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00:01This documentary shows actions undertaken in extreme circumstances.
00:06If you're at risk from wildfire, please seek local emergency advice.
00:12Dude, look at that. Look at that.
00:14That's really concerning.
00:15If you haven't evacuated, please do so now.
00:19Wildfire ignites in bone-dry hills above Pacific Palisades, California.
00:25Fanned by hurricane-force winds, homes are burning in less than an hour.
00:30That fire crossing the ridge was the kiss of death for our community.
00:35This house is already gone. Damn.
00:39Residents try to flee on jam-packed streets.
00:42There was a car that started to catch on fire, five cars behind us.
00:46And my daughter says to me, Mom, we're going to have to get out of the car.
00:49We have to run.
00:50I tried to start my car. It wouldn't start.
00:52I saw this small truck.
00:54This woman comes running down the hill.
00:57I basically body slammed on this car.
00:59Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh.
01:01As Los Angeles fights for its life, an even more devastating fire erupts.
01:07I'm thinking, this is bad.
01:09Triggering a night without end.
01:22At 6.18pm, the Eton fire ignites beneath power lines in the San Gabriel Mountains above Altadena.
01:30As he drives home, Oscar Franco tries to warn his wife.
01:34We live about a mile, mile and a half away from that point.
01:38Tell my son, get Mom on the phone.
01:40They said, there's a fire.
01:42I didn't believe them because my boys are jokesters.
01:46And that's when my husband said, go outside.
01:50Take a look at the mountain. The mountain's on fire.
01:54When my husband and son pulled up to the driveway, I was exiting the house by the front door.
02:00Immediately, my husband said, we need to go.
02:03My 16-year-old ran inside and said, hey mom, there's a fire.
02:08I said, okay, I'll come see it in a second.
02:10He's like, no, come see it now, it's close.
02:12I went outside and I could see the entire sky was lit up.
02:17A lot of people were starting to leave.
02:19The police were driving around, sirens.
02:22It was chaos.
02:26As the single mom of three boys, Terica tells her family to start packing.
02:32I handed each of my kids a luggage and told them to take whatever was special to them.
02:3710-year-old Grayson is blind.
02:40He will be leaving the only home he has ever known.
02:43I was pretty scared.
02:45Like, I just grabbed five random pairs of clothes and a couple of airplanes in my tablet.
02:53So we got all the photo albums.
02:55I got all of my important documents.
02:57I knew it would get worse.
02:59I wasn't overly concerned because I thought, you know, I'd seen so many fires before.
03:05And the last fire that came from that direction took two days to reach us.
03:10Located in the San Gabriel foothills, Zorthian Ranch has survived several fires.
03:15Zorthian Ranch is 43 acres in Altadena, California.
03:21My father came there in 1946.
03:25My father was an artist.
03:27And he saw this as an opportunity to build and to express himself through construction.
03:35From Zorthian, the distant fire is hidden by the mountains in between.
03:39You don't see nothing.
03:40You just see a glow.
03:41And you're just like, okay, it's still going, it's still going.
03:44You see a glow off to the east.
03:46A few times I had to go down, get away from the mountain so I could see where it was.
03:51It became increasingly clear that it was approaching us.
03:54Hey, babe.
03:55We have to get out of here.
03:57Oh, my God.
03:59I knew the fire department wasn't going to come up and help us fight the fire.
04:04But I was convinced that I was ready to fight it and we could stop it.
04:09Southwest of the fire, Rich Snyder knows that it will soon reach his neighborhood.
04:15Wherever the smoke is going is where the fire is going to go.
04:18And it was coming over my neighborhood.
04:21Within 20 minutes, we had embers dropping.
04:23And we had a police car drive down the street announcing mandatory evacuation.
04:29And my neighbors left.
04:3145 minutes after the start of the Eaton fire, homes were burning in my community.
04:36An hour after it started, I still didn't have a fire engine there.
04:41We are so .
04:44Damn it.
04:46Damn it.
04:47Let's make sure Lee's house doesn't catch on fire.
04:51I called the dispatch.
04:52Hey, it's Rich.
04:54Got a house that's just starting.
04:55If you can get an engine here, we can save my street.
05:00And dispatch says, we've got nothing.
05:03You're on your own.
05:07Just eight blocks north, a full firefighting strike team tries to slow the fire spread.
05:14But all this water is just one small drop in a proverbial bucket of flame.
05:22Wildfires are fought by creating fire breaks with bulldozers.
05:26Because you can't deliver enough water for the amount of heat that's being generated.
05:31Across Southern California, thousands of first responders mobilize.
05:35But the combined scale of the Palisades and Eaton fires is already beyond the worst case projections.
05:43If you had one fire engine just on the Eaton fire for every house that was burning, you'd need 8
05:49,000 fire engines and 27,000 firefighters.
05:53There's not that many firefighters in the state of California.
05:55So the thought of there wasn't enough firefighters?
06:00You're right.
06:01There wasn't.
06:01And there never will be.
06:04Billy's on fire, man.
06:05We gotta go.
06:06Adding to the chaos, Altadena is home to dozens of large-scale retirement and assisted living communities.
06:13There you go.
06:14Let's take them out.
06:15Yes, I will.
06:16With emergency phone lights flooded by requests for assistance, first responders race against time and fire to help people evacuate.
06:29This was a hurricane. Instead of wind and water, it was wind and fire.
06:3830 miles west, Caleb's servant Lawler tries to drive Nani and her four dogs out of the Palisades.
06:46Oh my gosh.
06:47It's okay.
06:49It's all good.
06:50There was one wrong turn that we did.
06:51Oh, oh, oh, oh. Sorry, sorry, sorry.
06:53We actually started going back up the hill. Nani's like, no.
06:57Where are we?
06:58That's right.
06:58Yeah.
06:59I got you.
07:00I was mainly scared about the flying trash cans.
07:03You're driving down in a freaking trash can to fly right across to you.
07:07I was more worried about something hitting and disabling my vehicle.
07:10I was afraid that his car would catch on fire and we would just all die.
07:14It was something else. It was like a freaking war zone.
07:17So I was driving like this and holding the pit bull in the back so the pit bull wouldn't jump
07:22in the front and get the husky and the chihuahuas.
07:25So I was driving like that. I drove like this for 35 minutes.
07:33The dogs got along. I think they were just so stressed out.
07:36They just knew, okay, we better not make any trouble. Just comply.
07:40Comply with mom.
07:42As Nani and her dogs leave the Palisades, in Altadena, Rich Snyder faces danger that increases by the second.
07:50I got a cop going to get an engine, but who knows. Ember cast over here.
07:54But after 30 years battling blazes, he has friends who were equally skilled at fighting fires.
08:02I gave Rich a call and said, you know, do you need any help? And he said, yes. And I
08:07said, I'll be there.
08:07I arrived probably about 730.
08:11Two more retired firefighters arrive with flame retardants to spray on trees and shrubs.
08:17Let's back up and start here.
08:19And that's when the fire in the next block over in the backyard started.
08:23I don't want to lose my house, guys.
08:25Are you, uh, you already called my, you called my, obviously called dispatch.
08:28I called dispatch direct.
08:34My nephew showed up.
08:36Rich's nephew, with zero firefighting experience, drives in from nearby Pasadena.
08:41When I called Rich and asked him if he needed help, I had no idea what I was getting into.
08:46Everyone else is evacuating and I am headed up into the fire.
08:51And it had him started taping up my vents.
08:54So that no, no, uh, ember casts get underneath the house and catch the house on fire.
08:59He got my home.
09:00Wasn't able to get to the next because by the time he was finished,
09:04the backyard of my neighbor's house, two doors up, started on fire.
09:07Rich just told me to just grab the garden hose and put out anything that starts landing.
09:12Still back here, Matt?
09:14Okay, just keep it going.
09:17Just stand by, just stand by.
09:18Don't water unless you see something, okay?
09:21Neighbor jumped over the fence from the next block.
09:23Isaac said, what can I do?
09:25And I said, just start going in all the houses, get the garden hoses.
09:29We see embers, put them out, or just do what we can.
09:32Does she have sprinklers that can be run outside?
09:35No, that's not going to do any good anyway.
09:38All we were going to be able to do is not firefight.
09:41You cannot fight a wildfire with a garden hose.
09:43But if an ember starts and a little fire starts, you put it out before it becomes a big fire.
09:50The telephone pulled three doors up that caught fire.
09:53I had never seen anything like that in my life.
09:55God dang it.
09:58And in these winds, as soon as that fire started, I knew we're going to lose my house.
10:03We're going to lose my street.
10:04Please help the winds die down.
10:06Help us save our homes.
10:10Most importantly, save us, Lord.
10:18The Palisades and Eaton Fires are separate nightmare events.
10:23But their speed and ferocity are best explained by what they have in common.
10:28We had two wet, rainy seasons.
10:31Lots of fuel growth.
10:32And now we've got vegetation that was thicker, particularly the flashy fuels.
10:38More vegetation that was stressed because of the drought.
10:42So you had all this foliage that is just baking in the sun for months and months.
10:46And on top of that, you had this giant windstorm.
10:49With all these conditions, I think it doesn't take a rocket scientist to really figure out that
10:53what could occur could be unprecedented.
10:58Bro, we gotta go!
11:00The height of the brush was unbelievable.
11:03And I'd always sort of looked at the valley topography.
11:06If the conditions came, there would be nothing that could stop this.
11:10Because the brush goes right up to the properties.
11:12It happened.
11:13It wasn't a surprise.
11:15When you add these winds, it's going to blow right into some of these neighborhoods.
11:19And once it hits those neighborhoods, you're going to have what happened in paradise a few years ago.
11:24You're going to have what happened in Santa Rosa in Northern California.
11:27And yeah, it's going to happen again.
11:30Homes are burning everywhere.
11:32They're everywhere.
11:34You don't have to be in a wildland area for this to be a problem.
11:37Now that seems like blowing the whistle and saying, hey, everyone, the world's going to burn down.
11:42We saw Lahaina.
11:45How many people thought that Lahaina was going to burn to the ground?
11:50Coast to coast, America has been hit hard by dozens of recent megafires.
11:55This pattern is being repeated all over the globe.
11:59The deadliest wildfires in Chile's history recently killed more than 100 people.
12:06When you have the interface of communities, urban setting next to a wildfire area, that is a collision of disaster.
12:19In Australia, a swarm of wildfires burned more than 207 million acres.
12:26In Canada, smoke from record-breaking wildfires impacted the health of nearly 350 million people in Europe, Canada and the
12:36United States.
12:38Portugal and Spain are now under siege by over 1,000 wildfires per year.
12:43We're all potentially threatened.
12:46This can happen again without even there being a mountain fire.
12:51It can happen in a residential neighborhood.
12:53Just a windstorm and a spark from a power line.
12:56I think this gave us a taste of what could be coming in the future.
13:04Okay, I'm being asked to leave.
13:06That's an inferno.
13:08That's an inferno.
13:10Okay.
13:11The combined Palisades and Eaton fires are the costliest megafire in history.
13:18Just one month before the record-breaking Los Angeles fires, 32-year-old Malibu surfer Alec Gellis had his own
13:27close encounter with wildfire.
13:29I'm in the community of Sarah Retreat, which is right behind the Malibu Country Mart.
13:33Not many people know about it.
13:34It's a hidden gem.
13:35And it was ground zero for the Franklin fire.
13:38We ain't gonna lose this f***ing hell!
13:40During the Franklin fire, videos of Alec helping save the homes of Hollywood legends Dick Van Dyke and Patrick Dempsey
13:48went viral.
13:49The ember will land in the crown of the palm tree, where it's a moss nest.
13:54It's super flammable.
13:55And then it shoots sparks, embers everywhere.
13:58Bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop!
14:00They'll land on a lawn, they'll land in a bush, they'll land on a roof.
14:03But if you're there with your hose and you can spray it down, you can save a whole neighborhood.
14:08In total, just 20 buildings were lost to the Franklin fire.
14:13January 7th, 2025 gives Alec a bad feeling of deja vu.
14:19It's like a month since the Franklin fire.
14:22This Palisades fire is a whole other beast.
14:25The winds are twice as fast, it's moving 10 times faster.
14:29I go to my girlfriend at the Times house, monitoring the fire from that vantage point.
14:34The wind's picking up, but it's like, you know, you're in Malibu, the Palisades is 15 miles away.
14:40You're thinking, how could the fire go all the way down PCH and get to Malibu?
14:46PCH is Pacific Coast Highway, one of the most iconic coast roads in the world.
14:52I'm going every once in a while, driving down PCH, coming back, checking where the fire is.
14:58There's firefighters and police driving around into cul-de-sacs, telling people they're going to die and they need to
15:04evacuate now.
15:05There's cars trying to evacuate, people parking in the middle of the street, abandoning their cars, bulldozers, literally bulldozing cars
15:12out of the road.
15:13It's like a zombie apocalypse.
15:18Halfway between Malibu and the Palisades Highlands lies Tuna Canyon and a small ranch owned by Nicholas Walker.
15:27We have a small farm. So when I hear life-threatening winds, then what I try to do in my
15:36own little world is our fire protocol.
15:40When I choose to live my nature, I have to adopt her principles because she will always win.
15:47My wife said, do you think we should move the animals? And I said, yes, let's start that protocol.
15:54But I never thought that it would come up to us that quickly.
15:59The fast-moving fire forces heartbreaking decisions.
16:04We couldn't load the llamas because the fire was too quick.
16:08We couldn't load the apacas, the sheep, the goats.
16:12These are part of a family, you know.
16:14So those are the animals we left and I thought, I'm so sorry that I was not able to, you
16:22know, move you out of there.
16:26My black horse's name is Sovereignty. He was a rescue.
16:30He's what I call the ambassador of love. He's just perfect.
16:35We had to leave him because he did not want to load. You can't force load.
16:40He's 2,000 pounds and he has a lot of will and it just makes me sad.
16:48Just reliving it again.
16:56So I wetted down the pasture and I just said a prayer.
17:02Using water from tanks, Nicholas prepares high-powered spray systems that he hopes will save his neighborhood.
17:11Now out of danger, Nani Nam fears the possible loss of her home.
17:17When my mom, she knew she was going to die, she said, make this house like a womb.
17:24So when I'm gone, when you come inside this house, you'll be safe.
17:28You'll be secure and you'll be loved no matter what.
17:31Yeah.
17:32Thank you so much.
17:33I got you, no problem.
17:36We got to her friend's house. I dropped Nani off with the dogs.
17:39She was okay, just really exhausted.
17:42It was a miracle. I felt blessed. Just grateful. Just grateful that I was alive.
17:48Grateful to Caleb that he was there.
17:51She would have passed out from a smoke inhalation before she got halfway down the hill.
17:55You know, because you can't even see anything or got hit by a trash can.
17:57I believe with all my heart that my mom sent him there. My mom sent him there to save me.
18:07That was my only hope that day. That was my only hope. Yeah. That was my only hope.
18:16Above all to Dina, at Zorthian Ranch, Alan and his team are hoping for the best, but preparing for the
18:23worst.
18:25The fire, and every time it dropped in the valley, would burn its way a little higher.
18:30Drop down into the valley and just keep climbing a little higher.
18:33It was just breathing through the valley and making its way up and then coming over.
18:38One of the people who keeps his animals there decided to stay with me, and he brought four of his
18:43friends.
18:43I didn't ask them to, but they stayed up there with me.
18:46I knew it was at jeopardy. I knew all the consequences, and that's why I stood there because I wanted
18:50to see it through.
18:51And I had my responsibility there, which were the animals.
18:53We're moving goats. We're helping the lower ranch move the donkey.
18:58We didn't move the sheep and the cows because there were just so many.
19:02We were thinking, like, the fire is just going to burn everything around us if we keep this really moist.
19:07That was the idea, right?
19:09Alan had some gentlemen spraying some gel.
19:12They're spraying down this whole pasture.
19:15It was just too hot, and the wind was too fast.
19:20It was blowing so hard I had to brace myself to stand up.
19:24It was like a bellows that was something out of hell.
19:28Alan, he's not going to leave his ranch.
19:31You have to pry him from that to let it burn.
19:34Okay, here at the Zortin Ranch, getting later and later in the evening.
19:39He's coming up over the ridge this way around us.
19:43After soaking their home in the Palisades for three hours before evacuating, the Price family are finally taking a well
19:50-earned break.
19:51We sat the kids down and we felt like, okay, let's make things feel somewhat normal and have dinner.
19:57We had gotten the kids the things that were really important to us out.
20:02And so from that perspective, it was really time to just see what was going on and was there anything
20:07else that we could do.
20:09And when we turned on the news, we saw that the fire had already made it into town.
20:17We tried to check the ring system and we did not have power, so we were not able to see
20:24our home.
20:25We did have a fellow family member that had evacuated with us and they were able to check their ring
20:33cam.
20:34We saw the embers and the fire flying towards their home and then their power cut out.
20:41The ring went out and we never saw any more footage of their home.
20:44And David looked at me and he said, we have to go back.
20:55From his hilltop perch, Andy Tanglin can see the inferno spreading through Pacific Palisades.
21:02I did see a helicopter fly by. It was L.A. Fire Department and apparently it was the last aircraft
21:11to fly that night because they all were grounded due to high winds.
21:17That's the one that's going to start this whole valley on fire right there.
21:21I felt like we're now on our own. We had to do whatever we had to do to stay alive
21:29and save whatever we could save.
21:32It's coming over this hill too. To these houses over here.
21:37Yeah, it's a firefighter.
21:40Yeah, we got to water them down. Boy, the **** is coming.
21:46Then low water pressure becomes no water pressure.
21:53Once the water went out, we found some buckets and started using that to put out spot fire with water
22:01from the swimming pool, the fountains and the ponds.
22:05We kept doing laps around the home throughout the night.
22:10Oh my God.
22:11Andy watches helplessly as a mansion below them is obliterated.
22:16That house over there is gone.
22:18And there are big houses, you know, there are mansions.
22:21Neighbors house on fire.
22:23The home above Tom Hanks that burnt was actually an open air mansion.
22:30So it was an $83 million home that was up for sale.
22:35And then the embers from that house lit up the next house.
22:41The embers are going to the neighbor's house. Look at all the embers on the neighbor's house.
22:45It was literally nothing we could do but watch it and stay where we were at to maintain the home
22:52that we were protecting.
22:54That's the road to drive out right there. We can't drive out now. It's on fire.
22:58While Andy and Vince put out embers, the fire encircles them.
23:03Oh, the embers are up here now. Look, Vince.
23:06We had safe zones on the property that we would go to if it got bad.
23:11As the night went on, it just started to burn around us.
23:15The flames are right there. Look, look. Oh, Vince.
23:21Across Los Angeles, ordinary people never asked to be heroes. Brace for the fight of their life.
23:30This is not the kind of city lights we want to see. We shall see what happens.
23:40In 36 years as a firefighter, Rich Snyder never had to make a phone call like this.
23:46Is that Julie? Yes. Julie. We did everything. Everything.
23:53There's no fire engines. I am so sorry.
23:57It's heart-wrenching. Firefighters don't like to lose. And it's things that firefighters have to deal with.
24:03This time was different. Because it wasn't a stranger's house. It was Julie's house. And then Greg's house. Dave's house.
24:12Miss Lee's house.
24:13Eventually, it was going to be my house. So it was personal.
24:17I think it's going to hit Lee's house too. Hopefully, it doesn't go further than that. We're waiting on some
24:21fire engines. So sorry.
24:24When you're going out on strike teams or even for house fires, you already start with your plan before you
24:29even get there.
24:30You know what you're going to do before you get there.
24:32I couldn't come up with a plan. I had scenarios. And I ran them out.
24:37I've got this flippin' wind at 100 miles an hour and fire blowing down the street. There was no way
24:46to win. But we did everything we could.
24:55The fire jumped from the pole to one of his neighbors' garage.
24:58I told one of the other guys, go and see if you can get in the garage. Well, by the
25:04time he went up there, the garage was going.
25:06And that's when the fire just went out of control.
25:11Oh, my house. Son of a bitch.
25:16In Pacific Palisades, Tracy and David Price drive home through a town they barely recognize.
25:24We bobbed and weaved around the blockades. And if one street was closed, we kind of made a left and
25:31went down another street.
25:33It was just mayhem.
25:38The town was absolutely crazy. It was like driving into a war zone. There was people and vehicles and things
25:44were all over the place.
25:45But nobody had, nobody knew what they were doing.
25:51There was really no rhyme or reason to what any of the emergency crews were doing.
25:57We saw some homes in the Huntington Palisades area.
26:02Randomly, nothing would be burning around them.
26:05And then one of our friends, their home was completely engulfed in flames.
26:09They had a couple of fire trucks there trying to battle it, but it was futile.
26:13We actually saw a gentleman sitting in his driveway in a lawn chair.
26:20Drinking a beer and smoking a cigar. And he was looking up.
26:24Just watching the fire show.
26:27Like nothing was going on around him.
26:30We pulled up to the house and we went right back to where we were.
26:34We just kept watering and watering and watering with our backs to the wind, using the wind to blow the
26:39water where it needed to go.
26:41The winds were so strong at that point.
26:44Raining sheets of flames on us from the house behind us.
26:49And it wasn't just sort of on fire, it was engulfed.
26:52These embers were the size of charcoal briquettes.
26:56And they were flying through the air at 90 miles an hour.
27:00It was time to pack up and I had done all I could really do and I felt good.
27:05Whatever outcome was going to happen, I was good with it.
27:09We were able to make it back to the home where our family had evacuated.
27:15I remember getting into the shower and thinking, just please save my home, just please save my home, please save
27:23my home.
27:24Go do it, go help them. I'm going to keep embers here.
27:28In Altadena, Rich Snyder is locked into a desperate battle to save as many homes as possible.
27:35Hey Matt, I just want to make sure you're okay. I'm going to, we may be pulling out, send off.
27:41By this point, embers are blowing everywhere. He said, Matt, you okay?
27:45And I may not have been okay mentally, but physically I was going to stay there because I knew my
27:50Uncle Rich had my back.
27:52If you feel threatened, you just come out front and we'll go.
27:56I knew that if we left, there was going to, we were going to lose his house.
28:01So I didn't want to leave.
28:10And then I noticed up behind me that it had caught in a palm tree.
28:15Nothing is worse than a fire than when the palm fronds start taking off.
28:20Dead palms will catch on fire and then that kind of wind will send embers miles.
28:25Embers are going everywhere and I'm spraying the hose just trying to get as many as I can.
28:30And I see, you know, it was a different type of glow.
28:33It wasn't the glow from the fire. It was the glow from the lights of the fire engine.
28:39And I thought, oh, thank God, at least there's an engine here.
28:42It came from 35 miles away.
28:45It's a welcome, welcome sight to say you have an engine because now you have access to real water.
28:53It had three people on it for two house fires.
28:57But it was a start.
28:58And the thing that gave me the most comfort was the understanding that they knew our neighborhood was on fire.
29:05So more help could come.
29:08In Tuna Canyon, Nicholas Walker is surrounded by fire and completely on his own.
29:15I went back and forth to the three houses checking if all the water was good.
29:21Everything was on fire.
29:23It was apocalyptic.
29:26What took me completely off guard was the hundred mile per hour gusts.
29:34Usually flames are vertical.
29:36This was horizontal.
29:39It was always a blow torch being pushed.
29:42When you have that kind of wind, you can't really direct water.
29:46So what I did is I put the nozzle straight up and the wind puts it on the house.
29:54I call it facing your reptilian self.
29:58That you kind of like, okay.
30:01It's me, myself, God.
30:04I do believe in God.
30:05And I just prayed and just kept doing what I did.
30:09The fire headed to Malibu.
30:11Because from my house, I can see Malibu Surfrider's Beach.
30:15So it was heading that way.
30:18In Malibu, Alec Gellis hopes to save his girlfriend's hilltop home.
30:24The fire's coming.
30:25I'm breaking out the hoses.
30:27We're getting it soaked down, soaking down her house.
30:32It's so overwhelming.
30:35It's moving through neighborhoods where I know dozens of people.
30:39And houses are burning.
30:42Businesses are burning.
30:43The fire is now so close.
30:47She's freaking out.
30:48I have to take her to my place.
30:50Drop her off.
30:50I come back.
30:52The cops have now barricaded the road to get back.
30:55There's nothing this police officer is going to tell me
30:58that's going to keep me from going back to do what I can to save this house.
31:02He's like, you're f***ing crazy.
31:04You're f***ing crazy.
31:05The firefighters already evacuated the area.
31:08I'm like, yeah, bro.
31:10We're crazy.
31:11I'm saving my girl's house.
31:14Tom, do you need any more help up there where you are?
31:16Get out of here.
31:17Go, go, leave, leave.
31:19Now, Malibu.
31:20Get in your car.
31:21One of my neighbors who's elderly and has some mild cognitive issues going on.
31:25I knew he wasn't going to completely understand what I was saying.
31:28And he did keep wanting to go back into the house.
31:32Go, get out of here.
31:34I caught him coming out the front door.
31:35He just didn't understand the severity of it.
31:38Get in your car and leave.
31:40I went back out to the street and that neighbor was standing on the other side of the street watching
31:45the house burn.
31:46Get in your car and leave.
31:48I was not nice about it.
31:50And so he walked away and we went back on trying to protect the houses.
31:54Has he got this house yet?
31:56A little while later.
31:57OK, his garage is on fire.
31:58Oh, his house is on fire.
32:00And now his car is on.
32:02His car.
32:04He didn't leave.
32:05Go, go, go, go.
32:11Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
32:14In Altadena, Rich Snyder is doing his best to save homes when a new danger emerges.
32:21I looked at my neighbor's house and went, OK, his garage is on fire.
32:25Oh, his house is on fire.
32:27And now his car is on.
32:29His car.
32:30He didn't leave.
32:32And so I ran up to the door.
32:34Come here.
32:35Come here.
32:37Come here.
32:38Come here.
32:39Come with me.
32:40No, no.
32:41Your house is on fire.
32:42No.
32:43You have to come with me.
32:45Come with me.
32:45And he said no.
32:47No.
32:47And he started yelling.
32:48He just didn't understand.
32:49So I physically grabbed his sweatshirt and I was pulling him across his lawn.
32:53And the lawn, there's just fire and embers.
32:56And I'm yelling.
32:57I see a police officer and I started yelling, help, help.
33:00Hey, kid.
33:01Help, help.
33:04Hey.
33:04She couldn't hear me because of the, because of the wind.
33:07My garage is on fire.
33:09I know.
33:10There's nothing we can do.
33:13We need to get him out of here.
33:15Hey, wait.
33:15I'll go.
33:16I'll get in my car.
33:18I need the closest vehicle.
33:20I need the closest vehicle and put him in it and take him out.
33:22Let's get him in your house.
33:23Well, wait, Richard.
33:24Can I get in my car and go?
33:25No.
33:25Your car is on fire.
33:27No.
33:27Let's get a car and get him out of here.
33:29Put him in our van and drive him out.
33:32Get him in the van and get him out of here.
33:36You have to.
33:37Get him out of here.
33:38All right.
33:39Put him in the front seat of the van and drive him away.
33:41Okay, copy that.
33:42I'm driving.
33:43I'm living in my home.
33:45I know.
33:45I told you a while ago that we had to get out.
33:47Put it out.
33:48Put it out.
33:50It's okay.
33:50What's that?
33:51Put the garage yard.
33:52Here comes the fire engine.
33:53Here comes the fire engine.
33:55You find the vehicle, throw him in the vehicle.
33:57One of the other firefighters kept, kept him from going back in.
34:07Eventually his house was destroyed.
34:11In the Santa Monica Mountains, on a hilltop overlooking Pacific Palisades, the long night continues for Andy Tangelin and his
34:19buddy Vince.
34:21There goes the gate.
34:22The gate is on fire.
34:23If you've ever seen a green hedges burn, it's literally like a flare.
34:34Holy shit.
34:41I love that thing.
34:43The vehicle is so epic.
34:44Good.
34:45The worst is the wood chip mulch.
34:48Don't put wood chip mulch on your house or property because it's a fire starter.
34:54You can't run with a five-gallon bucket of water.
34:57It's so heavy.
34:58Our legs are gone.
35:00You know, we just, we're running on adrenaline all night.
35:02That's what kept us going.
35:04So we literally was like a team.
35:07There we go.
35:08I got them out.
35:09In Altadena, the flames finally reach Zorthian Ranch.
35:15I think it was about 3 a.m.
35:17Flames come down that ridge.
35:20That's coming real close here.
35:23Then big flashes of light and I thought our house that's on that ridge is certainly gone.
35:30And then we watched it envelop our lower property.
35:34It came up the canyon very quickly.
35:38That's just on the side of the ridge there.
35:40Oh boy.
35:42Lord help us.
35:44We were putting fire retardant on everything that we could.
35:47Pulling hoses.
35:47It was dark.
35:48It was nasty.
35:49It was windy.
35:50And it was everywhere.
35:52Yeah, this is not looking real good here.
35:55I started pushing a lot of sheep and moving sheep here and there.
36:00And Alan always had in his mind, where would be the safest place?
36:03In the center of that corral.
36:05It's just sand.
36:06That's the safest place.
36:08We had two cows and we had a number of goats and sheep.
36:12And those we left in the corral out in the middle of the upper ranch.
36:17About that time we noticed that the water was shut off from the water company.
36:23So we had no water.
36:25We did have a pool pump.
36:26So we were able to get water from our pool and attach it to a fire hose.
36:31And we were able to fight that fire and stop it from hitting this one house we had under construction.
36:36It was burning the whole canyon in front of us, but it wasn't hitting the house.
36:40The hose wouldn't reach where I was starting to see little fires.
36:43I didn't have enough hose.
36:45And then there was this blue plastic hose that I thought I could connect it.
36:48And I'm trying to connect it with the water running.
36:51And then the water's getting all over me.
36:52In the meantime, the little fires are turning into bigger fires.
36:56And, you know, I was able to get some water on it, but it was just not enough.
37:01And then the water did stop from the pool.
37:04I believe that the pool pump stopped working because the hose burned.
37:07So there was no way I could stop the flames at that point.
37:13And they were getting kind of concerned that it was going to be too dangerous to stay up there.
37:18Now I'm forcing everybody to go.
37:20And there's one guy, Thomas, who stayed up there.
37:24Thomas did not leave.
37:25I'm here. Everyone's just about to go down and I'm looking up ahead and counting after it passes.
37:33So wishing everybody all good things. Peace.
37:37I knew what I was doing no matter what.
37:40I was literally giving them notice.
37:42Like, I'm of sound mind. I know what I'm doing.
37:45Don't be concerned for me. You go away.
37:47I've already made arrangements. I'll be in the corral with the animals.
37:52I got my sheep. We didn't get these ones evacuated.
37:56We went down the road and left.
37:59I didn't stay in the corral because I'm an animal activist.
38:04I stood in the corral because I know those animals.
38:08I cared for them every day, like giving water and picking up their poop.
38:14I'll be under the bin here in a sleeping bag.
38:19I got my water hose here.
38:21So I'll hang out as long as I can to protect these real guys.
38:25And see what happens. Hopefully it just blows over.
38:27I'm grateful the will's in place.
38:29You know what I mean?
38:36I'm going across the street from my uncle's house.
38:42Three doors down.
38:44With the house down, you can still kind of see the blaze.
38:48We're lucky to have trucks on the street.
38:51I'll be climbing.
38:53Retired fire chief Steve Heidorf spots a new danger in the home of Rich's next-door neighbor.
39:00You can just see the embers coming up against the house.
39:03And you know you're getting ember intrusion into the attic.
39:07Matt, watch for embers getting inside here.
39:10Keep an eye there and behind the garage.
39:11A little fire's starting.
39:12But Steve has an even more pressing concern.
39:16I called my wife and she explained to me that they were getting evacuated.
39:20And could I please come home very, very quickly?
39:23The fire guys stayed as long as they could until two of them got phone calls.
39:27They had to evacuate their homes.
39:28So they had to leave.
39:31So I went up to the Pasadena engine.
39:33And I know those guys.
39:34I said, I need a pipe pole.
39:36And he opened the cabinet.
39:37I grabbed a pipe pole.
39:39A pipe pole is what they use for tearing down ceilings, putting holes in ceilings.
39:43I yelled for my nephew.
39:45We met at the front door.
39:46And he kicks the door open.
39:48And it's just complete.
39:49It's pitch black in there.
39:50I see my neighbor's house for the first time.
39:52He just moved in six months earlier.
39:55He puts a hole in the ceiling.
39:57And he's like, go grab that hose that's outside.
39:59I took the hose.
40:00I opened up the nozzle.
40:01Started squirting water into the attic.
40:03And told my nephew.
40:04Go into the kitchen and start putting some holes in that ceiling.
40:07He's not a firefighter.
40:08He's my nephew.
40:09He started pulling.
40:11And this fire's rolling in the attic.
40:13And I started hitting it with the hose.
40:14I come back out from the kitchen.
40:16He said, Matt, we just saved this house.
40:23We put on an attic fire.
40:25And saved my neighbor's house.
40:27It felt so gratifying.
40:28I was like, Rich, I think I missed my calling.
40:30And he says, Matt, you were gassed after two minutes.
40:35I was wearing a baseball hat, tennis shoes and jeans.
40:38So was my nephew.
40:40And in hindsight, it was a really stupid thing to do.
40:43Now, I did it based on instinct and experience.
40:49But I also did it with adrenaline and seeing houses burned down.
40:56I didn't want to see another house burned down.
41:00We didn't have a full strike team of engines until about 3 o'clock in the morning.
41:06And they were from Bakersfield, Big Bear.
41:10So they had come from a long way.
41:12That was the first time when we kind of looked around and it's going to be okay.
41:20In Malibu, the Palisades fire closes in on Alec Gellis in the home of his girlfriend.
41:26I've never seen wind this strong.
41:29It seemed like it was unstoppable.
41:31We spent two hours soaking the house down, drenching it.
41:35Ten minutes later, it's dry.
41:37It's like a storm of embers, like hornets that are on fire stinging me.
41:43We weren't prepared with the respirators.
41:45All I had was the N95.
41:46I had some goggles.
41:48I had some glasses.
41:49I had a hat.
41:50And I'm putting out the fires.
41:52Every single direction I look is fire.
41:56It's like the atmosphere is on fire.
41:58It's like another planet.
41:59It's like I'm on a fire planet.
42:01There's fire up against the house.
42:03What am I going to do?
42:05In the Xorthian Ranch corral, Thomas has retreated to his makeshift shelter, surrounded by animals and flames.
42:14I did get under a cast iron bathtub with a sleeping bag and a pillow.
42:17I got myself under this container, but it was cracked open.
42:20I was able to speak to them.
42:21Okay, I'm in my little container here.
42:24In my bathtub, it looks like the flames are going across there.
42:32The sparks are flying in.
42:36And it's like you're in a coffin.
42:38But hopefully it passes soon.
42:40The whole key to this was having the bull hear my voice and let him know that everything's okay.
42:48Everything's okay.
42:49So as long as the bull stayed calm through just resonating, no matter what's going on, I knew we were
42:56going to be okay.
42:58I was grateful that I was still in the game.
43:02Because I was looking at death in that barrel.
43:05Very crazy.
43:08I hope this passes soon.
43:10It's getting pretty fast and furious.
43:14Hey, Shepard going down with his flock.
43:16I jumped out of that barrel and that's when I got my senses about me.
43:21But yeah, there goes the gift shop.
43:25Just as long as we keep the fire away from us.
43:28I was in a bathtub under there.
43:29Yeah, a little smokey.
43:31Then it made more sense to get here.
43:33Some of these guys got a little bit of burns on the back.
43:38When the fiery embers hit the sheep's wool, it would start like this little smoldering red little inferno on them.
43:47And I would go back and douse them out because I just, that was the thing to do.
43:52And then you got this bull and they're just like looking at the whole thing and everyone's crowded around them.
43:56And I knew the meaning of what it meant for me to be alive.
44:00Here's the sound of my voice guys.
44:02We're good.
44:02We're all gonna get through it, okay?
44:05Right here with you.
44:06It's almost like, is that all you got?
44:08You know, like one of those moments.
44:11Yep.
44:12We're holding tight.
44:14There's a whole lot of stuff going up right now.
44:18Thomas makes a heroic last stand.
44:21In a few short hours, hundreds of Altadena residents will do the same.
44:26This is the Sheriff's Department.
44:28The fire is coming.
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