‘Flames to the Ocean — A Woolsey Fire Retrospective’ was produced by the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District
By Barbara Burke
Special to The Malibu Times
Former Malibu City Councilperson Mikke Pierson and other leaders from communities affected by the Woolsey Fire are featured in a movie reflecting on losses of lives of humans and wildlife, properties destroyed and lessons learned from the disaster
Many people remember exactly where they were when significant events occurred. Those of a particular age specifically recall where they were when President Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Senator Robert F. Kennedy all were assassinated. Whereas, those who are a bit younger can recount with impressive detail where they were on 9/11.
On March 7, community leaders who served their municipalities as this region was invaded by the incessant, unforgiving flames, tortuous winds, insidious embers, and tragic casualties of the Woolsey Fire in November 2018 gathered at Regency Theatres at the Calabasas Commons to view the premiere of “Flames to the Ocean — A Woolsey Fire Retrospective.” The documentary was produced by the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, whose employees were in the field helping citizens and supporting first responders during the Woolsey Fire inferno and its aftermath.
The film showing was co-sponsored by the Calabasas Chamber of Commerce and Caruso Affiliated, which owns and operates the Commons at Calabasas.
“The Las Virgenes-Conejo region was ravaged by the deadly Woolsey Fire. Fueled by fierce Santa Ana winds and a drought-parched landscape, these adverse conditions created the perfect storm for the development of a massive inferno,” Water District General Manager Dave Pedersen stated as he introduced the documentary. He noted that the Woolsey Fire torched two-thirds of the district’s service area, igniting in the hills of Chatsworth and marching to the shores of the Pacific.
For the five-year anniversary Mike McNutt, the district’s public affairs and communications manager, sat down with elected officials, public safety officers from the LA County Sheriff and Fire departments, local fire departments, and district staff to ponder and reflect upon the physical and emotional impact that the precarious and perilous days during Woolsey had on the communities of the Las Virgenes-Conejo region.
The district’s purpose in recounting the story of how the affected communities came together in the face of flames, adversity, and panic, and how those memories will never be forgotten, is to celebrate what went right in the Woolsey response — communities’ officials and common citizens collaborated to support fire victims and swiftly orchestrate an evacuation of 250,000 people so they could be out of harm’s way.
“When my superior gave me the order to evacuate, he said to relocate people all the way from Valley Circle to Lindero,” said Capt. Jennifer Seetoo of the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station, noting the expansive area subject to the evacuation order. “It was go time!”
The documentary also discusses what went wrong and honestly concedes that a whole lot did go wrong, especially because there were not enough fire trucks because some responders were deployed to the Paradise and Hill fires and, pivotally, those fleeing from the fire, those who chose to stay behind and defend their homes and structures, and those fighting and responding to the fire were overwhelmingly hamstrung by communication failures.
“The simple idea behind creating the film is to provide a social media documentation of how the community resiliently bonded together,” said district employee Steven Baird, who helped to produce the film. “All the people interviewed had a unique story to tell.”
McNutt noted that the film uses footage from area responders, such as Los Angeles County Fire Department, various municipalities, and previously unseen victims’ and responders’ cellphones, thereby providing a fresh, yet intense, depiction of just how bad the fire was and just how good the community was in responding and supporting one another.
Pierson was one of many who were interviewed in the film. Seetoo, who had only been on the job for three days when the fire began and who was monitoring the effects of the Borderline shooting that occurred the night before the fire, graphically explained the situations that she and her deputies encountered, as did Pederson and district employees who helped to fight the fire.
Others who were interviewed included Assemblywoman Jaqui Irwin and elected officials from Calabasas, Agoura Hills, Thousand Oaks, and Hidden Hills and Assistant Fire Chief Drew Smith, Division VII, County of Los Angeles Fire Department.
“Mother nature was very angry on the day of the Woolsey Fire,” Smith said. “Firefighters don’t like to fail, we want to protect people. However, sometimes we lose and in Woolsey a lot was lost — we know that we failed.”
Smith noted that the first responders did not have enough fire trucks and personnel.
However, Smith commented that, even if there had been 150 or 250 fire trucks, the intense fire could not be stopped and moreover, if they had that number of responders, it is entirely possible that the fire departments could have lost firefighters.
Images of harrowing scenes flashed on the large screen, including those of an elderly widow from Seminole being hugged by Seetoo as the two viewed the devastating impact of the fire on the trailer park and the ashes that used to be the victim’s home. Seetoo recounted that the fire victim said she had raised her children in the destroyed trailer and that she desperately wanted to at least find her wedding ring in the rubble.
There were images of the active fires, taunting responders who desperately tried to extinguish the flames. There were images of the portending reddish glow hovering on the horizon as citizens, many paralyzed by terror as they tried to comprehend the sheer magnitude of the conflagration and the mayhem they were observing and experiencing, tried to decide whether and when to evacuate and where to go if they did.
Pedersen shared that the district’s employees were on the front line in supporting first responders. He explained that, in the middle of the fire, not realizing that district employees remained on site at the facility, two fire trucks circled the district’s offices.
“I remember one firefighter rolling down his window and asking me, ‘do you want to keep it?’ referring to the district’s headquarters being in imminent peril of burning.” Pedersen said, adding that when he responded that they needed to save the district’s facilities because its function in keeping safe water is critical path, the battalion chief sent three engines that valiantly fought the fire and saved the district’s campus.
Reflecting on Woolsey’s devastating impact on Malibu, Pierson discussed his family’s evacuation, injecting just a little bit of humor to offset the painful memories: “My wife would have taken the kitchen sink in the evacuation if she could have done so.”
Somberly, he also honed in on the terrible impact Woolsey had on wildlife and his own personal experiences.
As Seetoo’s team ran welfare checks, getting those who stayed behind urgently needed water and medicine, Pierson and others tried to extinguish fires and save wildlife.
“We saved some animals,” he noted, but added that, tragically, innumerable animals did not make it through the fire. A haunting image of an upright snake, presumably hissing at the fire in an attempt to defend itself, flashed on the screen. The top of the snake’s body was gray, the result of its perishing in the fire.
Lessons learned and memories shared, the attendees dispersed, more informed than ever about the realization that it’s not if, but when another conflagration seriously threatens or destroys the region, and that it’s imperative to learn from the fire and harden structures and have emergency supplies ready to go so as to be prepared to evacuate when necessary.
“Your home will almost certainly burn in a fire,” Pierson said. “We are in the fire zone and everyone needs to harden their homes and structures.”
For more information on “Flames to the Ocean,” go to www.lvmwd.com/community-resources/woolsey-fire-retrospective.