn Bullock, before retiring from LAFD last April after 27 years of service, was the only female member of LAFD’s Urban Search and Rescue Division—a specialized unit that responds to large-scale rescue situations. Her father was also a firefighter.
Bruce Gipe, MD, contributed to this report.
