Woolsey Fire

It's crazy, right? And, of course, the last few days we had rain, which was amazing.

But— Yeah, we were a product of the Woolsey Fire.

I lost my studio and about 100 guitars.

And I pulled out six that day.

How did you get it done so fast?

Well...

We were in the Woolsey Fire, not the Pacific Palisades Fire, which was only last year, right? And the Woolsey Fire was a number of years ago.

And somebody that's in the area called us up shortly after we lost the house.

There's nobody here when there's no resources.

So, Woolsey Fire, there was nobody here.

You know, because it started everywhere else.

Palisades Fire, nobody here.

Casey is one of the most experienced people in the nation on how to do local recovery.

She has done several of them now in Malibu from the Woolsey Fire on to many different disasters that they've had.

And she's one of the people that I always look to when I want to know how to best serve children and youth after a disaster.

And the third one is Lauren Sandidge.

And since then have been helping families from that fire recover.

It takes years and years.

We're still case managing Woolsey Fire Survivor.

You are? Absolutely.

Because you look at what's really the value of the property that you lost.

And if you're going to rebuild it, how does my insurance cover it? If my insurance won't cover it, where am I going to get the extra money? Which, by the way, you take a look at the Woolsey fire versus this fire.

The insurance companies were quick to hand out checks.

For those of you who remember the Woolsey Fire, they had centers set up all around town where they were writing checks on the spot down at Ralph's and other places.

I remember when we got back into our house after the Woolsey Fire, it was actually insurance adjusters walking back with people to go to their homes and check them out and writing checks on the spot.

Fast forward to today, it ain't happening that way.

Their reserves are down.

It is protection of

But I approached this as a longtime congressional staffer, spent a little bit of time working in the Sacramento, California legislature as well.

And As I started working on these issues, I started digging into wildfire after the Woolsey Fire hit in the Santa Monica Mountains.

So I grew up with fire in Topanga Canyon, vivid early memories of fleeing Malibu fires in the early 90s with my parents.

But I dug into the policy aspect of it after I was working for a state senator and the Woolsey Fire burned through the Santa Monica Mountains in a way that was far different than any fire had ever burned through those mountains, at least since humans have settled.

The fire went down multiple segments of the canyons at once, instead of just going down one canyon like they typically do.

And then the fear is usually the wind coming at night and pushing it right back up another ravine.

And also...

California gave $369, I'm sorry, $369 million in federal aids that were supposed to go to fire victims of the Woolsey fire up in Ventura County.

And instead, the money went to developers who were building low-income housing.

And the people whose homes were burned down didn't get anything.

It was supposed to go to the fire victims.

And instead, it went to low-income housing developers.

This is the 2018 Woolsey Fire.

And people who are still... living in difficult circumstances are really livid about what's going on because just sounds like the state stole the money.

Uh, it's not a lot of, not a lot of residences in that area, though it's not far to get to the residences if the winds really kick up and the embers are flying everywhere.

Uh, but this is an area they're very nervous about because, hey, uh, they had the Woolsey Fire here several years ago, which we covered.

A number of people lost their lives, you know, billions of dollars in damage as well.

Uh, lawsuits.

There aren't a lot of homes in this direct area.

Now, if the fire moves in the path of the Woolsey Fire in 2018, and that's what they're trying to stop it from doing, it could burn down the hill towards Malibu and get to a much more populated area.

Right.

And that's where the 100 or so homes that are under evacuation order right now, that's where those are.

That air support really took a lot of the heat out.

Um, they were able to stop it at Insul Canyon Road right here, which is the division mic that they're focusing on today.

That is critical because if it jumps this canyon and you start getting through Trancas Canyon, um, that's the pa- a similar path it took on the Woolsey Fire years ago, and that is somewhere we do not want to be.

There's a lot of residents and structures down here that we are protecting.