announcer: The opinions expressed in this documentary do not reflect those of PBS SoCal.

"Big Rock Burning" is made possible in part by... ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Colin Drummond: So this is our house here.

Was our house.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Jo Drummond: We've come back to our apocalypse of a house.

Colin: Careful, sweetheart.

speaker: I'm trying to walk through it like there's still hallways.

It's just unrecognizable.

speaker: Walking through the kitchen.

Over the kitchen.

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Arno Koch: It's crazy how little stuff is actually left.

Here's my dishwasher.

And I saw something that I was wondering if it survived.

Yep, a little Christmas-themed cup.

Here in Big Rock, there are a lot of people that inherited homes that were purchased for less than my property tax payment.

There are people that bought their house with everything they had.

We did.

And a lot of people were in a difficult financial situation already before this.

We were.

Big Rock is the most beautiful community that I've ever been a member of.

Just knowing the people on the street, I don't think you get that a lot anymore these days.

Haylynn Conrad: It's kind of like mining.

I find gems all the time.

The people here are gems, the environment.

The people that live here are extremely invested.

Colin Drummond: In Malibu, despite its global fame, it's a small town.

We're like, 10,000 people.

Jo Drummond: Our neighbor here, her father built all these homes, so she's lived here all her life and since the houses have been here.

So, I mean, they're all just normal, regular people.

It's just knowing the neighbors and we have our block party every year that Colin and I usually plan.

We are very committed to this community.

We love this community.

Everybody in this neighborhood loves each other.

Wade Major: This is the home that my parents built in 1962.

We've been raising my daughter in the house that I was raised in.

And so this is pretty devastating to all of us.

I have a 12 year old daughter.

This is her greatest fear.

This was what she was afraid of.

Janet Fulk: Our home had burned in the 1993 fire, so we knew what it was like to go through losing your home, and we just decided we weren't gonna do that again.

Peter Monge: We had thought about this and we drilled for it.

We had practiced for it.

We have 30,000 gallons of water, 600 feet of fire hose, of fire pump.

Janet Fulk: In case all the work we did failed, we had a backup plan.

We put our scuba tanks into the pool, which allow you to breathe underwater.

[breath honks through scuba gear] You can stay underwater for well over an hour.

speaker: Multiple structures burning on the ocean side PCH.

Fire is ten minutes from impacting on Big Rock.

Ken Button: For days we were getting all these alerts about this high wind event that was gonna come and that it was gonna be dangerous.

Wade Major: "This is unprecedented.

Get ready."

I would have expected LA City to be similarly prepared.

speaker: All of PCH is on fire right now.

It is like driving through hell itself down here.

Janet Fulk: So if you can imagine standing here and seeing these huge flames coming, coming.

Nothing's stopping them, they're just coming right at you.

Rosemary Ihde: I decided, since I'm 80, that I don't really want to start from scratch with another house.

I said, "Thomas, do you think we could defend the house, you and me together?"

And he said, "Okay, Mom."

And so we did what we had to do.

speaker: All right, the fire's impacted Big Rock.

Arno Koch: There were some things exploding around.

It felt like war.

Rosemary Ihde: It went boom, boom, boom.

It wouldn't stop.

And I said, "I'm not in Vietnam," like a war zone.

Laurent Lusinchi: And you hear big explosions and there you don't feel too cocky.

[exploding] Thomas Ihde: Because I literally thought we're gonna, you know, burn alive.

I mean, I thought it was gonna be a catastrophe.

Laurent Lusinchi: The air was filled with red and you had the roar, that was the wind.

Patty Phillips: The smoke was so thick, I couldn't see anything.

I couldn't see the hood of my car.

I'm thinking, I'm just gonna drive through this and get out of it, and I stepped on the gas and I ended up where you see now.

I'm trying to back up and my car won't go forward, it won't go back.

I didn't realize I was stuck on this boulder.

And the fire's right below me, right here.

I'm calling 911 over and over.

I finally get a hold of somebody, and he's not saying anything, because I think they're just overwhelmed with all the 911 calls.

And I think he knew at that point that the fire department wasn't able to get to me, and I think he didn't want to tell me that.

I realized I was literally on my own.

So I started praying to God, "Please let me die from smoke inhalation.

Please do not let me be burned alive."

speaker: LA Fire is stretched so thin right now that they put out an all call asking any off-duty firefighters to come and help them fight these fires.

speaker: The city fire department was underfunded.

The LA City Council voted to slash millions from the fire department budget, and the vote wasn't even close.

speaker: Was the budget cut?

speaker: Yes, it was cut, and it did impact our ability to provide service.

We are still understaffed, we're still under-resourced, and we're still underfunded.

Rick Caruso: We've got a city that's burning.

We've got a mayor that's out of the country.

There's no water coming out of the fire hydrant.

The brush up in these hills, I would bet you that they haven't been removed for probably 30 or 40 years.

This was a disaster waiting to happen.

Thomas Ihde: During the night, I was constantly saying to myself, "When is fire support gonna come," because this was exhausting.

Ken Button: We're all sitting in the living room, we're listening to the LA County firefighting communications, and we hear a firefighter come on and he says, "The fire just passed Tuna Canyon, the next neighborhood is Big Rock."

He's pleading for resources, and the dispatch basically says, "Stand down."

Leslie Button: He said, "Stand down."

Ken Button: When I heard that, I really just lost any hope.

Thomas Ihde: My eyes were just bloodshot and red.

It was kind of a scary moment.

I thought I had some permanent vision loss.

Arno Koch: I dissociated a little bit and I was like, "What are you doing here?

What are you feeling?

What am I feeling?"

I was like, that's fear.

Thomas Ihde: I realized during the night that as long as we have water, we can keep doing this, we can just keep going.

I felt like we could contain the situation.

Arno Koch: I ran over here to my--to the water faucet, and that was the first time I noticed that the water pressure had dropped.

Thomas Ihde: It's kind of absurd thinking there's no water in a hose anymore, and we can only use, you know, bucket water from hot tubs and swimming pools.

I must have hauled hundreds and hundreds of gallons of water.

Wade Major: Having a reservoir in the highlands that has been empty for a year is negligent.

There is a massive systemic failure here.

Arno Koch: The rest of the night I basically sat on this chair and kept watch, and whenever a hotspot emerged, I put it out again.

So about 10:30 was the first time that I was like, "Okay, this is under control now."

At that point, I thought the house was good.

We have also a group chat here in the neighborhood and people asked, "Did anybody stay?"

And I said, yeah, I stayed and I can go around later and let them know if their house was still standing or not.

I made a list of streets and house numbers, and then I had a few very difficult phone calls to make.

Rosemary Ihde: I saw Arno and I said, "Arno, I'm glad you have a house," and he said, "Well, I have to drive around and write down all the numbers of the burnt homes."

Arno Koch: I went up the first street, second street.

As I came back down the third street, I see a house ablaze.

I look over to my right, to the rough distance where my house is and I see smoke coming up, 20 foot flame coming out of my living room window.

Rosemary Ihde: I saw it and I said, "Well, where's Arno?"

Because he might have been able to save it.

Arno Koch: Look down and see my neighbors in my house on fire and just think, "Obie."

How could I have left him in the house?

Is the dog still in there?

I mean, it's a big dog, 100 pounds, he's smart.

If there's a dog that makes it out, I would have figured it would be him, but I didn't know.

So I get back into the car, drive around, and then there was that fire truck, and the firefighters are just watching the houses burn.

Rosemary Ihde: He did all the volunteer work and here, in the meantime, his house goes up in flames.

Arno Koch: Took the last picture of my burning house and said, "Okay, that's--I wanna see my family now."

♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Wade Major: This is tough to see, because almost every family home of everyone that I've ever known in Malibu was destroyed in this fire.

This is about the most cruel fire I've ever seen.

We had two people die here, in Big Rock.

We're looking for answers.

They didn't pre-deploy.

The fire chief immediately threw the mayor under the bus.

speaker: Did the City of Los Angeles fail you and your department and our city?

speaker: Yes.

speaker: Anguished locals filled Malibu town hall meeting, looking for both accountability and answers.

A dais packed with state and local officials fielded questions and criticism for hours.

Colin Drummond: A domino of failures led to our devastation.

What are you going to do about it?

[audience applauding] Patty Phillips: We were forgotten, and that's why people are so angry.

Alex Villanueva: Law enforcement outnumbers fire departments more than 10 to 1.

Evacuations are a very staff-heavy operation.

It requires people, boots on the ground.

They should have already been there.

The LA City Fire and LA County Fire, they should have already drawn up their pre-deployment plans.

Okay, and what's the evacuation plan?

How do we do that?

What is the trigger points that's gonna cause us to evacuate?

And how do we alert the public?"

All these things are supposed to be happening.

They didn't happen.

It's the sheriff of LA County.

That's his job.

That's why you got people that were caught dead in their tracks fleeing the Pacific Palisades, abandoning their cars.

There's so many lessons that are gonna be learned from this fire of how not to do things and how to do better.

Arno Koch: People said that it was--that the firefighters had orders not to go into the community because it was too dangerous for them.

Yet I was here with two garden hoses, able to protect my house.

I believe if there had been ten fire trucks, five fire trucks, they would have saved a few houses early in the beginning, and those houses would not have set other houses on fire.

And a lot more houses would have survived.

I'm very sure my house would still be standing.

speaker: Can you just show us some of your tools that you used that night?

Laurent Lusinchi: The tools, yeah.

Garden hoses.

Alex Villanueva: Two years of record rain, which means record growth of underbrush.

Eight months of no rain, and high temperatures, record heats, which means everything dried up.

So now you've got a ton of fuel everywhere.

Wade Major: The MRCA, who owns these mountains, Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, doesn't do brush clearance, doesn't maintain fire breaks, doesn't maintain fire roads.

They acquire land, and then they don't maintain it.

Haylynn Conrad: So Joe Edmiston, he is a land man.

He is brilliant at acquiring land.

When it comes to maintaining land, there's none, and there's not a budget for it, from what he's told me.

Jefferson Wagner: So Joe, he's on North Beirut.

You can see his address was burned.

I'm sorry he lost his home, but that, you would think, would be an educational moment for the MRCA and Joe, to just look at fuel modification behavior and change that behavior.

The people in Malibu here are not happy with his occupancy in that role that he's playing.

Joe Edmiston: I love the Joint Exercise of Powers Act.

Any two government agencies can get together and pretty much do--write their own agenda and write their own powers.

speaker: Wade Major.

Wade Major: Living next to MRCA administered land has become increasingly like living next to a hoarder who stacks yellowing newspapers in the house and rusting canisters of gasoline in the backyard.

For decades we've warned that we needed controlled burns, fire road maintenance, and robust resource management.

And in return we get nothing but condescension and vitriol from the slumlord of the Santa Monica Mountains.

Joe Edmiston's appetite for acquisition without accountability has done unspeakable harm to these fragile hills.

[audience applauding] Wade Major: It is just a stream of brush, and it builds up a head of steam, and by the time it got here it was a monster.

It had just eaten and eaten and eaten, and grown and grown and grown.

If you have a certain volume of brush, it adds that much more energy and deadliness to the fire.

So when you remove brush, you're reducing the fire's ability to grow, to intensify, and to become deadlier.

Haylynn Conrad: I live in the mountain, right.

My backyard is MRCA land.

When I take a hike out there, the brush today is taller than me, and I'm about 5' 8" and a half.

I'm looking at it going, "Oh my God, this is Palisades 2.0."

Chris Frost: A fire break would help.

Brush thinning, goats, which, as you well know, was gonna come to this neighborhood until some people got involved and said they didn't want it.

And they weren't your neighbors either, they were people from the outside that didn't want that.

And I know 12 projects that were shut down because of this.

Projects would come on the table, fire department would put them out there, and somebody would hammer them down.

Jo Drummond: The fire department had arranged for a controlled burn above our hillsides so that they could clear it for for a firebreak, and Sheila Keel said no because the environmentalists were saying the chaparral is important and we need to keep it.

But now all the chaparral is gone.

Everything's gone.

Wade Major: If you go up this road, you will see dead animals.

You will see dead coyotes, you will see dead squirrels, you will see dead rabbits, you will see dead birds who get caught in the smoke and don't know where to go.

Is that environmentalism?

Killing animals?

Jefferson Wagner: I work with environmentalists.

I'm part of the environmental regimen of the Santa Monica Mountains.

However, if you don't have a clear understanding of that controlled burn, the heat, it acts like a chimney in your house.

It goes straight up and disperses up in a higher atmosphere.

All that heat energy goes up.

With the Pali fire or the Eaton fire, the animals have no chance to escape.

The heat consumes them, they catch on fire, and they spread the fire.

When it's heat going straight up, they feel the heat, they move away.

But you'll find that the environmentalists in this condition are prevailing, and they stop the controlled burns.

Wade Major: Climate change didn't start the fire.

The winds didn't start the fire.

Letting nature run wild isn't good for nature.

This is what happens when nature runs wild.

Rosemary Ihde: There is no leadership.

I'm sorry to say that.

I mean, where are the leaders?

It was more than pathetic.

speaker: Do you owe citizens an apology for being absent while their homes were burning?

Wade Major: I know that there is gross mismanagement in Los Angeles.

We know that because they're all pointing fingers now.

speaker: We have breaking news now.

We are now just getting word, LA Mayor Karen Bass has met with and removed Kristin Crowley as fire chief, effective immediately.

Kristin Crowley: Now I will set the record straight.

I did not refuse to conduct an after action report.

I said that the LAFD is not capable, nor do we have the proper resources to adequately conduct an after action report for the Palisades fire.

We are already understaffed, under-resourced, underfunded.

As for the thousand firefighters who allegedly were sent home prior to the fires, we did not have enough apparatus to put them on.

Because of the budget cuts and lack of investments in our fleet maintenance, over 100 of our fire engines and ambulances sat broken down in our maintenance yards.

It is also a false allegation that we failed to notify the mayor's office about the upcoming weather event.

Haylynn Conrad: We are only as strong as our infrastructure, and our infrastructure is falling apart.

If we're going to inhabit this place, if we're gonna rebuild back better, if we're going to give people hope, then we have to actually really try better, do better.

Wade Major: When you're in the burn zone, it's like being in a war zone.

You see the destruction, you see nothing but destruction, you see burn scars.

I mean looking here at the hills now, seeing the grass kind of popping back through all of the burnt brush.

That's the way we are, you know.

That's my example.

I'm gonna be like the grass.

I'm not gonna be like the burned trees.

So the hills are kind of our reminder.

The hills are healing, they're coming back, and we have to help each other come back.

Haylynn Conrad: I've been extremely impressed with Big Rock.

The resiliency that--I mean, their homes burned.

And some people would give up.

And they would move, and they would say, "I'm not doing this.

This is crazy."

The amount of mobilization that they've done, and the initiative that they have taken.

They're talking to their senator, they're talking to their elected officials, they're making plans.

They have vision.

I'm inspired by them, right?

Like, I get energy knowing that they're working hard, they're being diligent, they're being respectful, they're trying to work with the city, and now it's a matter of if the city will work with them.

Jo Drummond: We had a certificate that his great great grandmother got from Abraham Lincoln, because she was one of the first postmistress generals of the United States during the Civil War when her husband was the postmaster and was killed during Vicksburg.

So our neighbor Blake went in the house and grabbed it for us.

So we're very grateful that he got it and he's here to give it back to us, right?

Colin Drummond: Oh my God.

Jo Drummond: Yes, oh my gosh.

You want to take it, honey?

So, see, so it's signed by Abraham Lincoln here and here.

Colin Drummond: Thank God.

Jo Drummond: Thank God.

At least one thing.

Colin Drummond: That really would have been--that would have been too much.

Colin Drummond: It means so much.

Jo Drummond: We're so grateful.

Amazing.

Colin Drummond: It's nice to see, like, you know, the love that can come.

I'm sorry.

Arno Koch: I cried a few times, since.

But not about a single thing that I lost.

I cried that morning when my house was still standing, and I walked down the street and saw the destruction of the houses of my friends and neighbors.

And I cried upon recognizing the love that is pouring into us as a family right now, that really mean when they say, "Is there anything I can do for you?"

And then when something comes to mind, actually do it.

My decision is clear.

Humans are good.

Humans are good, and I'm very happy to be one and have so many around me.

Rosemary Ihde: My firefighter son.

Thomas Ihde: Mom and I, we were a great firefighter team that night.

Rosemary Ihde: Well, I'm happy we could do it.

♪♪♪ speaker: You see, Buddha's there.

Buddha's good.

He's smiling.

["The End of the World" by Billie Eilish playing] ♪ Paradise.

♪ ♪ But there you go again, ♪ ♪ saying everything ends.

♪ ♪ Saying you can't depend ♪ ♪ on anything, or anyone.

♪ ♪ If the end of the world was near.

♪ ♪ Where would you choose to be?

♪ ♪ If there was five more minutes of air.

♪ ♪ Would you panic and hide.

♪ ♪ Or run for your life.

♪ ♪ Or stand here and spend it with me.

♪♪ Janet Fulk: There's a big educational piece and I really wish I knew the answer.

People don't have a mindset that it could really happen to them.

There's so much focus on your home.

"I have a right to have my tree."

Well, if your tree is gonna set that house on fire, that's not really the way to think about it.

If our home had burned, those two would not be staying.

The fire department came in and said that the way to think about it is as a community, how can we make ourselves really resilient?

Haylynn Conrad: We have pumps, we have the pools, we have water, and I want every community that stays in Malibu to be its own micro-community of self-reliance, because you cannot assume that the government will come for you.

Arno Koch: I don't want to be all alone again, when the next fire comes through, because that's not an if, that's a when.

Otherwise we're just, we're just putting up tinder.

["The End of the World" by Billie Eilish playing] ♪ Paradise.

♪ ♪ But there you go again, ♪ ♪ saying everything ends.

♪ ♪ Saying you can't depend ♪ ♪ on anything, or anyone.

♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ announcer: "Big Rock Burning" is made possible in part by... announcer: The opinions expressed in this documentary do not reflect those of PBS SoCal.