All language subtitles for Bring.Your.Own.Brigade.2021.1080p.WEBRip.x265-RARBG2_English

[BIRDS CHIRPING]

BRAD: I was just cleaning up
over here getting ready

to make more trestles
and stuff for the gutters.

This is our vegetable garden.

LUCY: Did anything survive?

Uh, yeah, vegetables are all
still pretty good.

We've still got some tomatoes,
and lots of good fresh lemons,

and the pomegranates,

and there's still
some squash growing.

This is the back deck.LUCY: Wow, paradise.

This is my part of the paradise.

LUCY: Oh wow, gorgeous.

This is nice, nice,
comfortable area.

[LAUGHS]

LUCY: I don't know what to say.I get that reaction

from a lot of people.

Come inside, I'll show you.

Would you like
to meet some people, Mom?

I don't care.Okay.

Your name again?LUCY: Lucy.

Lucy. Mom, this is Lucy.

LUCY: How you doing?

Oh, I'm doing just fine.

LUCY: How was the fire for you?

How was the fire to me?LUCY: Hmm.

Well, I'll clue you in.

Being blind,
I thought they had all left me.

And then Brad came in
and told me, he said,

"I'm sorry, Mom,
we're fighting a fire storm."

And I told him,

"I want you always to remember

the angels are always with you."

Do you know they had to keep
the fire, flap those wings,

keep that fire away.

Okay. I'll be outside
for a little bit, Mama.

I love you.I Love you.

We're still here,
we didn't burn up.

It was like it created
a big firestorm over here

and just for about
four or five minutes

it sucked the fire away from us.

Angels. [LAUGHS] It was angels.

Yup.

Would have both died
if that hadn't happened.

So someone was watching for us.

LUCY: Do-- Were you praying,
were you asking-- Were you--

who was it?I believe it was my wife.

Yeah, she died a few years ago
and I built this for her.

So...

wasn't gonna lose it.

LUCY: So sorry, I'm so happy,
I am so sorry.

Yeah, oh no, I'm happy.
I'm happy.

Over here, my mom's here
and safe and things are good.

Life could be a lot worse.

Most the people I know
lost everything.

["“WE HAVE IT ALL"” PLAYING]

♪ There was fire around us
So I should have known why ♪

♪ The touch of his hands
Were as cold as his eyes ♪

♪ So don't you tell me
We weren't hypnotized ♪

♪ Whoa, oho

♪ The print was so small
I didn't understand ♪

♪ He cut our thumbs and placed
A feather in our hands ♪

♪ Told us we would see

♪ All our dreams
And plans unfold ♪

♪ Ohho

♪ Our hearts we have sold

♪ For diamonds and gold

♪ But hey, baby

♪ Take a look we have it all

LUCY: The world is waking up
to the hellish realization

that all over this planet
wildfires are burning us alive.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

♪ But haven't you heard

♪ Hearts turn to dirt

♪ Along with the rest
Of your body ♪

♪ It's all claimed
By the earth ♪

MALE VOICE: ♪ It will fade
And it will wither ♪

♪ But gold, it will never

♪ And hey, baby

♪ Don't you know
Diamonds are forever ♪

LUCY: My obsession
with wildfire began

when I first moved
to California.

I was confused,
"Why is the hillside on fire?"

I couldn't believe that people
just kept on driving.

I am from London and the last
big fire we had there

was the Great Fire of London
in 1666.

I thought fire was
a medieval problem,

not a modern one.[HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRRING]

[PANTING][INDISTINCT CHATTER]

LUCY: Then the biggest fire
in California history

came along in 2017

and I thought, "All right,

somebody's got to make a film
about this one."

But I'd only just gotten started

when there was another
even bigger one.

What was going on?

To hell with an individual fire.

I vowed not to stop
until I got all the way

to the bottom of why these fires
keep on happening

and that's why we came
to be embedded

with firefighters
on what turned out to be

the deadliest day for fires
ever in California.

MAEVE: I mean, fucking hell.
It's hot.[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

MAEVE: Oh my God, oh my God,
oh my God.

Oh my God, oh my God,
oh my God, oh my God.

It's fucking heat,
it's the whole ridge,

it's the whole ridge.

LUCY: In one day,
the whole story

of why we're here now played out

and it has all the pieces.

Love, loss, liberty, capitalism,
class, and crime.

But it isn't the story
I expected to be telling.

I had expected heroism
and I found even more.

But what I hadn't expected
was hope.

Because we can do something
about this problem.

Fire is a natural phenomenon.

These wildfires,
however, are not.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

MATT: The wind was stronger
than normal.

It was just stronger.
Woke me up that morning.

I saw the fire...

time kind of stood still there
for a minute.

I took a quick picture of it.
It's 6:48 in the morning.

And then I gave my report
on conditions.

I knew it was gonna be
a bad one.

We have our eyes
on the vegetation fire.

It's gonna be very difficult
to access

underneath
the transmission line.

But it's heading
in the direction

of towards Concow lake.

I go down the road
and I see a giant blowtorch

going across the canyon.

I went on the community
Facebook page

and just put down there,
"Evacuate, run for your life!"

OFFICER:

LARRY: I turned around
and looked at the window,

there was these
dark gray clouds.

My wife was in the front room
on the floor,

'cause her mother had spilled
a cup of coffee.

And she's trying to clean it up.
So we had to get out now.

I said, "You got three minutes
or we're gonna be dead."

And I couldn't see the hood
of my car,

the smoke was so thick,

I just shot in the middle
of the flames.

The neighbors were about
ten minutes behind me

and a tree had already fallen
across on that road.

They couldn't get out.

Dozens of people have died
in this fire.

Twelve of 'em were up here.
Two on this road.

Yeah.

MALE VOICE:

MALE VOICE 2:

MALE VOICE:

MALE VOICE 2:

ALLYN: There were 67 patients
in the hospital that day.

Evacuation warnings
didn't happen.

TAMARA: I went
to my patient's room

and I said, "We need to go now."
And she started looking around.

And I said, "No,
just grab your baby."

RACHELLE: But I still had
a catheter from surgery.

Two lines with bags.
I can't run. I can't even walk.

[RADIO BEEPING]OFFICER:

RACHELLE: There were
no ambulances available.

There was a little Nissan

and they lifted me up
and put me in the seat.

They put the IV bag
and stuff on the floor.

And then handed me the baby
in the front seat of the car.

[RADIO BEEPING]OFFICER 2:

ALLYN: As the last patients
were getting in,

fire's breaking out
on the campus.

MALE VOICE:
I am at Feather River Hospital.

There's fire down
on both sides here.

It's all blocked down here.
There's no way to go down here.

MARY: When I got to school,
one mother came in

and she really scared me.

She looked at me and she goes,
"Get these kids out of here.

It's bad." And so I started
pulling the kids out to the bus.

And you go to work and you think
you're gonna teach about bats.

That's how quickly
you're in a...[FINGER SNAPPING]

...life or death situation.

FRANK: You got 30 seconds
to get out of your house.

What are you gonna grab?Take my two guns

that I carry all the time
and put 'em in the basket

of my four-wheeler
and that was it.

I didn't even have
my ammunition, just the guns.

ROBERT: Tried the car
facing the right direction

loaded with belongings,
but the heat came so quickly,

so intensely,
I had to leave my car behind.

I decided to run
into the nearest swimming pool.

Create a buffer for myself.

I did a quick look behind me,
it's gone.

OPERATOR:

FEMALE VOICE:

OPERATOR:

FEMALE VOICE:

OPERATOR:

We were sleeping and then
I heard the neighbor and all.

And everything's black
likeWar of the Worlds.

It's like we really have
to leave now,

but my mom wouldn't come.

She didn't think it was
an official evacuation order

and these other people
and she's telling,

we didn't get orders either.

I just kinda panicked
like I can't convince her.

I drove out
and I was devastated,

I had everything I needed
except my mom.

LAUREN: Communications
were down.

Internet was down,
power was off.

No one knew how fast
and how furious

that fire was coming at us.

SEAN: It was a billion embers.

And every one of those embers
started a fire.

OPERATOR:FEMALE VOICE:

OPERATOR:

FEMALE VOICE 2:OPERATOR:

MALE VOICE:OPERATOR:

MALE VOICE:OPERATOR:

OPERATOR:FEMALE VOICE 3:

OPERATOR:

So I climb out of the pool
and there's a car.

Might be keys in the car.

There's people in the car,
"What are you doing?"

FEMALE VOICE: I can't see
in front of me.MALE VOICE: 1: I know.

They went, "We can't see."

"Well, I can see,
get the fuck over."

I was really jacked up by then

and then old guy walked out
of one of the condos.

I'm going, "Has nobody done
a door to door here?"

And it's about 40, 50 homes
over here and I'm going,

"Uh, okay", no one left behind
type of thing.

[SIREN BLARING]

JOE: So I drove by my street

and saw that my house
was destroyed.

Just went back to work.

BRAD: It was coming so fast
and so strong,

I got our little garden hose
in hand.

I don't know
how I could describe it,

it's like fighting an elephant
with a piece of spaghetti.

Felt like we had sunburn.

You know, you felt
like your face was gonna peel,

it was so hot.

MARY: We turn the corner

and we are immediately
already trapped in traffic

and they're already
fires all over the place.

The entire event
was one giant parking lot.

[TIRES SCREECHING]

MALE VOICE:: Go!FEMALE VOICE: Go!

MALE VOICE:

FEMALE VOICE:OPERATOR:

FEMALE VOICE:OPERATOR:

MALE VOICE 2:
Keep your window up, guys.

BRAD: There was people
trying to push each other

off the road to get out of here.
It was pandemonium.

MALE VOICE 2: Come on, people,
let's fuck out of here.[WOMAN 2 GRUNTS]

MALE VOICE 2: Time to effin go.

It's a full intersection
and all directions

were completely blocked
with traffic.

The fire was gonna impact
all those people.

OFFICER:

FEMALE VOICE: Oh fuck!

JOSH: Nobody could go anywhere.

Fire was burning
inside the cars.

People were just in fear,
in shock

and didn't know
what was going on.

So there's a huge feeling
of helplessness,

'cause the fire
is just kicking our ass.

REBECCA: I don't wanna die here.
I don't want to die.

LUCY: It's hard to believe that
the Camp Fire in Paradise

was only one of four major fires
in California that day.

In southern California,
the Woolsey Fire was taking off

and headed for Malibu.

REBECCA: Oh my God.
Please God, please. Oh my God.

LUCY: It was the opposite end
of the state.

The opposite end
of the political spectrum

and the opposite end
of the economic spectrum.

REBECCA: Please God, please.

LUCY: The median home price
in Paradise...[REBECCA GASPS]

...was around 200,000 dollars.

In Malibu,
it was over two million dollars.

Paradise tends to vote
Republican.

Malibu always votes Democrat.

But all our skin burns
just the same.

When you're in hell...REBECCA: Oh my God,
please God...

...you're in hell....oh my God.

Oh my God.
Please get me out of here.

Please God.

[HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRRING]

Air Attack Division
November Command.

PILOT: Okay, copy that. I'll try
to get the helicopter around.

Okay, I'll see you
at some point.

It's dangerous
I mean we're out...[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

...ahead of the fire
right now, right.

We've had firefighter fatalities
in this area,

because of the wind
shifting on you.

You're constantly on alert

trying to assess
what's going on.

It's a big Rubik's Cube
and you're just trying to solve

the puzzle and figure out
how to connect the dots

and put the fire out.

So there's our air tanker.

He's working on, dropping
retarding on my line.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER][AIRPLANE ENGINE WHIRRING]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[INDISTINCT CHATTER][SIREN BLARES]

MARSHALL: My dad was a colonel
in the marines.

And now he's captain
of the fire department.

He's also the mayor of Malibu.

My dad and I had set up
this fire system

where we have a big tank
in the backyard.

And so that morning, my dad
put his hand on my shoulder.

He's all in his fear gear
and he said, "Don't leave."

And then he had to go.
You know, he has duties,

so I was kinda like,
"Wait, stay here.

[CHUCKLES] We need you."

Today's the very last day
of the temporary workforce

for the Forest Service.
Everyone's getting
laid off today.

We don't have our workforce,
we don't have our hotshot crews.

Usually, I have superintendents
that are driving around with me

and we're going
into these canyons,

and getting up high,
and looking down,

and coming up with a plan.

And yet again,
two years in a row,

we're caught with our pants down
with no workforce

and an end of the season fire.

[HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRRING]

MAEVE: California just mobilized

a ton of our firefighters
up north

and then all of a sudden
everyone had to shift gears

and fight this fire
that was down here.

Either I send helicopters there
to save that one

or I work 'em through here
and that saves

the other 50 homes
on the way up.

You're left making
shitty decisions, you know,

that you don't wanna make.

MALE VOICE: No fire engines.
Fire everywhere.

Holy shit.

FEMALE VOICE:
There's no fire trucks up here.

Where's all the fire trucks?

MALE VOICE 2:

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

MALE VOICE 3: The wind's
picked up and there are embers.

Fires are starting left
and right.

CANDACE: They stopped me
and they said,
"We'll escort you.

And I said, "Why?"

Try and be nice.And they said,
"Fire on both sides.

It's really dangerous."
I would not evacuate.

The idea was I would be inside
and he would be outside.

As you can see
a 50,000 gallon pool

and I finally got
the pump working.

But there was so much material
in the pool, the siphon clogged.

THOR: We got a minute or two
over on this side

and shoveled dirt on it

and then the next one
would start.

There's no adrenaline going.
You're past adrenaline.

You're in survival win.

JOHN: It was like
a fire tornado.

The thing was like
400 feet tall.

Spinning. I never seen
anything like it.

FEMALE VOICE:
Let's get outta here.

This whole row,

it's sort of like
what you would see

in the Midwest after a tornado.

CRAIG: It pulled us off
with our feet towards it

and it was circulating debris
200 or 300 feet in the air

and I'm talking like pieces
of corrugated iron,

whole pieces of tree

like some kind of monster
or a demon.

I just felt my legs going.
You know, like I'm out, I'm out.

JEFFERSON: Your heart sinks
to a spot.

Thirty years
of mortgage payments

and five years
to build the place.

[SOBS] I'm sorry.

Watching the second floor fall
onto the first floor.

That seemed to be a heartbreak
for me.

There was like kind of a thing
around here that

the Point doesn't burn

and... [CHUCKLES]
...we were fucking wrong.

The big second wave
came through and I was like

this could be the end of it.

MALE VOICE: Dad, get back.
Let's go.

Get behind the fucking house.
Get behind the house!

MARSHALL:
I am a professional cyclist,

so I was prepared to run
for 15 hours straight.

But my legs were just shredded.

My friend looked at me
and he's like,

"We're surrounded by fire.

All your neighbor's houses
are on fire.

We need to leave."
He's like, "You're gonna die."

I heard my dad's words
in the back of my mind,

"Don't leave." He's like,

"If we lose the house,
we're fucked."

It was emotional,
I didn't really know

what to do,
I was like honor my dad

or listen to my friend
who's telling me I'm gonna die.

[CHUCKLES][MUSIC PLAYING]

SEAN: I started seeing people
coming down the Skyway

carrying children, dogs,
suitcases.

There were people who had burns
and I was just yelling at 'em.

"Just keep going down the hill.
Go into the Walgreen,

so I have firefighters
waiting for you."

I had told the guys we're gonna
use it as temporary refuge area

and whatever you do,

"Do not let that building
burn down."

[SIREN WAILING][INDISTINCT CHATTER]

SEAN: And to be honest,
I wasn't convinced

it was going to work.

It was just that
it was the only option we had.

Once I pull these guys
off protecting this building,

we're gonna go and start trying
to save all your homes.

I think we ended up with like
a hundred people in there

and the fire came,
and it came really hard.

[SIREN BLARING]

OFFICER:

SEAN: We had massive explosions
going on.

[EXPLOSION]

It shook the ground
you were standing on.

Everyone has ammunition
and it sounded like a war zone.

Grown men holding
their children's hands

began crying.

You go them and say,
"I know what you feel.

But you gotta cut it out
and you have to cut it out

right now,
because it's contagious."

MALE VOICE:MALE VOICE 2:

OPERATOR: Okay,
and he still can't get out?

MALE VOICE 2:

OPERATOR: Are you trapped?MALE VOICE:

OPERATOR: Okay, ma'am,

you need to get out
of the house.

FEMALE VOICE:

Please.

Oh my God.

JESSIE: And I've never heard
anybody scream like that before.

Looking back, you know
why they were screaming.

They're burning alive.

I saw people being burned alive
in their cars, trailers,

their motorcycles
laying on the ground.

Like just people fleeing
for their lives.

There was burned up bodies
in the traffic jam.

Skeletons.
That's all that was left.

FEMALE VOICE: Somebody, help![CAR HORN HONKING]

RACHELLE:
The window's hot and I'm hot.

The baby's hot. I dumped
a little water on him

and rubbed his head.
The driver's out of the car

and I called my dad and I said,

"Dad, I'm in a fire
and I can't get out.

There's people
getting out of their cars

and they're running.

And I can't run.

I can't even hardly feel
my legs.

I can't even stand up

and I've got this baby
on my lap.

And I don't know what to do.

What do I do? I don't wanna die!

[SOBBING]

When the driver got back
in the car, he said,

"If we have to get out
of the car and go,

what do you want me to do?"

And I said, "I just want you
to take the baby and run.

If you have to run,
just take him and go."

ALLYN: My car is being burned
and I saw the side-mirror

just starting to melt.

That's when I thought
like it's over.

I wrote my wife and said,
"I just want you guys to know

I did everything
I possibly could

to get out of this
to see you again

and that I love you."

I said, "There's fire on
both sides of the road.

The house next to me is on fire.

I'm not gonna make it.
Just pray with me.

Heavenly Father, please help us.

FEMALE VOICE:

ALLYN: Some of my colleagues
behind me,

their car stalled out,

'cause the oxygen
was literally being

cooked out of the air.

They ended up trying to walk
back up the road.

OPERATOR:

FEMALE VOICE:

JOE: I overheard
some radio traffic that a dozer

might be able to help
move some of the burning cars

and protect the people
stuck on the road.

The cars on left side
of the road

were engulfed in flames

and starting to explode
and threaten the vehicles

next to them.
I encountered the nurses

and law enforcement officers
on foot.

MALE VOICE:OFFICER:

They were incredibly panicked,
rightfully so.

At this point, everything
surrounding us was on fire.

Almost every vehicle
on that road

had people taking refuge in 'em.

A hundred cars, maybe more.

The looks on their faces,

they were sure
they were gonna die.

I've never seen that look
on anybody's face.

FEMALE VOICE: [SOBS] Oh my God.MALE VOICE:
It's all that's important.

JOE: The heat broke
the windows of my dozer

and I knew I was running
out of time.

And I was now
endangering myself.

I don't believe
I could've let myself stand back

and watch those vehicles
and people burn up.

I was perfectly willing
to move forward and risk myself

for those people.

Right around that time like

I hear this like kind of bang.[EXPLOSION]

[TIRES SCREECHING]

And this bulldozer had knocked
this truck almost the size

of mine like out of the way.

Like you're kicking over
a shoebox.

And I've got a path
like to turn around.

[CAR ENGINE REVVING]

[HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRRING]

I've never been so happy
to see a sunny sky. [LAUGHS]

MAEVE: I'm exhausted.

I've been out here for...

28, 29 hours, 30 hours,
something like that.

If you're sleeping
behind the curb

and meanwhile someone's house
is burning down.

This is why you don't take naps.

No.

There's a lot of horses
in there.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]Oh, I'm so sorry, horses.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I remember just like peeking
through this smudgy dark windows

out over the canyon

and I was just wondering
I was like,

"I think all of Malibu
burned down."

SAM: For about three days
we stayed up all night.

It was so anxious-ridden
and we knew the fire

was still so active.

We've been given the name
of the Point Dume Bombers.

The name of the little
surf crew down here.

We did save a lot of homes.

And to be completely honest
I have no fucking idea

how we pulled it off.

Paramedics didn't even
assess me.

Intensive care unit
three days.

I also got a hernia.

And they ended up
amputating the toe.

MAEVE: A lot of times,
people don't evacuate.

So we will spend two
or three days there

prepping their property
for a fire to come.

And then we come back today

and they died overnight
in the fire.

So two of those Indians made
friends with the people

which means I can't send them

to start mopping up,

because it'll be too much
of a mental fatigue

if I send them in there.
So I need to send them

somewhere else
and then get fresh people in...

to where the fatalities are,
so that they're not looking

at bodies of people
that they spoke with yesterday.

STACY: I mean, the first words
out of his mouth were,

"Everything is gone." [CHUCKLES]

I don't care, you know.
Everything is not gone.

He thought that he had failed us
you know.

As the father, as the protector.

But I can you tell today
for sure

with no doubt in my mind
a hundred percent

that I have the love
of my life standing next to me

and he is my hero today.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

FEMALE VOICE: Oh my God.

MALE VOICE: Oh.FEMALE VOICE: Can't believe it.

[LAUGHS]

I can't believe that!

This house,
my grandma and grandpa,

her mom and dad built.
And my grandpa made this sign.

"May all who enter enjoy
its warmth

and share our contiment."

Contentment.Contentment.

[LAUGHS][LAUGHS] Contentment.

Mom's getting all choked up, aw.

This house means a lot to her.[SNIFFLES] Everything.

And when we had to leave
and left him there,

I couldn't even think.

It's everything to have
my kids here

doing what I did
and what my dad did.

It's not just a house,
it's a home.

That's why we're like
not gonna let a fire take it.

[LAUGHS][LAUGHS]

This whole side of the canyon,
the whole thing was on fire.

And it was just skipping
down the hill

faster than you could run.

RICK: The fire behavior
up in the canyons

was you know, like peering
into Dante's Inferno

and when I came by and I saw
the house there it was like...

[SIGHS] Yes, this is great.

Did a great job.

LUCY: Dante's Inferno?

Yes, it was terrible.

I've seen a few fires like that,

but that was on a scale
that I hadn't seen before.

You know, I look and say,
"Oh, what if that whole canyon

went off. That would be
terrible, but they all went off

at the same time.

So the amount of energy
that was released

up in those canyons
was horrific.

It was horrific.
And if you're in the wrong place

at the wrong time,
you can die. Certainly.

And the fact that more people
didn't die in this

is very lucky.

And that's the success story
of this fire.

So that's my mayor side talking.
The evacuation effort worked.

Clear.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

[CAR ENGINE REVVING]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

MALE VOICE: What do you think?

I need just something...[MUSIC PLAYING]

[ENGINE STARTS]

SEAN: People were unable
to escape that fire

and it caught 'em
where they were.

Some were in their homes,
and some were outside,

and some were in their cars.

It was difficult.
[CLEARS THROAT] Very difficult.

SEAN: It's easy to motivate
firefighters to go fight a fire.

It's difficult to motivate them
to sift through the remains

of 18,000 buildings
to look for bones.

And that's what we were doing.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

CHRISTINA: This yellow tape
is where they found her

'cause they dug.

The couch would have been
that way, not this way.

I don't know.

They cross-confirmed the DNA
with my mom.

I didn't even get to say
that I loved her.

I blame myself about it.

I'm an only child
and she was my only family.

JAMIE: I moved to LA
five years ago

from New York as a widower.
As a fresh widower.

So the hardest thing to lose
is like a tall stack

of notebooks of remembrances
of my wife.

And then my father
just passed away,

so I had clothes that I really
looked forward to wearing

that were his.

So that's the stuff
that's difficult.

Everything I could replace,
books, furniture, clothes

really had no meaning.

And everything that had meaning
which is mem-- notes, photos,

keepsakes,
I could never replace.

MALE VOICE: The smoke
that so many complained about

was the last remnants
of my pets.

STREDWICK: I had a lot
of pictures that went back

few generations.

My mom's and grandmom's deaths,
lot of years.

And there were a lot
of the recipes.

THOR: I'm not sure
what happened.

But I'm finding there's
a new importance

to the little material things.

Objects and photographs,
they unlock memories.

It's a memory that comes back
out of the fog.

The keys to my memory
were my belongings.

But everything's gone.

I could be a fog person now.
One of the ones in the fog.

MALE VOICE: Didn't have a lot
of personal stuff,

but the watches I wanted,
they were my step-dad's.

He was a navy hero.

Had a silver star
and a purple heart.

Feel like I'm on an acid trip
that might not end.

How do you not end up homeless
which is almost a joke

at this point, because I am
technically homeless.

How do not let it drive you
down, down, down, down

to whatever spark
or semblance of a spark

that moves you forward
in the world

and brings opportunities,
and friends,

and love, and all that.

Just goes out
and you become embittered

and it-- and-- and that--
and it's-- it just doesn't seem

like it's a far jump
when stuff happens to you

and you really-- It hits hard.

[SIZZLING][INDISTINCT CHATTER]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

BRAD: There's a lot of people
with no place to go.

They're sleeping outside,
it's gonna start raining.

It's getting cold.

So I'm cleaning out--
this was--

this little middle room
was my storeroom.

My garage, everything
is getting cleaned out

and going out in the shop,
so can move some other people in

and give 'em a place to live
until they can rebuild.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

THOR: It's just wonderful to get
something hot, something cooked.

Well, these eggs are fantastic.

And I like the ketchup,
I'm a big fan of the ketchup.

It beats granola bars
hands down. [LAUGHS]

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]LUCY:

[DOGS BARKING]

[SOBBING]

FEMALE VOICE: I love you
so much, Brad.BRAD: I love you, too, baby.

FEMALE VOICE: I brought you
water, and food,
and fruit for Mawmaw.

I want my kisses.

Love you.Love you.

I told you can come
live with us.

Aww, thank you, Mawmaw.

[BREATHES HEAVILY]

That's my neighbor's house.

Their garage didn't make it.

They have their home.

Oh my God. [SOBS]

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

I was hoping that
this wouldn't be burnt so bad.

So this was my kids' bedrooms...

and then my bedroom
where the wall collapsed.

[SIGHS, SNIFFLES]

[MAN COUGHING]My daughter's bed. [SOBS]

All my kids' stuff.

[SNIFFLES] I mean
I know it's just stuff, but...

it was my stuff.
It was my memories.

[SOBS]

[CRIES]

BRAD:
I don't need coffee, bud.

I'm on--Are those regular cookies

or special cookies?Those are regular.

Okay.Those are not specials.

I have specials if you want one.Can I have some-- No, no, no.

I mean we've had the Tubbs Fire.
We have the Carr Fire.

You know, Lake County seems
like they can't get a break.

And it seems like every year
now they're on fire.

And what do we do--BRAD: Every other year Concow,

Yankee Hill.And what do we do different?

Even if we believe
that it's climate change,

we gotta do something about it.BRAD: Mm-hmm.

So let's just say I believe it,
which I don't.

But let's just say
I did for a brief second.

Even if you wanna go
with that explanation,

what do we do differently?Mm-hmm.

LUCY: It came as a shock
that the residents most affected

by the fires didn't connect them
with climate change.

Fire, and it happen every year,
so it has nothing do

with global warming.
That's just a hoax.

It's just people making money
off it, you know.

You can sit back, you can see
who makes money off it.

And--LUCY: Who does?

All the big shots are the ones
squawking about it,

you know, it's--

It's none of us people
down here, on the other end,

we ain't gettin' nothing
from it,

but yeah,
no that's just a hoax anyway.

You said you were from what,
New York?

LUCY: I am not from New York,
but what I think he means

is that
I'm not from around there.

And I am one of those people

who goes with the science
on climate change.

CHAR: Climate change is shifting
the environment.

We have deep drought, fast fire,
and hard rain,

and it's only
going to accelerate.

The western part
of the United States

is going through
this massive conversion

in terms of climate-driven
alterations of its environment.

The research is showing
that what we're doing

is converting forest
to grassland.

Grassland that over time
will become more desert.

And one way of thinking about it
is the Sonoran,

Chihuahuan deserts in Mexico
are moving across a border.

That it's normal
that it's emerging

actually is far more dangerous

than what we've seen
in the past.

The numbers themselves don't lie

if you look
at the trends of 'em.

And the trends
are really overwhelming.

Historically, the winds
were always there,

but the fuels
were not dried out.

Something is happening more
and more

is the rains have not arrived.

At a time of year,
when normally the fuels

would've been too wet
to get going.

Had nighttime temperatures go up
almost two degrees Fahrenheit.

And you make the most
of your progress

containing a fire at night.

And when you don't get that
recovery period at night,

that's a real recipe
for catastrophe.

STEPHEN: We're creating
a kind of fire age.

The fire equivalent
of an ice age.

For me, it fits into
a master narrative

that I have of ourselves
as fire creatures.

It had always been our problem
as a fire creature.

Our quest for fire, if you will,
to find more stuff to burn.

What we've done is find
a whole new world

of buried fossilized biomass.

And we're taking it out
of the geologic mass,

burning it, and releasing it
into the geologic future.

That has been enormously
powerful for us,

but that broke our relationship
with the living landscape.

'Cause this stuff,
it can't be absorbed

and so we are destroying
our habitat

with this kind of fire.

LUCY: I had made an assumption
that climate change

was the thing that was driving
these hellishly bad fires.

We've had these
record-breakingly hottest years

and these record-breakingly
biggest fires.

So it just correlated.

But it turns out
there's more to it.

Climate change in a lot of ways
is a distraction

from the issue of fire,
because Paradise was gonna burn

whether there was climate change
or not.

STEPHEN: Even if climate change
miraculously went back

to the 1960s level,

we would still have
a fire crisis.

Climate change is undoubtedly
aggravating fire problems.

It's a major factor,

it is a performance enhancer,
but it is not the only thing.

I'm sorry, I-- I'm sorry
to say this in a way,

because you get blamed
and climate changer denier

or you're soft denier,
that's not my intention.

But if you say climate change
is the only thing that matters,

then the only thing to fix it
is fixing climate change.

That's not gonna happen
for a long time.

I say that with sadness.

I've got grandkids,
but we don't just have to build

concrete bunkers
and wait it out.

We can work with this
and if we're lucky and good,

then we'll leave enough
for our grandkids

to be able to build
a different world out of.

LUCY: So this is the good news.

Climate change
and fire are separable.

This movie doesn't have to be
about something

that's going to get inevitably
worse and worse.

We can do something
to turn this around.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

LUCY: Now I hadn't been
the first European

to land in California.

That would be
Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo.

And it happened on
October 8th, 1542,

When his expedition sailed up
towards what's now Los Angeles.

And their first impression
was smoke.

There was fire everywhere.

And so they called
what's now Los Angeles,

the "Bahia de los Fumos",
the "Bay of Smokes".

History doesn't tell us
whether that was

a natural wildfire
or a fire deliberately set

by Native Americans,
whose practice it was

to intentionally set fires.

But we do know
that the Europeans left

and they didn't come back
for 150 years.

And when they did, they banned
those native burning practices.

And anyway, barely any of them
wanted to live there

until all that changed
one cold January morning

in 1848

when James Marshall discovered
gold in Sutters Mill

which is about a 100 miles
from Paradise.

And with that
the old American dream

of Puritan men and women
content to accumulate

a modest fortune was replaced

by the golden dream
of instant wealth.

One in a twinkling by audacity
and good luck.

[CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING]LUCY: By 1849,
thousands were pouring in

from around the world in search
of their golden dream.

But it wouldn't end with gold.

Hollywood would follow,
then aerospace,

NASA, Silicon Valley, wine,
surfing, punk rock,

the internet,
and the dot-com boom.

California was hot, hot, hot.

And if an occasional fire
did burn down some things,

well, so what?
Put that thing out.

Hire some firefighters
and buy some more AOL stock.

Yes, we'll be right there,
thank you.

LUCY: And then I learned about
another boom.

Sort of boring,
sort of inscrutable.

Sort of probably why
I hadn't thought of it before.

The timber boom. Bear with me.

ZEKE: In the early part
of the 20th century,

big companies from Minnesota
and Michigan,

that had made fortunes logging
all the Great North Woods.

They had run out of trees to cut

and so they built land empires
in California.

After the timber barons
had acquired

all the best timber land,

there was suddenly
a great interest

in protecting these investments

and these corporate earnings
basically

by getting the Forest Service
to put out all the fires.

STEPHEN: In 1910,
three and a quarter
million acres burned.

Seventy-eight firefighters
killed.

So they were determined
that it would never happen again

on their watch.

MALCOLM: And so starting
in 1910,

the Forest Services made it

its primary mission
to be able to put out wildfire.

They developed
the 10:00 a.m. policy

that meant that as soon
as you had an ignition,

the objective was to try
to put the fire out

before 10:00 a.m.
of the following day.

And that is what we call,
"fire suppression."

STEPHEN: And then the great
housing boom after World War II,

suddenly there's a huge demand
for timber.

You're creating
all kinds of slash.

You're starting to have
fire problems

and so a whole lot more
of fire protection

was necessary.[SIRENS BLARING]

ZEKE: So straight
to the 20th century,

we've been trying to put out
as many fires as we could.

We've got a narrative
that has been built for us

by the media that casts
the firefighters as heroes

and the suppression
as this kind of

noble combat operation.

And fires always cast
as the villain.

SMOKEY BEAR: Hello,
I am Smokey Bear.

Bambi's family lives here
in this forest, too.

It's their home.

But sometimes, people come here
and they get careless.

PETE: We've had
all this Bambi-fambi stuff

being put out to children,

you know that,
"Don't encroach on the forest.

Don't do anything. Fire is bad."

Remember, only you can prevent
forest fires.

HALSEY: So they've created

this huge fire
industrial complex

to address the whole problem,
because that's what we do.

The solution to fire has been
to attack, attack, attack

with these militaristic
strategies.

And it makes us feel good
and everyone's a hero.

But it's not working.

FEMALE VOICE: Look, Ashley,
at all the smoke.

MALE VOICE:
Look at the fire, Ashley.

FEMALE VOICE:
See the dark smoke.ASHLEY: Yeah.

LUCY: But we didn't seem to be
winning this war on fire.

In fact, the battles
kept coming

and right into town. [INDISTINCT CHATTER]

LUCY: This is Oakland in 1991
when 25 people died.

My God, I've never seen
anything like that?

LUCY: By 2020, the entire
western United States

was on fire at once.

The sky was red from Seattle
to San Diego

and it seemed like
the end times had come.

MALE VOICE: Looks like doomsday.

I mean you could tell something
is going horribly wrong.

ZEKE: Rather than look at this
as a war on fire,

we should call it
a war on nature,

because that's what it is.

STEPHEN: If we're at war
with fire,

three things are gonna happen.

We're gonna spend
a lot of money,

we're gonna take a lot
of casualties

and we're gonna lose.

MALCOLM: When we think about
these large fire events,

often say, "Oh my God,
it's an act of God.

There's nothing we really
could have done about something

with that kind of ferocity."
That's just not true.

There are a hundred years
of decisions that people made

to put out each one
of the small little fires.

REPORTER:
Fires are quickly located
before they have a chance

to spread over large areas.

TRINA: If we haven't burned
in a fire-adapted landscape

for years, you know
when fire comes along,

it's going to blow up,
it's going to be voracious.

I don't see this
as a natural disaster.

I see this as human error.

LUCY: Comparing photographs
makes it very clear.

You can see the changes.

You can see
what fire suppression has done.

Forests just didn't use to be
this thick.

PETE: In the past, it was more
of a savannah situation.

Bigger trees,
farther spaced apart.

There's more trees up there
than there's ever been.

There's too many trees up there.

Now you create a heat source
that you can't stop.

LUCY: And it's not just
the forests

of northern California
where the fuel loads

have drastically changed.

When we first came to Malibu,

of course,
there were no trees anywhere.

But people who move here think
they want to build

a little tropical paradise
in the desert.

People that aren't really paying
much attention.

SAM: There was so much fuel,
the eucalyptus trees,

The palm trees
that people planted,

they're matchsticks.

KRISTEN: 2020 was the biggest
fire season on record

in California. And thousands

of the ancient giant sequoia
perished in these fires.

And these are trees
that survive through hundreds

of wildfires in their lifetimes.

They are the quintessential
fire-adapted species,

so they have really thick bark.

Their cones are cue
to open with fire

and land
on that really rich seed bed

that is cleared of debris.

And what we're finding now
is more and more

of these ancients giants
are dying

as a result of the fire.

So clearly like, we are doing
something wrong.

LUCY: A month after these fires
in Paradise and Malibu,

the Trump Administration issued
an executive order mandating

a major increase in logging
as a solution to the fires.

Forest fires burn,
this isn't a new norm.

You know, it can be managed.

The only endangered species
happens to be a logger.

LUCY: But I was confused.

Hadn't we learnt that California
had been logged?

ZEKE: We had the Secretary
of Interior come out

and say that a lack
of active land management

was to blame for fires
like the Camp Fire.

As a geographer I can say
that the industrial timberland

that the Camp Fire burned across
on its way to Paradise

was managed about as intensely
as you can manage land.

We've had a ton of logging
in the area that was burned

by the Camp Fire
and it didn't save Paradise.

LUCY: So is it too much logging
or too little logging?

And could that have been
a factor in the Camp Fire?

There's their rail road
right there, Diamond Match.

They would cut down a tree
bigger than anything

you can see around here,
take it down there,

and make match matchsticks.

LUCY: That's exactly right.
Diamond Match was here.

It's literally made
of matchsticks this place.

Made of matchsticks!

Paradise started out
Diamond Match.

Diamond Match used to own
all the land around here

'til BiC put 'em
out of business.

That little lighter.

So they turned the land over
to Sierra Pacific.

LUCY: So I looked
at the satellite image

of the Camp Fire burning
after about four hours.

And I looked at how much
of that land was owned

by Sierra Pacific Industries.

And look...

it's a lot.

Sierra Pacific is owned
by one guy.

You know, this Red Emmerson.

He's the largest
private land owner

in the state of California.

LUCY: In fact, he's one
of the richest people
in the world,

but nobody seems
to have heard of him.

He's also
a huge Republican donor,

especially to members
of the agricultural committee

which oversees forestry.

He personally owns 1.9 percent
of California,

making him the third
largest land owner in the US

And it turns out
Sierra Pacific Industries

is very controversial.

For one thing,
because their practices involve

clear-cutting.

What we like to do is select
an area of about 16 acres,

and cut down all the trees,
and essentially, start over.

Really more of a restoration
to the original forest.

LUCY: But doesn't cutting down
all the trees

sound like the opposite
of an original forest?

I feel that forest
and fire ecology

is like opposite world.

What we're being told
by the logging industry is that

the more trees
you pull out of the forest,

the more
that's going to stop fires.

And the reality is
it's exactly the opposite.

ZEKE: The California Forest
Practice rules

require timber companies
to plant a lot of trees

when they clear-cut.

The result is that now we have
enormously thick forests

that we have to come and thin,

creating more
fire-prone conditions

in the woods by having slash,
and small branches,

and pine needles that have been
laying everywhere.

CHAD: And the logging
is spreading invasive grasses

like cheatgrass
which is incredibly combustible

and spreads fire very quickly,
and very intensely.

ZEKE: And we're
really subsidizing

their un-fire safe
land management,

because we pay
for all their fire suppression.

The public pays
for the air tankers

that come and drop.
They pay for the bulldozers.

They pay for the inmate crews

and it's not really
costing SPI...

anything at all.

STEPHEN: All of these
mammoth mega fires,

it was the debris left
from logging

that powered those fires.

Logging and fire
do different things.

Logging takes the big stuff
and leaves the little.

Fires burns the little
and leaves the big.

If you have a campfire

and it's starting to die down,
what do you do?

You throw in pine needles,
you throw in kindling,

you throw in
all the small stuff,

you throw in a big chunk
of green wood

and the fire's gonna go out.[MUSIC PLAYING]

LUCY: And those trucks
are serious on these roads, huh?

Well, they're limited on time.

They're trying to make
three trips a day

to the saw mills
in various locations.

And they don't have a lot
of patience for the tourists.

LUCY: Yeah.Yeah. Uh...

These guys are on
their second trip right now.

And that direction is where
the Camp Fire came from.

Uh, it's all
Sierra Pacific's ground.

It was an inferno in here.

We're now in the heart
of the Camp Fire

in an area that was heavily
post-fire logged

after a huge fire
that occurred in 2008.

LUCY: These trees
are all like eight feet tall.

I mean that's like, it's just--This is a tree plantation.

This is our stop. This is it.LUCY: Let's get out.

I'm like in shock.

Yeah, in fact, you can see

the distance between
the little horizontal branches.

Those are called--
Every place where you got

horizontal branches coming out,
those are called "whirls".

Each section between the whirls
is a year of growth.

So these trees
are seven years old,

they're eight years old.
They're all young trees.

That are densely packed, planted
after the post-fire logging.

Not only is it
very damaging ecologically,

but it also means
that fires tend to burn hotter.

And that's
a very dangerous situation

when you've got a town nearby.

LUCY: How much reporting
has it been on the Camp Fire?

And I'm not hearing
this story anywhere.

LUCY: I couldn't help
but stare at that area

that burned so quickly
in the first four hours

of the Camp Fire.

Because I was realizing
all that area marked in black

had burned
in the last major fire

that happened
ten years previously

and subsequently,
had been post-fire logged.

And so these areas
marked in purple,

they were all Sierra Pacific's
young tree plantations.

All dense trees
less than ten years old.

You get fire into
those young plantations.

They get incinerated,
in fact, vaporized

is probably
a more accurate word.

And that's because
all the crowns are interlocked

and they're really close
to the ground.

So when a fire comes through,

it immediately just torches up
into one

and then spreads through
the whole thing.

As it pressed in this ridge,
it was in Concow in 15 minutes.

I don't think, with any of us,
have ever experienced

a wildfire that quick.

CHAD: That's incredibly fast.

It's the fastest forest fire
in California.

Fires just wick through
those areas

and like these things
are matchsticks.

This is the story
about the Camp Fire.

These post-fire
logging operations

are making fires burn
faster and hotter.

I mean, I'm not sure
how you could be

more heavily logged
than what we're looking at here.

This is industrial forestry
at its kind of maximum.

And what we saw is fire burning
at its maximum.

PETE: One of my good friends
Richard Brown

you know,
passed away in this fire.

Red Emmerson is obviously
a very good businessman,

but these clear-cuts

are nothing more
than ignition points.

The fire spread through
this area right down there

toward Concow Lake
and the community of Concow,

where 12 people out of 300
were killed,

because the fire
just moved so fast

and there just wasn't time
to evacuate.

And then it kept going through
more post-fire logged areas

very, very rapidly
up over the ridge

and into Paradise

where far more people
were killed.

LUCY: Every fire
from the tiniest BiC flame

to the sun itself
doesn't want to go out.

It tries its hardest
to stay alive as do we all.

Standing up there looking down
over that whole area

which I'd traveled around
talking to so many people,

hearing their stories
of so much suffering,

so much trauma, so much loss,
so much death,

it was so clear
that all our disruptions

of this landscape
were benefiting the fires

and not us.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

CALIN: How do you not feel
like you failed?

I mean it's all on the ground.

I'm a firefighter

and this fire
just destroyed this town.

How do I live with that feeling
of, "Did you do enough?"

FIREMAN: And a lot of firemen
that saw a lot of bad things

that day that are questioning
whether or not

they want to continue
their career as firemen.

BRAD: Yes.So.

BRAD: A lot of death,
a lot of people burned up.

Yeah.A lot of ugly, a lot of ugly.

MALE VOICE: Yes.
We had a lot of regular patients

that we went to
on a regular basis to help

through the past
ten, 15, 20 years

and then going to those homes
and finding their remains.

That's probably the worst.

Officer: We don't really
get that time to process
and mourn,

because the fire
is still burning.

JASON: "I could've saved
more people,

could've saved that house.
I could've done more.

I could've done more,"
you question yourself.

MATT: When you roll the incident
through your head

right before bed,
when your brain takes over,

and start saying,

"What if the winds
went this way that day?

What if I could have done...",
you know your rational side

has to come in and say,
"You would have died

if you had tried that

or you would have just
killed your crew."

I'll be re-playing
for a long time.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

BRAD: You enjoyed
all the company, ma?

Oh yeah.

You need some Cheerios,
spaghetti?

Well, now then you hit it.You want spaghetti?

All right.
I'll get you some spaghetti.

Love you.

I sure love you, honey,
like with all of me.

There are 20 people living here.

From three before the fire.

The little trailer,
that was a donation.

Somebody said,
"Use that long as you want."

That one we bought cheap.
That one we bought cheap.

LUCY: How do you describe
what's going on here?

Small commune.

Small commune,
you know there's 20 of us.

I guess that qualifies.

LUCY: What do you--
What was that look for?

[LAUGHS] You know,
just that occasional, uh-oh.

LUCY: Why's that?I miss her.

I try not to think
about those things.

Think about
the depressing things,

this happens.

So I don't like
to think about it.

Stay on the other side.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

MALE VOICE: Okay, can you
please just give me
a moment here please.

And then we don't tone it down.

And find a direction,
so that we can move forward

this so that when the east end
of Malibu burns,

we can say, "We addressed it."

Because in the next couple
of years the east end of town

is gonna burn.[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

REVA: Hi, everybody.
I'm Reva Feldman.

I am the city manager.[AUDIENCE BOOING]

FEMALE VOICE: Oh, let her talk
a minute, geez.

I didn't start the fire

and I am not responsible
for putting out the fire,

so you're booing
is inappropriate.

That's why the fire department
is here.

They're here on my request
to answer these questions.

ED: Everybody wants to blame

somebody for their house
burning down.

Well, they'll look
for anything to blame.

This is gonna get wild.

MALE VOICE: Well,
my son was right there.

We saved our house. I didn't...I don't--

...see one firefighter
the entire time.

There were more children
fighting the fire

than there were firefighters
in Malibu park.

Well, I can tell you this--FEMALE VOICE: I wanna know

who was giving those orders

specifically.The-- yeah--

FEMALE VOICE: There are 19 homes
on my street

and the adjacent street
burned to the ground.

What policemen, what policemen?[AUDIENCE APPLAUDING]

Easy and everybody here--

MALE VOICE 2:
I came up here in 1978.

My engine alone saved
eight houses on Bush Drive.

You see a fire,
you go put it out.

What happened to that?[AUDIENCE APPLAUDING]

What happened to that?

[AUDIENCE CHEERING]

It kind of disappointing,
hurtful, frustrating

when you hear this stuff
and know that you know,

I haven't seen my family
in eight days.

We threw everything
in the world at this.

But when you have
a 150 square miles,

you're not gonna get
a fire engine at every house.

There's 3,700 badge
sworn personnel

in the fire department
for LA County

and there wasn't one person
at home.

FIREFIGHER: One of the stages
of grief is anger.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

We just have to let people
go through those stages

however they need to to grieve
the loss of their home.

In northern California,
they blamed the trees
and environmental community.

And then in southern California,

they blamed the firefighters
and the environmental community.

I remember after the Cedar Fire,

they were literally
throwing rocks at fire engines.

In truth, the people who live
in these areas,

they won't even pay the taxes
to have more firefighters.

After the catastrophic fires
in 2003,

there was measure on the ballot
to increase taxes

to pay for more firefighters
was voted down.

And many people don't realize
who fights fires.

Forty percent
of the firefighting force
are prisoners.

So California for years
has basically been using

slave labor
to fight these fires.

There's just
so many firefighters.

You can't have--

there's just no way
they can save these communities.

It's not physically possible.

You can't do it
with these monster storms

and I still don't think
the public understands that.

Point fingers
in other directions

other than yourself.

It's what they're all doing.

LUCY: It came out with the fires
in Paradise and Malibu

had been started
by electric companies.

LYNNIE: Everybody saying,
"Oh, PG and E.

We should sue PG and E."

Let me tell you
if it weren't for PG and E,

there would be no Paradise.

They're tasked
with an impossible job of mus--

moving huge amounts
of electricity

through wilderness areas.

And when it's already dry,
static electricity from anything

can start a fire.
[MIMICS STATIC] Anything.

LUCY: Like this
gender reveal party

in the Arizona suburb,

the blue smoke lets you know
that it's a boy

and his father was fined
eight million dollars

for starting
this 47,000 acre fire.

MALE VOICE: Start packing up!FEMALE VOICE: Huh?

MALE VOICE: Start packing up!

LUCY: So you're probably
thinking that that was the only

gender reveal party

that caused a major
multimillion-dollar fire.

But there's been another.
The El Dorado Fire.

And it killed a firefighter.

And in 2020, the record-breaking
mega fires were started by...

[THUNDER RUMBLES]

...dry lightning...

the weather,
who do you blame then?

With all talk about
the new normal,

I'm only realizing now

that the normal normal already
had a lot of fires.

Take Paradise.

In the 20 years
leading up to the Camp Fire,

there had been 13 major fires

and there've already been
two since,

including the 2020 Bear Fire
that burned

right up to the campfire scar
and killed 16.

BRAD: My mom lost her house
as a child.

When we were children,
we lost our house twice.

Since I've been an adult,
I've lost my house twice.

All to fire.

MIKE: You look at Malibu
and Paradise.

Both these areas burn
all the time.

There's nothing new here.

ED HERLIHY: A rush
in forest fire that menaces

the swank Hollywood colony
of Malibu.

LUCY: I found films about
Malibu burning in the 1940s,

the 1950s, the 1960s,
and the 1970s.

REPORTER: Strong winds
was blowing it southern.

The houses in the path
of the fire stood no chance.

MALE VOICE: It was like a roar.

I never heard anything
like that before.

It sounded almost
maybe, war-like.

Millions-of-dollars-worth
of houses burnt.

REPORTER: The approach
of the Los Angeles
Fire department now

is to prevent any fire
however small.

GLENN: Yeah, I'm wondering
if the '61 fire

was a one in a million chance
that couldn't happen again.

Or could it be that someday
when the Santa Ana is blowing

and the brush is tinder-dry,

the whole story
would be repeated.

LUCY: Well, 57 fires have burned
through Malibu

since he asked that question.

And it's not just Paradise
and Malibu.

The Tubbs Fire in California's
Wine Country in 2017 killed 22.

And everyone was so shocked

that it had happened
where it had.

But a fire with exactly
the same footprint

had burned in 1964.

And what we should be shocked at
is that it hadn't stopped

the construction
of thousands of homes

right in the line of fire.

HALSEY: I don't understand
why you can have

literally hundreds of people
dying and homes destroyed,

and we keep going back
to what we're doing.

Actually what we do
is we do more

of what we've always been doing.

LUCY: Twenty-two people
were killed

in the 2018 debris flow
caused by the Thomas Fire.

And the Thomas Fire
came through here pretty hard.

LUCY: And I found
a Woody Guthrie song
from the '60s

and a John McPhee article
from the '80s

that could have described
the exact same incident.

So when people move in,
doesn't anyone mention to them

how the previous residents
were killed?

I mean how many deaths
do we have to have?

How many communities,
how many thousands of houses

does it go before we even have
a serious discussion.

LUCY: So let's do it.

Let's have that
serious discussion.

Between 40 and 50 percent
of all the new housing

in California
in the last 20 years

is built
in hazardous fire areas.

HALSEY: There's this funny term
called "the WUI".

Stands for
Wildland Urban Interface.

And WUI all it is is like
where we live

next to wildland areas.

LYNNIE: And society is grown
so much, it's pushing us

more and more
on the fringes of these areas.

You're gonna see
more catastrophic fires.

You're gonna see
more dead people.

This is only the beginning.LUCY: How come?

'Cause there's a 100,000 towns
like Paradise.

Right within driving distance.

This community I live in,
if you drive around here,

you can look--
you wanna know what Paradise

looked like before the fire,
drive on out to Sierra.

Right up the hill here.

Five thousand homes
and there's only one way out.

There's a 100,000 people
in this county

that would have to evacuate.

What if we're sitting here
talking about 3,700 fatalities?

We were that close to having
that type of incident.

I think about that quite a bit.

I've been in every major fire
in the state since 1990

and you know what,
I've never been to a community

that had that much
meticulous planning.

We had planned for fires

and a fire very similar
to this one happened in 2008

and we didn't have
a real good system

for evacuation.
So we came up with a new plan.

The town was divided into zones
with all the lanes

going out of town.
We practiced that.

To empty this place out
as quick as we did, I was--

I was pretty happy
with how that came out.

The plan worked,
the plan worked well.

And it's because
we practiced it.

I don't see how they can call
wholesale fucking abandon

running, screaming
down the street

leaving your car behind
a success.

They should be thankful

the whole fucking town
didn't die.

What we didn't anticipate
is evacuating the entire town

all at once.

It is not possible to build
a roadway system

that will take
your entire population

all at the same time.
No city has that.

Clearly, evacuation
of 30,000 people

during a wind-driven forest fire
is impossible.

Even just planning an evacuation
gives people

this kinda false sense
of security

that it's actually possible.

All these places,
it's their wind tunnels.

They're very productive,
they grow lots of vegetation.

And then we go,
and we build a bunch of

little wood stick houses
and then we burn them

and people go, "Oh".

MIKE: Behind all this
is the lack of regional planning

to control development
into hazardous areas.

Even people who live
in developed neighborhoods

with green lawns not in sight
of any brush or chaparral

or forests at all.
Their neighborhoods can burn.

That's the new reality
and it frankly,

scares a lot of people to death
for good reason.

Could Los Angeles burn?

The urban fabric itself,
absolutely.

Easily imagine
a Laurel Canyon fire

that ended up on Hollywood
or Sunset Boulevard.

These areas
where fire's inevitable,

should be public lands.
They should be parks.

Back in the 1920s,
the most famous urban planners,

the Olmsted Brothers came to LA

and did this comprehensive study
and they argued that

people who want to live
in the mountains,

they should live essentially
in cabins.

And structures
of very little value

and not keep
great possessions there.

Because fire is inevitable.

LUCY: Imagine that.

Carefree little cabins
that you could just let burn,

but a hundred years on
it's clear

that we didn't go
in that direction.

[AUDIENCE APPLAUDING,
CHEERING ]

MALE VOICE: Kim Kardashian
addressed her
and Kanye's decision

to hire private firefighters
to protect their home

from the wildfires.[HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRRING]

We were fortunate enough
and I know that

not everyone has this luxury
available to them,

but we were able to get
private firefighters.

A company that you can hire.

They saved our home,
and you know,

that was such a blessing
that we were able to do that.

There's a private
for everything.[CHUCKLES]

Right, you can get a...But I do--

it's just like a--
it's an interesting issue

that you know,
as climate change is happening,

as these issues are coming up,

is it going to be the people
with money

that are able to protect
their stuff?

BYOB. Bring Your Own Brigade.

Some people are wealthy enough
to have their own brigades.

And it seems to be growing
more and more every year.

There's more and more trucks
we see.

I mean I've gone
to a couple fires.

We pull up to our houses

and there's five other trucks
on scene

and none of 'em are from
the county or from the city.

They're all private.

In some cases,
homeowners will be out saying,

"Hey, you know,
fire's in my backyard,

but that's where we got that."

If you're not on list,
the bad rap.

So that's kind of the difference
between us and them.

You know, we're going
to a specific house

to where they are going
to all the houses.

HALSEY: So you're wondering
why do we approve buildings,

and homes, and communities
in places that are dangerous.

And all I can say
it's fundamentally about money.

DAVE: Right now a County that's
approving a new subdivision

in the Wildland Urban Interface,

they don't bear any liability
for that decision.

But when the fire comes,
the cost of that decision

is borne by the insurer,
by the families themselves,

by federal and state
emergency responders.

So we have this disconnect
between who bears the cost

of this decision and who,
ultimately makes this decision.

And it's a problem.

DON: Following the fire,
a lot of insurance companies

started sending
non-renewal notices out.

Not even within
the fire footprint,

I mean just anybody within
the Wildland Urban Interface.

And it's not--
I know it's not just me, it's--

it's other land owners,
we were facing

that same problem.

LUCY: After these fires,
insurance companies

were dropping customers so fast
that the state had to impose

a moratorium, forcing insurers
to stay insuring homes from fire

through 2021.

But after that when these homes
are no longer insurable,

what's going to happen?

DAVE: That's the path
that we're on.

It's a march towards a future
of uninsurability

in the Wildland Urban Interface.

We've got into a place
in our own trajectory

as human beings
where we're so confident

in our ability to control nature
and natural events.

And so we've gotta be
a little bit less hubristic.

CHAR: It's the city who I think
oughta be held responsible.

Homes were okayed
by the planning commission

and the zoning board. It's not
the fire station's fault.

It's city hall's fault.

FIREFIGHTER:
I will tell you this.

We're gonna do all that we can
to help rebuild Malibu.

But we do have fire codes

and we have fire codes
for a reason.

Because in the past,
people have died, number one,

and it's for your safety.

Chief, we've got
3.6 million dollars
in the ground

that we can't sell,
we can't use,

we can't do anything on.

This is a disaster.

Who's going to put
something into action now,

so that we can build our home?

MALIBU COUNCIL MEMBER:
Is there any way
we could help our residents

get their homes rebuilt quicker?

ZEKE: I understand
that we need housing,

but to suspend all planning,
just so we can build

stuff faster,
that's fucking crazy.

We're just gonna burn
those houses up, you know

and we'll be doing this again
in 20 years.[SIREN WAILING]

CHAD: So we need to accept
that there's gonna be fire

and we need to understand that
the goal is to make sure that

when fire occurs,
not if but when,

that homes don't burn down.[SIRENS WAILING]

CHAD: What the science
is telling us

is that the only way
to protect homes

is to make the homes themselves
more fire-safe.

Most of the homes
that are burning

are not burning from
direct contact with flames.

They're burning from embers
that are floating on the winds.

STEPHEN: What you have
is a blizzard of sparks.

I think of it as a kind of
incendiary locust.

And you've got a million of 'em
swarming through this town

looking for some place
they can burn.

So if there are points
of vulnerability,

they are going to find 'em.

This thing was
a blazing inferno over here.

I was just sitting on the porch

smoking a cigarette,
watching it burn.

Poof.

I have five-eighths in sheetrock
and a inch of plaster on this.

These are baked enamel
steel frames.

And this is high pressure
sensitive glass,

just not quarter inch plate

it's three-eighths inch
heat-resisting glass.

I wasn't worried
about this house one bit.

There were two houses here.

This was a pyramid,
giant pyramid.

The pyramid just went...
[MIMICS COLLAPSING SOUND]

Over here.
Their dreams went up in smoke.

This is where the fire
came from.

You can see how close it came,
nothing to burn,

so the fire
just went that way.

Same on the other side.

These houses were
poorly designed.

Now let's have a mission house,
let's have a Tuscan villa,

that's what everybody wants now.

They forget about the eaves
and the little things

stick out that make it
a Tuscan villa.

That's the first thing
that goes.

It gets right up under the eave
and blows into the attic.

So that's why
these houses burn.

Basically, it's stupid houses.

CHAD: We gotta focus
on the homes.

Let me give you an example.

The La Tuna Fire of 2017,
this was a fire that was burning

as intensely as any fire
you can really imagine

and 1,400 homes
in the fire perimeter,

only five burned.

Why did only five burn
out of 1,400?

Reason is is that there were
annual requirements

to do defensible space.

Any time someone wants to do
a remodel of their house,

they say, "Sure, that's fine,
but now you're gonna have to

bring that old house up to date
with a fire safe code."

We have over 99 percent
home survival.

We should all stand up
and take notice of that.

JODY: In Paradise, in 2008
the Wildland Urban Interface

design standards
came into being.

Fifty-one percent
of the structures

built after 2008 survived.

Nine percent of the structures
built before 2008 survived.

And what that tells me is that
those building standards

make a difference.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

BARRY: Thank you mayor
and council members.

So this evening, we're gonna be
making a presentation

on recovery projects and ideas
for upgraded building standards.

We know what happened here.

Safety has to be
at the forefront

of every discussion we have.

The first thing has to do
with roof obstructions.

This is a pretty simple one.

It's important, because you do
have debris on your roofs here

and with embers coming down
they could ignite.

Gutters, we're saying
that they're prohibited

except over entries
and to prevent erosion.

And that gives you an awful lot
of flexibility.

Defensible space
and related to that

is a five-foot setback
around any structure.

That 5 feet of fire break

is the most important area
around your home.

The council isn't taking
any action tonight.

We want to hear what you have
to say about these ideas.

Green, you put on things
you like.[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

Red, you put on things
you don't like.

It'll help us to know
what you think.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

JIM:

Well, I am a believer
in the first five feet.

That is what research has shown
to be one of the most,

if not the most critical factor
in whether a home burns or not.

All right. All right.

FEMALE VOICE:

I thought that would be popular,

because leaves do stick up there
in the gutters.

They are a fire hazard
and it costs nothing

not to have them.

LUCY: It was less than a year
before this

when 85 people were killed
in this town

and there's already been that
other fire that killed 16.

And there'll be more
fires soon.

But the proven safety measures,
they were not proving popular.

This town is going to be
so fucking expensive

to live in when this is done.

You're not gonna be able
to build anything here

that'll cost less than
half a million dollars.

You're in the forest.

If the forest catches on fire,
my ass is sorry you're burning.

[WHIRRING]

BRAD: You want a cookie?

Always good, ma.
Here you go. Bite.

That'll make you feel better
in a little bit, Mama.

Okay.All right.

The pot cookies and stuff
they help you better

than anything, huh?That's right.

He was gonna put me on
some kind of a pill

and I says, "Doctor Alfteen,
you know I don't take those."

He says, "Well, have you ever
tried marijuana?"

He says, "You know,
it might do you some good."

When I told Brad that
Brad had made sure

I got started on marijuana.

And it worked.Oh my, yes.

LUCY: There's a piece of trivia
about Paradise.

It is the largest municipality
without a sewer

and I've been wondering
will we ever get it together

to deal with our own crap?[SIREN BLARING]

ZEKE: It' just like kinda
Western anarchy that reaches

a scale of complexity
where the system
no longer works.

Paradise strong![TRUCK ENGINE REVVING]

[TRUCK HORN HONKING][INDISTINCT CHATTER]

TRINA: It was the gold rush

and the mining
and extraction eras.

A lot of the economy
of California was built on that

grab and go. Get as much
as we can and then get out.

STEPHEN: We know
how to keep houses from burning.

We solved the urban fires.[CROWD CHEERING]

STEPHEN: Yeah, you can do
everything for your house,

but if your neighbors
don't do it for theirs,

you're still at risk.

Kind of a libertarian contract
that Americans think

they would prefer
if it breaks down.

Fire is that other contagion,
wearing masks is like

controlling embers,
aerosol dispersion,

defensible space, well,
it's social distancing.

The difference is that
we don't have a vaccine

that will eliminate fire.

Herd immunity comes
at a community level

when you have enough people
to provide protection.

[CROWD SCREAMING]

MALE VOICE: I totally understand
why people want to rebuild

but I just have this sense
of dread

that they're gonna
lose it again.

This hesitancy to tell people
who are in crisis that

we're gonna put some obstacles
in your way.

It's not really doing people
any favors in the long run.

LUCY: Maybe because I grew up
in Europe,

ideas like American liberty
at all costs, manifest destiny,

self-immolation under the mantra

of personal freedom seem
insurmountably foreign to me.

[GUNSHOTS]

[BUZZING]

BRAD: Get out the way
when that happens.

Got Mom's 90th birthday today.

Smile, Mama.

You look so pretty.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

MIC: The drinks are flowing.Ah.

The music's rolling inside
and out.

Oh good.

Everything's good, Mom.Wonderful.

Usually when she doesn't know
what she wants.

She wants a cookie.

Just give her half of one.

She said she was uncomfortable.

Well, that'll help, yeah.

RO: You know,
it's a day by day thing

and some days
are better than others.

But you know,
when we have something

to look forward to like
Mom turning 90.

FEMALE VOICE:
Happy birthday, Nan.

Hey, thank you, sweetheart.

All right, last bite.

I was all, "You already got
your cookie for the day,"

she's like, "I hope that wasn't
the last one for the day."

I'm like, "It wasn't."Geez, Ma.

Should I have a shot for you?Go ahead.

My house burned, of course.

Now I live here at Bradopolis.

[CHUCKLES] Yeah, I got trailer
through insurance.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

You don't regret any of it,
do you?

NORMA: No.Right on, Mama.

You know,
I love talking to you, Ma.

Up you go.

I have had three cookies.

Are you okay?Oh yeah.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

JODY: Welcome to the meeting
of the Paradise Town Council.

It's great to see
all of you here.

I think you're all here for

that's the building code
changes.

We intend to vote on each
potential change individually

And we're first gonna start
with public comment.

A lot of these things
are taking away

from individuality
of the town.

You're telling me
if I can't have bark,

and some plants,
and rose plants around my house.

I think I understand now
what you want.

I was thinking about it.

We could all buy
a hot water heater

and cut a door in it

and we'd have
an insulated fireproof house.

FEMALE VOICE: The new homes
will already be more fire-safe
than before.

I didn't hear people begging
for higher building codes.

Please let people return
and build the homes
they want to build.

A majority of people,
I have dealt with

are under insured
if insured at all.

You have a lot of people

who may not be able
to come back.

That would reduce this town's
property tax revenue

by a tremendous amount.

That would affect
your police department,

your fire department,
and your schools.

FEMALE VOICE 2: Paradise
is an individualistic town

that's part of the charm
and the quirkiness

and we don't need
consistency or uniformity.

FEMALE VOICE 3: So shame on you
and don't price out

a large percentage
of us Paradise residents

who love the ridge
and we want to come home.

We don't need to be
some kind of experiment

for the rest of the world.
Let people come home.

'Cause if people come home,
we all didn't go away.

[AUDIENCE CHEERING]

And we that, we're gonna move
onto the presentation.

Good evening, council members
and mayor.

I think it's important
as we report, you remember

that how homes were destroyed
and why homes were destroyed.

We're gonna show a short video
of what we experienced that day.

As you watch if you can see
how important

some of the safety factors
that will be discussed tonight,

how important they are
on survivability

of the structure.

So for those of you that said
that's unrealistic,

because it's in a laboratory,
I have a quick clip

from one of our employees.

This is in Paradise at 9:45
in the morning.

I had wanted to make sure that
it's fresh in everybody's mind

exactly what took place
and there has to be

a little bit of responsibility
of that resident making

their structure safe
for themselves, their neighbor,

and the community.

Some of this has to go back
on you and I.

You can't say,
I'm gonna move to the foothills,

where there's trees, brush,
and grass

and not know there's a potential
for wildfire.

You just-- And not know
that you're gonna have to do

something that increase
the likelihood of you

and your structure surviving
if one breaks out.

If your home doesn't burn down
and your neighbor's home

doesn't burn down,
their neighbor home

doesn't burn down,
evacuation route stays open,

you can get out of town faster.

You know,
there's a compound in effect

to good development standards.

Any questions?

If we could do only one thing

to be more fire safe,

what would
your recommendation be?

That five-foot area
around your house

is extremely important.

That would be the number thing
out of all of this

that I would say that would
defend your home the best

and have the most impact.

FEMALE VOICE:
Thank you very much.

And now,
we'll move to item number one.

Interior sprinklers required
in all homes.

Crowder?No.

FEMALE VOICE: Schuster?No.

FEMALE VOICE: Zuccolillo?No.

FEMALE VOICE: And Mayor Jones?No.

FEMALE VOICE: Roof obstruction
shall not allow

for the collection of debris.

Does anyone want that one?

That one is no also.

Minimum 10-inch roof overhang
required, direction is also no.

Garage or storage shed required.
So that one is a no also.

LUCY: It was illuminating
to be there in the front row.

That's me in the white jacket.

What a civics lesson.

If this is a process for making
change to keep us all alive,

I think we're in trouble.

Because these are the proposals
that the council members

had told me they thought
would save lives.

And here they are voting
them down one by one.

This is how hard it is
to make a change.

And here comes the most
important proposal,

five feet of defensible space
around the home.

JODY: So this is a different way
of looking

at what our houses
would look like.

It's not the way we were raised

or the way we saw
our houses before,

but it's another one that
doesn't cost extra money

and makes
a huge, huge difference.

FEMALE VOICE: Roll call vote.
Vice mayor Bolin?

GREG: Aye

FEMALE VOICE:
Council member Crowder?

I would like to see
some sort of greenery allowed.

STEVE: You have people
who go around and know

a fire-resistant plant
from a non-fire resistant plant.

It's--MALE VOICE:

STEVE: I just don't know
that that's possible.

I don't get it.

JOHN: Remember,
non-combustible doesn't mean

you can't have green grass.

You just have
non-combustible material

up against your house
within five feet.

That's the concept behind it.

Well, I agree
with the majority of it,

but I'm thinking
there's gonna be

issues and there's gonna be
enforcement issues with the--

with the plants.

So I'm gonna say no.

FEMALE VOICE:
Council member Schuster?

I have to say no as proposed.

FEMALE VOICE:
Council member Zuccolillo?

MIKE: I don't know think
we have the plant police,

going around and you know,
measuring people's plants

off their buildings.
In its current form, I'd say no.

JODY: Okay. It fails.[AUDIENCE APPLAUDING]

Thank you all
for all of your input.

Have a good evening.
We're adjourned.

[AUDIENCE APPLAUDING]

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

LUCY: So this is
what the fires reveal.

Just as with climate change,
we know what the problems are,

we know what the solutions are,

but we're not getting it
together to implement them.

MIKE:
Fire is a natural light force.

But the mass fires,
the fire storms that we've seen,

they changed this.

We're headed off in a direction
we don't understand.

We're like passengers
on a runaway train

who doesn't know
where the tracks

actually lay ahead.

LUCY: In the Christian
imagination, hell is fire pits.

It's being burned alive.

These are the very worst things
we could imagine.

When we came up with the idea
of hell,

it was fire that we imagined

and that's what we're creating
for ourselves.

And of course,
it's the vulnerable

who suffer the most.

LUCY: So tell us about
this structure here?

What is this?This is my home

I started building this
four days after the fire--

five days after the fire.

LUCY: Even in Malibu,
people are homeless and hurting.

I don't even remember
much of the last few months.

LUCY: Do you-- How's it been?And it's--

A blur, really.

I've got what I was able to save
packed in the truck.

It's a broken shelter.
[CHUCKLES]

It gets cold.

There are drafts
in certain places.

So I'm just not set up
and I don't wanna be a burden.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

MAEVE: Firefighting
is definitely not
for the faint of the heart.

We do see a lot of fatalities,
we see a lot of injuries.

We see a lot of terrible things
in this job.

It's pretty hard
to just come home,

pretend none of that happened.

My husband's a firefighter
like me

and we separated, because
of the stress of our jobs.

I was surviving on
two to three hours

of sleep a nights
for a year and a half.

I felt like there was
a pretty significant period

of time where I lost my mind
just trying to hold it together.

JOHN: We're away
from our families

all summer long.

There's never a break,
there's no end in sight.

Work 50, 60, 70 days,
get a day off

and go right back on.

The problem
isn't going right back on,

it's,
"I might go another 70 days."

FRANK: They retired me out
post-traumatic stress disorder.

Three little kids are just
sitting there...

and...

yeah, after that
it was the next shift

I was coming in for,
I couldn't wake up.

I guess my body
was just telling me,

just, "I don't wanna go
to work."

So I came, I said,
"I don't feel right,

I just don't feel right."

MALE VOICE: We don't talk
so much about the PTSD
and the suicides

that causes the firefighters
to take their lives.

FIREFIGHTER: And I told my wife
the other day, I go,

"I feel like my brain's
not firing right."

Our brains are just done.
We're just mentally exhausted.

FIREFIGHTER 2: The problem is
the ones

that are really hurting the most

often don't say so
and then they do something,

it's too late.

"Hey man, are you thinking
about doing yourself?"

"Yeah, I am."

I've probably had that
six times. "Yeah, I am."

"How about if I help you?
Can I help you?"

Not one of those six
did themselves.

JASON: It's a long
emotional road

and every day I talk to people

who are very much struggling
emotionally with each day.

JIM: One of my goals was never
ever to seriously injure

or kill a firefighter
in the line of duty

and unfortunately,
I failed on that note.

Fire killed five United States
Forest Service firefighters

at a home
that they were defending.

Yeah,
that's just one of several.

FIREFIGHTER 2:
One of our firefighters
Cory Iverson was caught.

His strike team leader
Mark Barb ran through

the burning flames
and through the brush.

Cory was already dead,
but Mark fell on him

and covered him with his body,

so that Cory
didn't burn anymore.

That's a reason I wanna protect
our firefighters.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[DOGS BARKING]

BRAD: Well, she'd been praying
every night that she would die.

That "Come take me",
she was ready.

And she passed,
took her last breath.

So she was home.

We have a little tradition,
I'm putting fruit trees

all the way around the property.

And a handful of ashes
from my mom and my wife

will go in each tree
all the way around.

My mother would join the rest
of the angels,

protecting the house
most definitely.

They're our loved ones,
they all will stay.

Better put this thing
right on outback.

[MAN SINGING
IN NATIVE AMERICAN LANGUAGE]

DON: On November 8th,
when I saw the fire itself,

I stopped on the side
of the road and watched it.

It reminded me
of the first fire stories.

The first fire story
is a story of fire

that sweeps across
the landscape.

It's the one that destroys
everything,

then you have nothing left,
you're devastated.

And I thought
our society is experiencing

the first fire stories that
indigenous peoples know about

and then learn to use fire.

And so we as a society need
to learn that lesson ourselves

to come back to the second
fire stories

which tell us
how to use fire.

This is old land, been in use
for thousands

and thousands of years.

What we're doing out here
is restoring life.

RON: We call this
"cultural burning".

Cultural means to cultivate,
so when we're using fire,

it's a tool that we're using
to restore the land.

DON: One of the reasons
why indigenous people burn

historically, was to protect
their village areas.

Burn around 'em, because
almost all the structures

were made out of the wood.

So by burning the area
was to protect
around those things.

RON: After we burn,
that nutrient

will bring new life back.

A lot of people had this concept
that this was a wilderness

that was purely untouched.

But in fact it was
highly manipulated.

LUCY: Was I wrong
to want the fires put out?

I realized I was one
in a long line of Europeans

who'd landed in California
and misunderstood the place.

ZEKE: The real roots
of our forestry and fire crises

are in idea of white supremacy.

You know, our European ancestors
when they encountered

the native people
they couldn't imagine

that these people
they were meeting might have

advanced scientific knowledge
of how to manage the landscape

that was based on thousands
of years of experimentation

and observation.

The native people who lived here
rely directly on the land

for everything
about their lives.

There were management objectives
that they achieved using fire.

Like more acorns or let's move
the branches up higher on trees,

so we can see people
sneaking up to kill us.

TRINA: I told my grandpa
what I was doing

a few years ago and he said,

"Oh, you're trying to do
what I was trying to do."

Forest thinning and work
with other tribes
and other communities

and it's generation
after generation

of tribal knowledge
being available,

but the larger society
not willing to look at that

as a viable answer.

The fire can be our friend
or it can be our enemy.

And we need people,
fire has always been our friend.

[MAN SINGING
IN NATIVE AMERICAN LANGUAGE]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

BRIANNA: We got stripped
of our natural right

to be able to burn

and now it's getting harder
to teach the next generation

what a good burn is,
not to be afraid of fire.

Burning this feels so natural
and it's like I had this fire

inside of me
also that was dormant

for such a long time,
got laid down, got put out

and now I'm that
I'm putting fire back on,

it's also like reigniting
the fire

that I had inside myself.

DANNY: It's really the only way
that you could really manage

big areas.

There's only so much thinning
and piling, fuel breaks,

and stuff we could do
when you know fire

is the most cost effective
and easiest way of doing it

with the least amount
of resources

TRINA: It's actually harder
to get a fire started

than people might think.

Add a little wind.

Today's a really good day
for burn conditions,

because of higher humidity,
lower temperatures,

and this area
isn't heavily fueled.

This is what
we're talking about,
a low intensity fire.

Very, very short flame lengths.

So if you can imagine
back a long time ago,

this would just be
a family thing

and it was kind of
in our family,

where we would just spend
a good part of the day

just doing this, standing
around talking, visiting.

And it just brings itself out.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

STEPHEN: Temperate Europe
is a real anomaly in the world,

because it doesn't have
a pattern of wetting to dry,

and those parts of the world
that have those conditions

don't have natural basis
for fire,

and they're pretty small parts
of the world.

So Europeans didn't like fire,

they didn't see
any natural purpose to it

and they just saw it
as bad behavior,

as a kind of lawlessness
that needed to be controlled.

LUCY: And of course, the impact
of European arrogance

has not been constrained
to the USA.

FIREFIGHTER 1: Cultural burning
is not just about

aboriginal people,
putting, dropping matches

in the country
and burn a country.

FIREFIGHTER 2:
It's very technical

and there's a lot of science
and layers, and layers,

and layers of knowledge.

FIREFIGHTER 1: It's bad enough
that our people have lost

their own identity through being
dispossessed from their land,

but because of mismanagement
of country, even now countries

losing it's own identity
through these invasive grasses

and shrubs taking over areas
where they're not meant to be.

ZEKE: And we kind of need
to flip the script

and start telling
a different story about fire

in the landscape that
doesn't cast it as a villain,

that casts it actually
as the tool.

STEPHEN: For almost all
of our existences as species

we managed to live
with fire well.

We've lost that.

We have a sense that
we have to dominate it,

control it,
some kind of Promethean image.

But fire has been on this planet
for 420 million years.

As long as plants
have been on land,

they have burned.
We are not going to stop that,

we can't afford to stop it.

So what fire does
is it takes in oxygen

and then gives off water vapor
and carbon dioxide.

When it occurs within us,
we call it "respiration".

Occurs in cells.

When it occurs
in the open landscape,

we call it "fire".
But it's the same chemistry.

We are the fire creature...

and we use that to make
the world more habitable.

This is what we do, you know
other animals knock over trees

and dig holes in the ground.
We do fire.

And the hearth fire,
is the very essence

of domesticity and family.

I mean if we lit a fire here,

we would all be standing
around it.

[SCREAMS]I am in the middle.

No, I am.I am!

No, I am.I am!

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

Oh, make out your own
with a hose.

Fire is a good thing,
to stay warm?

Yeah.BRAD: Yeah.

Getting ready to plant
the vegetables.

Over here we just started
cleaning the garden out

and then now the orange trees
all getting in bloom

and the lemon trees
and it'll smell so good.

On the anniversary
of my wife's passing,

Roni came up to talk to me
and we sat and talked

and we've been together since.

And it's been great,
and peaceful, and wonderful.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

Almost ready.Oh, praise you, baby.

It's only at 98 degrees,

we got about another 30 degrees
to go.

Oh.

He's a wonderful man.

They broke the mold
when they made him,

'cause they don't make 'em
like that anymore.

Roni lived right over there.

See that burnt down piece of tin
over there,

that was Roni's house.

So we lived that far apart
and I didn't know she liked me.

It took the fire I guess
to openin' my eyes

to all this is just replaceable.

Love is all you got.
Family is all you got.

So that's what's important.

We can always start over.

Always.Yeah.

Don't need to all the time.[CHUCKLES]

LUCY: This is very special.

Yeah.Yes.

Really good, really good.
Life is really good.

[LAUGHS]

THOR: There's change
and how we handle it.

How we internalize
and feel about the change.

It informs who we are,
who our personality,

who our character is.
What do you see behind is?

Hello?

Now gone.

Wow, what a gift.

PICO: Maybe it's good to remind
ourselves of how we many things

we can't control.

I was spending most of my time

reading these
burning house poems,

that are very, very common
in Japan,

because fire and impermanence
sit at the heart

of that culture.

There's a poem,
"My husband down,

now I can see more clearly
the rising moon."

That clarifies your perspective,
and it makes you remember

what you care about,
and it takes the clutter

out of your head
and out of your life.

DON: The wind patterns
and the migrations of the birds,

the order of flowering
of certain plants,

those kind of things
are all the landscape

communicating with you,
but in modern society

people tend to just uproot
and move places

And they rely
on their technology.

TRINA: Once people realize
that the place that they're in

has its own voice
if they take the time to start

to learn that language
of that place,

then that place will respond
to them in a different way.

And they will understand
that place in a different way.

And that's when it becomes
really, really beautiful.

DANNY: It doesn't take
a college genius to figure out

how to treat
Mother Nature right.

Mother Nature was pissed.

Little more respect.Yup.

Treat the land with respect.

Get rid of all that plastic crap
you been playing with.

The shopping bag almost
destroyed this place.

I mean they're everywhere.

BRAD: Shopping bags.Diapers

BRAD: Bottled water.

LUCY: You and three others
thinking that

you guys have something--Well, something-- We--
Some of us are on the same page.

LUCY: None of us
wants hell on earth.

None of us wants our home
to burn down,

but what does it take to agree
with people

we're not supposed to?

We are environmentalists, okay.

We love our environment, okay.

HOWARD: The Native Americans
back in ancient times,

they'd leave in the winter
and when they left,

they'd set the place on fire.

PETE: And that's where
the old ranchers
learned it from.

Something's wrong.Yeah.

That's why the alternate ways--
Maybe we need to go back

a hundred years and say,
"They did it right, okay

and we've mismanaged it."

LUCY: There's been an update
from Sierra Pacific Industries.

Remember those
young tree plantations

we visited and I got upset
where the fire had burned

through so quickly
on its way to Paradise.

They've decided
not to replant them.

That all burned in 2008
and here you know,

ten years later it burned again.

So obviously there's some work
that could be done there

to help, you know,
keep that from happening again.

We learned a lot after I saw
what happened over there.

DON: We thought this would be
a good anchor point

for bringing the fire back
into this landscape

and so after they send it,
then we came in

and put the fire on the ground
to manage the fuels

and hopefully,
within the next few years,

we'll be able to come back
and we do another burn

to maintain the fuel densities

and the diversity of species
that we have out here.

STEPHEN: Fire even
has a kind of moral presence

indirectly, because it forces
people to choose.

As the old signs in theBible
of the Trying Fire.

The fire will try each of us
and determine

of what sort we are.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

[ALL LAUGH]

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

My mother wanted me
to wear this, so.

I know, yeah, let's go.
The wedding party is here.

Oh shit.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

VICAR: Bradley, do you take
this woman to be your wife,

to love and to honor her,
to comfort her,

to learn and grow with her
for as long as you both
shall live?

Of course.

Do you take this man
to be your husband,

to love and to honor him?RONI: Absolutely.

[GUESTS CHEERING]

By the power vested in me,

you guys are now
husband and wife.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

["“WE HAVE IT ALL"” PLAYING]

♪ There was fire around us
So I should have known why ♪

♪ The touch of his hands
Were as cold as his eyes ♪

♪ So don't you tell me
We weren't hypnotized ♪

♪ Whoa oho

♪ The print was so small,
I didn't understand ♪

♪ He cut our thumbs and placed
A feather in our hands ♪

♪ Told us we would see all
Our dreams and plans unfold ♪

♪ Oho

♪ Our hearts we have sold

♪ For diamonds and gold

♪ But hey, baby, take a look

♪ We have it all

♪ All my life
I've been heading for hell ♪

♪ But never had I thought
I'd drag you down as well ♪

♪ I just couldn't resist
What he was trying to sell ♪

♪ Oho oho

♪ Our hearts we have sold

♪ For diamonds and gold

♪ But hey, baby, take a look

♪ We have it all

♪ Hear me

♪ Can you hear me

♪ I am calling out to you

♪ For the last time

♪ Hear me

♪ Please forgive me

♪ I am calling out to you

♪ For the last time