Random thoughts from a CalFire tour through the forbidden zone
By Benjamin Marcus
On Saturday, Jan. 25, I took a three-hour tour with Brent Pascua, a public information officer for Cal Fire. I had seen photos and videos and drone shots and YouTubes and all kinds of information about the Palisades Fire, but everyone who saw it for themselves said you had to see it for yourself. So I did, with Brent driving: From Zinque all along PCH to Will Rogers parking lot, then up Sunset through Pacific Palisades, winding around the Alphabet streets, then up through Palisades Highlands and down to Sunset and PCH, then up and around Carbon Canyon and back to PCH, then Las Flores to check out the safety and security of the Sycamore School. I could write a book about all I saw, but if I had to sum it all up in a message, it would be:
“It was like Random the Dragon was drunk and spiteful, flying around fire-bombing wholesale and at random.”
Or really it was like seeing the work of the devil himself: A supernatural force spreading as much anguish and misery as it possibly could as fast as it could.
I felt the same when I saw the damage to Montecito after the Thomas Fire Floods in January of 2021. The power of nature. Stand in awe.
Brent Pascua looks a bit like Tom Cruise or Dennis Quaid or John “Turtle” Philbin depending on what angle you see him from. He started as a firefighter in San Diego, then worked his way up through engineer (driver), captain, and chief before joining up with Cal Fire in Sacramento in 2002. Brent met John Hearne and Zoe Scott when he was here for the Franklin Fire, and he re-ignited — if you will — their acquaintance when he came back for the Palisades Fire. We all met at Zinque and set up a ride-along that left Zinque around noon on Saturday the 25th.
We rolled past the Chevron station, which was open for business, and cousin, business was boomin’ for chew and tobacco products, as all the out-of-town firefighters from Austin and Tulalip moseyed over from the Palisades Cook-Off property fiending for Zins and chew.
The Chili Cook-Off and Bell properties that had been overloaded with firemen and firewomen, orange-suited convicts, barbecue trucks, sleepers and shower trucks, and lots of things had cleared out overnight — like a band of gypsies skeedadling ahead of the heat. “A lot of them went to the Hearst Fire at Lake Castaic,” Brent said. “Which isone of the reasons that fire got put down quick: We had about 4,000 firefighters, 16 helicopters, 10 large air tankers andsix Super Scoopers. The rest are being grouped at Zuma, and there is another group at Will Rogers. We’re starting to have a smaller footprint. ”
The day before, Brent had been on hand and up close for the visit of Donald Trump: “There were two helicopters and three Ospreys. I was surprised how many people they could pile into an Osprey and also how many people they had around the president.”
Brent had a photo of himself standing next to Marine One, and also videos sitting on the dock of Lake Castaic, watching the Super Scoopers operate — heavy metal poetry in motion.
The roadblock just before Colony House Liquor was still up and manned with LACO Fire, LACO Sheriff’s and some business-looking National Guard. Brent heckled and fist-bumped his way through, and we entered the Forbidden Zone.
Familiar landmarks appeared or were conspicuously absent: On the right, the Octopus House marked the westernmost damage along the beach. The two busted windows and seashell nose and light fixture above two burned, snaggle-toothed garage doors gave it an alchemy of Koko the Clown, Hitler, the ticky tacky houses of Daly City and Munch’sThe Scream. The look of shock and awe that many are feeling: “What happened to me? What happened to the neighborhood???!!!”
To the east of Octopus House, There were two other houses marked Red (for Destroyed > 50 percent) on the remarkably detailed, accurate and quickly-rendered Palisades Fire Damage Map: “That was done by the DINS,” Brent said. “The Damage INSpectors. I think there’s about 60 of them. They get it done.”
The DINS accounted for every structure in the Palisades Fire shadow, between Malibu and Santa Monica. Every structure was marked with a Monopoly-ish icon in Black (No Damage), Yellow (Minor 10-25 percent), Orange (Major 26 – 50 percent) and Red (Destroyed > 50 percent).
Almost every structure was photographed whether it was damaged or not. An impressive organizational feat in the aftermath of chaos. I had been pouring over this map for days, looking for the homes of friends and enemies, delivering good news and bad. Now I wanted to see it for myself.
After the Octopus house and its nuked neighbors, there was a large house, untouched, that reportedly belonged to Larry Ellison. Did he bring in private firefighters from Arizona like Rick Caruso?
“I guess we’ll never know,” Brent said.
Now this is mean, but of all the houses that were marked Red, the one still standing is what some people call the Crazy Rich Persian house on the inland side of PCH — an out-of-scale monstrosity that would be better behind landscaping in Beverly Hills and not going full frontal overlooking PCH. That place was untouched.
Verizon Building on the left, untouched, then a three-story apartment I used to rent from Janet M — when Jennifer A lived across the street and we watched her deal with her sharkerazzi during the Great Paparazzi Swarm of 2007.
Next door there used to be an apartment building that is no more. That is where SD evacuated her three dogs, two trucks, and a Porsche — frantically, one imagines — but lost everything else. As of Jan. 25, her GoFundMe was up to $19,465, including $500 from Paris Jackson (?!) and another grand from Phil Rosenthal of Somebody Feed Phil! — a frequent visitor to Malibu Kitchen (RIP).
The very long, 4.5 miles of PCH damage begins at What Used to Be the Geffen House — a compound of several structures that David Geffen sold for $85 million in 2017. When I lived across the street and was learning to stand-up paddle, I would use the Geffen Access, launch from the beach, paddle up to First Point, noodle around, and paddle back. The Geffen House was Boo Radley empty until one night I came in to see the lights were on for the Gayest Party in the History of the World — more than 100 dudes, mostly unrobed, dancing with themselves.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it was a little shocking, almost as shocking as the entire compound reduced to — as Joni Mitchell sang: “Cause I’ve seen some hot, hot blazes Come down to smoke and ash”
Lots of smoke and ash all along PCH. Doing a rough addition of that Palisades Fire Damage Map, there are roughly 400 individual lots between the Geffen Access and Topanga. Eyeballing that map, maybe two/thirds of those houses are marked Red for Destroyed. That’s a lot of smoke and ash, and where there’s smoke and ash, there’s litigation and problems.
Approaching Carbon Canyon, up to the left, a couple of torched houses, but Allen S’s house was still standing. Some say he lost his guest house, but it was easy to imagine the Ohana there in force, blasting the creeping, roaring flames with high-pressure hoses connected to their pool. Allen has had enough calamity at that house.
After the Geffen house along the beach, about six torched houses and then right around where Carbon Canyon Road meets PCH, a line of unscorched houses — including Lou A’s seashell house — that might have been protected by the cliffs, or private firefighters or LACO FD or luck or a combination of all of them.
The Carbon/La Costa Access then two houses marked Black, then 32 Red structures until the La Costa Beach Club — which seems to have survived unscorched, and there should be a story behind them. But after, another 30 Red houses all along La Costa Beach to Rambla Pacifica.
Riding shotgun in the Cal Fire F250, had a good view of the two eastbound lanes of PCH clogged with emergency trucks, So Cal Edison and So Cal gas service trucks, heavy equipment, large dumpsters, cranes, and detritus, flotsam, and jetsam from the fires. Around town from commuters and surfers and business people and pretty much everyone, there was and is a lot of talk about when PCH would be open. Probably nobody knows because this fire is unprecedented, but when it does open, it will probably be down to the westbound lanes divided into one lane going each way, with a middle lane for emergency vehicles and cheaters.
At least the speed limit will be reduced to something reasonable, because it’s unlikely they’ll allow 45+ MPH on one lane each — perhaps a taste of the kinder, gentler PCH that could rise from these ashes.
And seeing all the damage and twisted steel and torched walls along PCH, one wonders how they will remove all of that debris, and how long it will take and how much it will cost and where they will dispose of it. Probably not Calabasas landfill, and would it be possible to float a barge offshore and use a crane to lift and collect all that debris,and float it away? Might be quicker and less disruptive to PCH, which is going to be disrupted for months and years.
Any chance they will have it all cleared in time for summer? Highly unlikely. We’re talking hundreds of destroyed houses and countless tons of debris, from bent steel to melted Oscars.
To the left, the old courthouse is still standing, and that’s good. I felt bad for Juli Cantu whose Skincare business was in the building that was to the left. I emailed her and she said: “Yes, it’s all gone. I should be able to get some money from my insurance for my equipment. Not much, but some is better than none. I agree with you that what is meant to be is what is. I have been wanting to focus more on my energy work, and now I can since I no longer have a location. Thank you for reaching out!”
The Mobil station next to Dukes was the first of many mostly untouched gas stations we saw all along and within the Forbidden Zone. Next to that, Dukes was unscathed. According to Brent and others, the parking lot was used as a staging area for engines during the heat of the fire, and that’s what you want and need to protect your building.
Past Dukes a long line of homes that looked okay from the street side, but some were scorched on the other side:Including the apartment of Alison B, a hard-working coder/baker who left Malibu to take a three-day adventure to Hearst Castle, Carmel, and Monterey Aquarium before starting a new job and taking care of her mother as she recovered from cancer strategy. That was enough stress for anyone. She toured Hearst Castle and drove Carmel Valley Road into Carmel for a steak at La Bicyclette. That was Tuesday night and the bad news roared closer to her apartment.
On Wednesday morning she skipped the Aquarium and drove back to Malibu, fearing the worst and finding it there. Her apartment and carefully prepared kitchen were all destroyed.
The estimates for the total damage of the Palisades Fire is as much as $300 million and a big chunk of that will be the clothes and cosmetics and accouterment AB lost in the fire.
She’s a good sort who did not deserve any of that, but sometimes God, or the fates or nature, are just being mean. Sad, but she still had her sense of humor: “For the first time in my life, I underpacked!”
And then to the left, a chimney is all that was left of the ruined shack of Randall “Crawdaddy” Miod, who was declared in the Los Angeles Times and elsewhere as “A surfing legend.” I didn’t know him, but everyone else did. Apparently, he died holding onto his cat, if you need to heap more heartbreak kindling on this saga.
From Las Flores Canyon, there are about 15 Black houses then about 40 Damaged or Destroyed homes, then about 40 homes equally Black and Red. And along with the destroyed homes, there were a lot of vehicles in various states of melted. There was a long parking lot with a couple of melted cars still in their places, then nothing, then the shock adrenaline that was the parking lot for Moonshadows, and there isn’t even a shadow of that restaurant. Along the waythere was lots of bent and twisted steel and when you understand that steel bends at 1,000 degrees and melts at 2,500 degrees, it’s easy to understand how any other material goes up in smoke and ash.
The details of this tour have made it as far as Moonshadows, but there’s a couple hours, many miles and thousands of houses to go. For the whole story, visit benmarcusrules.com/threehourtour.