Skylar Peak speaks from experience(s)
By Benjamin Marcus
Skylar is a womb-to-the-tomb Malibu citizen. He was a LACoFD lifeguard, a graduate of Pepperdine University, and twice elected mayor of the City of Malibu. Today, he operates a small business, Peak Power Electric Inc., and is a planning commissioner for the City of Malibu. He volunteers as a member of the LACoFD Community Brigade which formed post-Woolsey Fire.
More importantly, he is a dad and a waterman.
Skylar Peak speaks about the past, present, and future of Malibu and firestorms.
Where are you right now?
I took a little break and drove up to Mammoth to snowboard with some friends. I even ran into the Richards family (Val Surf) in the lodge.
How is it up there? That was a cold rainstorm we just had.
I did some rain prep at home, then headed up to Mammoth for some carving turns, and right now I’m behind a snowplow on the way home.
As a member of the Community Brigade and a former member of the Malibu City Council and one of the five members of the Malibu Planning Commission, you are looking at the Palisades Fire from a few angles.
Yes.
In 50 words or less how would you describe your Palisades Fire experience?
Two friends died in the fire. I am very grateful that there were not more lives lost. Randall Miod and Rory.
Rory?
Rory lived near LACoFD Camp 8 with his mother, Shelley. The tragic loss of her son is very sad.
What did you learn from this?
Have a plan. As a community that lives in a high wildfire risk area, we must learn from this to make our homes safer. We must trust the science behind wildfire risk in California as a whole. We all have a lot to learn ahead.
I just watched the House Judiciary Committee hearing on California fires and the consequences of overregulation testimony. It got a little … heated. One fire expert called for a half-mile cleared barrier around structures. That makes sense, because there’s no way anyone will be allowed — or able — to clear all the brush out of the Santa Monica Mountains.
Trust the science.
I’m surprised more houses weren’t burned in the Franklin Fire, and more people weren’t lost in the Palisades Fire.
Likewise.
I did a drive through Palisades two Saturdays ago, and people are going to have to look at the houses that survived. I mean, they’re just sitting there unscratched in the middle of devastation.
Day 2 or 3 of the incident, my volunteer LACoFD Brigade team was assigned Rapid Damage Assessment by CAL FIRE in the alphabet streets from the mountain to the bluff, devastating.
That’s what I said. I’ve described it as “Hiroshimic” and someone got mad at me. I also said it’s satanic. The destruction is so complete, and the emotional toll is so profound, it’s almost like the fire was driven by a supernatural, evil force.
The city of LA learned a lot from a fire that was in the ’60s called the Bel Air fire.
Yeah, I saw a YouTube of that. That was 60 years ago and they still happen. Just sweep like a fire tsunami.
We learned from Woolsey and need to take more ownership of the risk associated with living in and adjacent the lush landscape of the Santa Monica Mountains, and to be more proactive about vegetation management adjacent to residential neighborhoods.
As time went on, environmentally, we started to protect more things, but the last prescribed burns in the Santa Monica Mountains were maybe in the early ’90s. And then I grew up with them as a kid. We need to bring things like that back, so we can have effective fuel modification to better allow the fire department to do what they can and protect our homes. We’re not set up to deal with a wildfire that’s being moved with hundred mile an hour winds. So we have to learn from that.
I watched that timeline the LA Times did, detailing what time and where the fire broke out and how fast they responded and the chaos of the evacuation. A guy you and I know who was LA County Fire for many years said the mistake made in the Palisades Fire was LA City tried to handle it on their own — they didn’t call in resources from LA County and Cal Fire.
As another Cal Fire guy said, they should have called “broken arrow” and brought in everyone.
Camp 8 was only 6 miles from the fire source. If they had helicopters watered and loaded, they could have been on top of it in minutes. Because minutes is all they have. How much time before a wind-driven fire goes out of control, do you think?
I don’t know the truth to that at all, because when we as a brigade were assembled, we were initially sent to the Sunset Mesa area behind the Getty. The fire had not reached that area yet, but by the time we rounded Topanga, you could see the black darkness, and I think the hair raised on my back.
Everybody in my vehicle — in Brigade Team Five — knew that fire wasn’t stopping ’til it hit the Pacific Ocean.
I remember I emailed you from Hawaii during the Woolsey, and you said it would be catastrophic. You knew this one would be even worse than Woolsey?
The wind and low relative humidity were cause for the perfect firestorm. I referenced this to a couple of people. At one point, I was being a lookout for my team, and I was up in a residence in the Las Flores area. And I’m a big guy. I weigh about, approximately 250 pounds — give or take five …
And it almost blew you over.
It blew me over.
You’ve seen wind, I’ve seen wind. We’ve been a few places. We’ve seen a few things. I’ve never seen wind like that. Ever, anywhere, and especially not a clear sky gale.
A wind-driven wildfire, when you hit winds that are hurricane speed, it’s one of the scariest things one will ever experience.
That’s exactly right.
You cannot outrun it …
Nope. I said it was like Random the Dragon got drunk and mean and flew around firehosing structures wholesale and at random.
Again, I can’t reiterate how important it is for people to respect our fire departments and all of the first responders that are trying to save lives and adhere to those warnings, because I think some people might have got a little more complacent in the recent fires that we had in Malibu, the Franklin Fire and The Broad Fire. They were no comparison to this.
That’s what Brian Rapf said. He said the Franklin Fire was a camp fire compared to this. He was on Rambla Pacifico and it was raging.
Agreed.
I heard the top speed up in Camp Eight was 84 miles an hour.
I’m sure there were some other RAWS stations in the Santa Monica Mountains that were clocked higher than that.
Well, my point is that the only way you’re going to beat these things, you got to nip them in the bud. At the beginning. How long do you think you have until it goes out of control?
Palisades was out of control from the time I saw it. All the aircraft were doing is trying to slow it down so they can get resources to the homes and us get residents out.
The Sheriff’s [Department] were amazing too, assisting with evacuations.
Benjamin Marcus writes Malibu Seen exclusively for The Malibu Times and offers an extended version of the story on his website.