Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors acknowledges bravery of local volunteer firefighters
Empowering community members to act as resource multipliers and provide crucial support to professional first responders during wildfires is the objective of Malibu’s Community Brigade. Instrumental in fighting the cataclysmic Palisades Fire and preventing further tragedy, 50 members of the volunteer initiative were recently honored by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for their outstanding volunteerism and bravery.
Spearheaded by Malibu native Keegan Gibbs, who lost his family home in the Woolsey Fire in 2018, Gibbs, a Malibu safety commissioner realized the necessity for community involvement in emergency situations. “The brigade program was born out of Woolsey and the acknowledgment that we as a community need to do better to bridge the gap between capabilities of the response from agencies and the preparedness of the communities,” said Gibbs, who along with other members have been working nearly nonstop since the fire broke out Jan. 7.
The brigade, which has proven essential in saving lives and property, was made official after five years of working with county leaders and then voted on unanimously by the Board of Supervisors in 2023.
“The Community Brigade is a little like CERT (Community Emergency Response Team), but more focused on fires,” Gibbs explained. “That’s the primary threat here in the Santa Monica Mountains.”
The program’s goal is to educate and train community members to be prepared for, and capable of responding to fires. The initial cohort of just over 40 volunteers started training on Sept. 14, 2024, with members from seven local community brigades participating. These groups are spread across various neighborhoods in the Santa Monica Mountains, including Malibu West, Point Dume, Corral Canyon, Big Rock, Topanga, Ventura County Line, and Hidden Hills.
2024 was spent recruiting and training volunteers from “table top to infield exercises,” Gibbs explained of the 60 hours of education and training required. “Our program was lightly tested with the Broad Fire in November, then pressure-tested with the Franklin Fire in December and then it’s not easy to put into words what happened with the Palisades Fire.”
It’s not easy to explain the devastation caused to Malibu and adjacent areas, but without the brigade, it could have been even worse. The brigade put in roughly 5,000 hours evacuating residents even as some members’ own homes were at risk.
“Our members were in their own community, knocking on their neighbors’ doors to encourage evacuations and that was time they could’ve been spending on their own homes,” Gibbs described. “Encouragement from a neighborly voice as opposed to an authoritive voice, I think, was extremely valuable because there were several people that initially refused to leave because they didn’t believe the fire was coming or they were under the impression that they were going to be able to fight it by themselves. I think our team did a really good job of being very methodical about encouraging neighbors to take necessary steps prior to leaving.”
The brigade then conducted structure triage by pulling combustibles away from homes, but soon, the event “quickly became a life, safety priority where it was not just about trying to protect structures, it was trying to prevent people from dying,” Gibbs said.
For his part Gibbs hasn’t slept much in days while volunteering since the fire broke out, and he has a family with young children. There are 50 men and women in the brigade with similar stories spread out in seven area communities throughout the Santa Monica Mountains. “You get a glimpse of what it’s like to be a full-time firefighter and a lot of appreciation for the sacrifice that firefighters and even more so their families make,” Gibbs emphasized. He’s also proud that no one in the brigade suffered injuries.
And the Board of Supervisors is proud, too. Brigade members were honored Jan. 22 at the Kenneth Hahn Building in downtown LA. Third District Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone, and Assistant Chief Drew Smith, who was instrumental in organizing and authorizing the brigade honored the group for the impact they made saving lives and property in the program’s first year.
“I wish there was more we could do. It was absolute mayhem,” Gibbs said. “It was an immense honor for us to be a part of these efforts, having a small of an impact that we did, but for them to honor the program was especially in our first year and having these three fires already happen, it’s a true honor for all of us.”
