While out of state with a family emergency his burned home became the symbol of Malibu’s Franklin Fire tragedy
If you watched news coverage of the Franklin Fire on TV you no doubt saw the image of William Woodward’s burned-out home, one of two lost in the Serra Retreat neighborhood. A friend of Woodward called the house “the poster child for this fire, nothing but piles of ash and broken tiles, and the circular metal staircases lying half buried and charred.”
Woodward who purchased the house from Caitlyn (then Bruce) Jenner’s family would have fought the blaze himself with a fire hose and pool pump he had at the ready. “You have to listen to the fireman and the police. They know what they’re doing, but at some point, you have to defend your house,” he said.
However, the 24-year resident was in Florida at the bedside of his brother who underwent life-saving surgery. The tight-knit siblings had just lost their sister three weeks earlier after a long-fought illness and hospital stay, so Woodward was sticking to his brother’s side during his.
Unable to return to Malibu for five days while helping to nurse his brother to health, Woodward said he felt helpless watching the images on TV that focused on his destroyed home. He raised four children there, and although he lost cars, artwork, and a wine collection Woodward told The Malibu Times he was most concerned about losing his children’s drawings, photos, birthday cards, and family memorabilia, including an oil painting of his mother and the artwork of his father. He’s grateful that two occupants inside the home were able to escape unharmed.
The canyon property was a dream home, the 65-year-old said. He cultivated the garden and prepared for wildfires using best practices, but unfortunately wasn’t there as the Franklin Fire bore down on Serra Retreat.
What followed was a cascade of bad events. The two brothers were in the process of collecting photos for their sister’smemorial service but his brother’s surgery could not wait so “I was going to support him and take care of him through his surgery,” Woodward said. “The surgery was Tuesday morning, the first surgery in the morning and on the East Coast. I knew at that point my house was gone you know so I had to cut a stiff upper lip.”
Losing the home was “devastating,” Woodward said, but he is thankful his brother’s surgery went well. Finally returning home, Woodward described the scene as looking like “a missile went off” and searching through rubble for“irreplaceable pictures, memories, things that matter to you.” But what also matters to Woodward is hope, especially at Christmastime.
“It was close to Christmas, and I do love Christmas,” he said, adding that in his nearly quarter century at the home, the Malibu resident always decorated a 30-foot Christmas tree under the home’s soaring ceiling. “I was just sitting around and thought to myself, ‘There’s nothing I can do. It’s gone.’ I started thinking to myself, ‘You’ve gotta have hope over heartbreak.’”
So, Woodward erected two angels on the remaining chimneys and decorated a huge Christmas tree this time so all the neighbors and news media could see.
“I thought to myself, ‘I’m gonna make a statement to myself. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,’” he said. “It’s a small something first for me and then for a few people in the community, and I think it’s been well received.”
Although Woodward had mixed feelings decorating the tree, it’s ultimately been helpful in the grieving process of not only losing his home but his sister as well.
Woodward’s message is to shine a light on the resilience of the human spirit. “Hope. It’s going to go on,” he said. “You have to rebuild. You have to believe you’re going to deal with devastation” while trying to stay positive.
“There’s devastation on PCH. We all experience it in different ways,” Woodward said. “It’s been a tough year and I just wanted to express this to myself and others. It’s like the Phoenix rising from the ashes. It’s the angels that came from the ashes to speak. Hope over heartbreak.”
Woodward is currently looking for a more permanent place to live while he undergoes the process of a rebuild.
Editor’s Note: This article was written and published prior to the Palisades Fire.
