WEBVTT - Lucy Walker Asks Hard Questions About Wildfires 0:00:02.320 --> 0:00:05.200 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the 0:00:05.280 --> 0:00:11.080 Thing from My Heart Radio. British documentary filmmaker Lucy Walker 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:15.240 has been compared to legendary director and Here's the Thing 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:20.280 guest Errol Morris. She's made five feature films and been 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:24.639 nominated for an Academy Award twice, first for Waste Land, 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:28.480 about an artist who works with materials found in landfills 0:00:28.480 --> 0:00:32.320 in Brazil, and the second time for a short doc 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:35.880 called The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom, about the two 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:42.040 thousand eleven Japanese earthquake and nuclear disaster. Her critically acclaimed 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:46.720 two thousand thirteen film The Crash Wheel followed snowboarder Kevin 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:50.559 Pierce after he suffered a traumatic brain injury while training 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:55.360 for the Winter Olympics. Lucy Walker's latest film is Bring 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:59.400 your Own Brigade, a reference to wealthy residents who hire 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:03.520 their own but firefighters to protect property during forest fires. 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:09.679 The film focuses on two two thousand eighteen California wildfires, 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:13.560 the camp Fire, which nearly destroyed the town of Paradise 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:18.880 and killed people, and the Woolsey Fire, which erupted on 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:23.360 the same day, and destroyed large parts of Malibu. Bring 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:27.399 your Own Brigade attempts to answer an urgent question, why 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:31.360 are there more catastrophic wildfires, not just in California but 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:34.160 around the world, and what can we do to mitigate 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:39.000 their destruction. Walker's film says these fires can be blamed 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:42.720 on more than just climate change. When she started her reporting, 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:46.399 she followed several firefighters and learned a great deal about 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:50.520 their work, including how these fires get named. You know, 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:54.160 when a fire breaks out, the operating commands just pick 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:57.720 a name quite quickly, and it's not a great deal 0:01:57.720 --> 0:01:59.720 of thought that goes into it. They just instantly need 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:04.680 names for incidents, especially because with California often with the 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:08.560 wind events driving multiple incidents all at once. You just 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:11.040 need to know that the Dixie fire isn't the Wolsey fire, 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:14.480 isn't the campfire. And they'll often name them for the 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:17.680 road that they break out on or a facility nearby. 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:20.840 For example, Camp the Campfire came from Camp Creek Road, 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:25.120 which was where the fire was first spotted. So it's 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:28.360 kind of a loose improvisation that they come up with 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:30.480 these names. And then, in the case of the campfire, 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:35.400 which became later on the most deadly in history. It 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:38.480 was obviously achieved a great sort of notoriety that name, 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:42.200 but that their their coin very quickly. You first became 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:45.760 aware of this story when were you living in southern California. Then, Yeah, 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:49.799 I'm originally from England. And the Great Fire of London, 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:52.519 which actually followed the plague and kind of put out 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:54.680 the plague, so to speak, because it killed all the rats, 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:58.399 was in sixteen sixty six, and you think of fire 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:00.880 as a medieval problem in London. And then I moved 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:03.280 to New York house in film school and grad school 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:06.079 in New York, and again you think of urban fires, 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:07.639 but you think of it as a problem that we've 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:10.720 come together to solve. And then I moved to California, 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:13.919 and I was confused because the hillside was on fire 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:18.280 and people were driving down the freeway as if this 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:24.880 was just business as usual, and I was scared. I 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:28.080 just knew there was a thread that if you tugged 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:30.919 on it, there was a cognitive dissonance. I didn't know 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:34.280 what was wrong, but I knew that I had a 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:38.640 feeling that fire shouldn't be burning and there must be 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:42.920 a problem because houses were burning and people were dying, 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:47.400 and this fire problem, actually since I moved here in 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:50.280 the two thousands, kept getting worse and worse and worse. 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:52.520 The fires seemed to be getting bigger and I wasn't 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:56.760 imagining it. And finally there was the biggest fire ever 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:00.120 in California at the time, that Thomas Fire, and I 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:02.440 had some friends that were caught up in it, both 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.880 on the resident side and the firefighter side. I have. 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:12.040 That was all around Santa Barbara, Oh, High Ventura, sort 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:14.640 of just north of Los Angeles. It began in December 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:17.359 twenty seventeen, so very late, at the time when the 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:20.440 rains would normally have come. And you start to learn 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:23.240 about the climate in southern California and that the real 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:26.440 danger zone in southern California is when the winds kick up, 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:28.760 the seasonal winds kick up, but the rains have not 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:32.960 yet arrived. And what's been happening increasingly with climate change 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:38.640 is that the winds are arriving, but the fuels are 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:42.719 still dry, and there's only a few rain events in 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:45.479 southern California. I think on average about five times you 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:47.960 get these big rains, but it will only rain about 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:51.680 a few times a year. And obviously there's normally a 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:55.320 variability in that because statistically it's there's always going to 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:58.360 be a variance. It's not always five a year, it's 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:01.800 never been that. It's has been on average that. But 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:04.640 with climate change mixing things up more and more and 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:08.280 the ongoing drought that we've had, there's less and less rain, 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:13.760 and the winds are actually more because the temperature gradients 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:16.839 actually tend to push up and make stronger wind events 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:19.920 that are really drive these really out of control. Big 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:22.559 fires always have a huge wind event at their back. 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:25.320 They don't just happen on an ordinary day. They'll happen 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:28.880 when the wind conditions are at their worst. And so 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:31.520 you start to learn that the full season in southern 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:34.320 California is the worst. It's a little different in other 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:37.520 states where you get far as earlier in the season. 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:40.760 You'll get winds earlier in Arizona and northern California, in 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:44.599 Oregon and Washington, the western United States, it's not necessarily 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:47.760 quite so late in southern California, where the rains come 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:51.400 really quite late. That's how the season moves. My brother 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:55.360 lives in Santa Barbara, and he has moved and kind 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:59.480 of hopped between Monte Cedar, when Santa Barbara itself and 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.240 the in that area. He's been there for many, many years. 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.320 The mud slides were the next act after that. That's 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.640 exactly right, the mudslides that came pouring through and crushed 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:13.520 many homes and killed a couple, killed twenty two rain 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:17.360 mud slide exactly, and I had friends in Montecito, and 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:21.080 that was exactly what made me get up and stopped 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:23.520 being a spectator and start to say, where is the 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:27.080 documentary film about this? Because for me, documentary films are 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:31.360 the best, single, best way I have as a viewer 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:34.960 to understand a complex issue. When I see a great 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:38.920 documentary made by one of my colleagues, I really feel 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:41.480 like I know the story inside out. If the reporting 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:44.599 is good, if the story and the characters really get 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:46.000 me in there, I feel like I get my arms 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:49.520 around the issue. I really understand in three sixty what's 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:51.760 really going on. And there are so many complicated issues 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:53.880 that I've really understood for the first time because of 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:57.200 a great documentary film, and there wasn't one about fires, 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:00.560 And finally I thought, my gosh, if there isn't one, 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:02.320 I'm going to have to do it. Because when that 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:04.600 mud slide. The debrief flow happened. It was the end 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:06.440 of that same fire I was talking about, and started 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:13.280 in December seventeen and then January. This like just greight train, 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:15.680 but you know, you can't even describe that, Like the 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:20.680 hillside came with boulders embedded inside. Exactly, there were boulders 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:24.920 inside the mass. That was horrifying, Yes, exactly. Sort of 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:31.080 this gigantic, epic, tragic sliding down of the beautiful mountain 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:34.280 side because after the fire, the all the roots had 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:37.840 been um the trees have been burned, and you get 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:41.040 all this slickness, and when the rain comes down, you're 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:44.280 a great risk of the mud slides because there's nothing 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:47.400 to stick the earth the side of the mountain, and 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:49.800 it all comes down and kind of cannonballs and snowballs 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:53.000 and and builds up such momentum that houses, you know, 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:56.840 were actually lost into the ocean and never found. I mean, 0:07:56.880 --> 0:07:59.760 just such momentum. And over twenty people were killed in 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:02.440 the most horrifying way. I mean, I've been in many 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:07.760 traumatic disaster zones and I've never been quite so shocked 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:10.480 and stunned as what I saw in Montecito. And I'm 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:13.040 so sorry your brother was affected because that whole community 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:18.040 was just so kids at the school, yeah, devastating, and 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:21.560 I thought, my goodness, what is going on? And I 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:24.560 had friends who are both firefighters and residents, and I thought, 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.720 somebody has to tell this story. Somebody has to I 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:30.680 couldn't understand that even as close as Los Angeles and 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:33.760 with all the filmmakers in California, that no one was 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:40.920 really describing the awful, intense tragedy that these people were 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:43.480 going through. And I thought, Okay, well, I'll step up. 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:46.120 I want to understand what is happening with these fires 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:48.960 and then the debris flows that can sometimes be they're 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:53.160 kind of kicking the tail, and let's really get to 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:55.240 the bottom of this and understand what the residents and 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:59.600 the responders are going through because it's getting worse and 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:03.800 I don't like it, and are we safe here? And 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:05.880 let's find out is there anything that we can do 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.080 about it? And my initial assumption had been that it 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:13.280 was all climate change, because it really made sense, right, 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:17.200 we have the worst fires ever and we have the 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:21.240 hottest summers ever, and the climate change that I follow, 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:24.480 the science on these trends really point to that, and 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:29.160 initially I thought that was the only thing driving these fires, 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:31.439 and so I thought that the cause wasn't going to 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:36.720 be too hard to pin down. But actually, while climate 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:40.360 change is happening and climate change is exacerbating the problem, 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:44.800 for sure, there are other factors. And that's actually great 0:09:44.880 --> 0:09:47.760 because there are some things that we could do now. 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:50.320 Whether or not we do do them is something that 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:54.080 you've touched on. And the film really blew my mind 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:59.440 as I was making it, understanding how things actually happen. 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.400 Even when you can fix things, it's not true that 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.960 they do get fixed. And so I sort of went 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:14.400 on a whole journey filmmaker Lucy Walker. If you enjoy 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:19.280 conversations about the challenges of making documentary films, check out 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:22.480 my episode with the directors of Making a Murderer. The 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:27.480 controversial series explored the case of Stephen Avery, Wisconsin, man 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:31.120 who was wrongly convicted of rape, released after two decades 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:35.200 in prison, and then convicted of murder. The series was 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:40.520 written and directed by Laura Richardi and Moira Dimas. It 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:44.319 just seemed like, you know, he was this incredible window 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:46.640 through which to look at our system. You know, if 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:49.000 we followed this man's story, we would go from one 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:51.760 extreme of the system to the other. So as I 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:53.520 was saying, you know, we had no money, but what 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:56.120 we what we could put into it with time, which 0:10:56.360 --> 0:11:00.560 is actually an incredibly valuable asset. And after doing a 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:04.439 preliminary week of shooting in December, realized this was something 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:07.360 we wanted to pursue, and we sublet our apartment in 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:10.840 New York. We've got an apartment in Mantuak and we 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:13.600 lived there, you know, more on than off, for close 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:18.480 to two years. To hear more of my conversation with 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:22.160 the filmmakers behind Making a Murderer, go to Here's the 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:27.000 Thing dot org. After the break, Lucy Walker explains why 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:32.080 some California residents resist taking even basic steps to prevent 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:43.000 forest fires. I'm Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:46.600 Here's the Thing. Lucy Walker is originally from the UK. 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:50.320 She moved to Los Angeles and two thousand eight and 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:55.319 quickly began exploring what was causing the huge fires around California. 0:11:56.080 --> 0:12:01.160 I've been observing these fires and wondering and and been frightened. 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:04.200 But that fire, the largest ever far in California, the 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:09.280 Thomas Fire, with the terrible debris law in Montecito in 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:12.680 I thought, oh my goodness, I'm going to have to 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:14.480 make a film about this, and I began to make 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:18.760 the film. Then the film actually features fires that happened 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:21.880 later in Malibu and Paradise. But I've already been working 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:23.719 on the film for a year at that point when 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:27.599 those fires came along. Now, you were, I don't know 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:31.120 if this is the word, monitoring the fire situation in 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:36.439 southern California. So when Paradise happens, when Malibu happens, you're 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:40.640 you're already there monitoring those that kind of activity. Curry exactly. 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:45.120 And I've already been filming a great deal and already 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:49.160 made friends with these incredible firefighters, actually the incredible firefighters 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:53.280 in the Montecito Fire Department, and been embedded with them 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:57.319 on various fires and cools and knew just who to 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:01.520 cool up. And when the as far as broke out 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:05.120 in Malibu and Paradise, actually I saw it on Twitter 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:10.679 early that morning, and I instantly was able to cool 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:14.240 out the firefighter zone that I knew actually in Montecito 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:17.360 and hopping with them as they were being deployed down 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:20.960 to the fire in Malibu, and we knew the fire command, 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:23.560 and we were able to really film within those incidents 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:27.959 immediately and know what we're looking at and know how 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:30.679 to film it because we've been doing a lot of 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:36.240 preparation and filming by that stage. The film obviously has 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:42.920 some ghastly optics there. You you lay audio tracks of 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:47.080 people calling, or there's some kind of recorded voice you 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:52.040 have of someone screaming this blood curdling scream as they're 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:55.160 being engulfed in. The visual might not be you know, 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:58.560 their visual, but you lay that track against a car 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:02.000 proceeding down the tunnel of flames. Everyone's trying to leave. 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:05.400 I want to make sure our listeners understand that up 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:09.360 in Paradise the campfire, everyone tries to leave at the 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:13.240 same time. Yeah, I mean something that we get into 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:15.719 because we start with the fires, and you're so right. 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:19.880 It's the most horrifying and hellish scenes and people were 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:25.240 killed in Paradise and the most hellish, terrifying way imaginable, 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:27.840 And we were able to gather so much material, including 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:31.320 the nine and one calls and the radio traffic, so 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:33.520 that you really get a sense of what that's like. 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:36.600 We meet a girl who couldn't persuade her mom to 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:39.880 evacuate because she hadn't had an evacuation warning and she 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:43.080 has to leave because she's so scared, and unfortunately her 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:46.400 mom did succumb to the fire. And all these terrifying 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:48.360 stories of a woman who just had had a C 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:51.880 section and she is in the car but she can't 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:55.360 somebody's giving her right out to escape, but she can't 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:58.240 feel her legs. She's just had an eperdural, and she 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:01.600 has this newborn baby who's just been born by hours 0:15:01.640 --> 0:15:03.920 earlier by c section, and she has to say to 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:06.440 the driver of the car, who she's never met, if 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:08.960 it comes to it, just take my baby and run, 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:11.360 because I can't move and I'm going to die, but 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:13.240 I want my baby to have a chance to take 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:15.880 the baby and run. I mean, these scenes, you can't 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:21.200 imagine how traumatic they are. And then we sort of 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:23.920 don't stop there. Though it wasn't enough to me to 0:15:24.040 --> 0:15:27.680 just show the horror. I wanted to understand what happens next? 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:29.960 How do we stop this happening again? Because I learned 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:34.040 that these communities burned over and over again, actually this 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:38.080 summer already with the Dixie Fire. That fire began right 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:41.520 where the campfire began, as well and burned right up 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:44.480 into the same community of having, causing our characters to 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:47.480 all be evacuated again. There was another far last year 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:50.080 that killed another twenty two people that was right next door. 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:52.360 And so what I wanted to understand is, well, how 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:55.160 are we stopping it or why are we having this problem? 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:58.080 And why are people living in these areas and building 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:01.400 these houses that burn over and over and over again. 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:05.200 Could we do better? And you start to understand it's 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:07.960 not sensible. When you figure out what should be happening 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:11.400 and you figure out what's actually happening, it's not the 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:14.880 same thing. So you would think that when people look 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:18.240 at developing an area for housing, they would think about 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:22.240 is fire safety and the cost to the homeowner and 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:26.400 also to the state a nation of these risks that 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:30.240 people are having. But in fact, there's an incentive locally 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:33.080 to approve all the building because a town wants more 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:35.360 residents because then they're going to have more tax revenue. 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:39.080 But nobody's actually thinking about what are they going to 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:41.320 be able to ensure these homes and who's going to 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:44.360 pay if these homes burned down. There's all these kind 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:48.400 of mismatched incentives and what's actually happening now to poor 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.200 homeowners is in the in the in these areas unexpectedly 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:54.040 now the insurance companies are cutting them off, and California 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:58.640 actually putting moratorium on insurance companies dropping their customers because 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:01.960 it was so sudden and so dire. But in future, 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:04.960 the truth with climate change and with this problem which 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:07.800 is not just caused by climate change but is escalating, 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:11.720 is if these homes are uninsurable, what's going to happen 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:15.280 to the residents if they burned down and a lot 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:16.600 of them are not going to be able to ensure 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:20.760 afford that, and there's going to be a huger burden, 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:23.480 and and we're seeing these problems sort of pile up. 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:26.840 It's the inability to get together and solve these complicated problems. 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:30.040 It really is just like it is with climate change, 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:32.600 that we have a complex problem on our hands, and 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:35.800 so we all need to really get together and have 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:40.600 sensible discussions about what we can all do to solve this. 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:46.679 It's not easy, but you really capture in the film 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:51.440 exactly where the problems are happening, exactly which conversations are 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:56.760 not happening, exactly where officials can't get voted out by 0:17:56.840 --> 0:18:00.520 doing anything unpopular, and the town don't want to be 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:03.240 told what to do. So you see this town where 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:06.760 people were killed and eighteen thousand buildings were burned down. 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:13.639 Less than a year later, eighteen eighteen thousand structures lost, 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:15.920 not all of them homes. Some of them were buildings 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:19.680 that weren't homes, businesses, or or other structures, but eighteen 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:23.280 thousand structures lost. It was the most expensive disaster of 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:26.400 that year in the world. Less than a year later, 0:18:27.160 --> 0:18:32.880 the town doesn't just vote against these measures, they eviscerate 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:37.679 their seven town council members for daring to suggest these measures, 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:39.560 many of which have no cost. A few of them, 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:43.280 like sprinklers, do have a cost associated but some like 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:46.000 actually changing the way that that you can have gutters, 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:50.480 so changing the rules around gutters that's free, and people 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:52.439 like their gutters. People don't want to be told what 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:57.600 to do about gutters. Even though the fire chief and 0:18:57.640 --> 0:19:01.200 all the people that know how fire works begging them 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:04.640 to reconsider this, still this feeling that like, we don't 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:06.240 want to be told what to do. This is a 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:10.320 town where we do our own thing, and not being 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:12.880 able to have that complicated discussion with people about well, 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:19.120 that's great, but the unfortunate reality is that when your 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:21.919 home catches fire because you have this gutter with the 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:25.359 leaves stuck up there, you're also gonna catch fire to 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:27.840 your neighbor's homes, and then all the roads are going 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:31.680 to clog up, and it's a domino escalating problem. It's 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:35.080 similar to get the vaccination, not just for yourself but 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:38.280 for everybody else, exactly right, And you actually learn that 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.199 it's actually a really good analogy because that idea of 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:45.320 social distancing is exactly like there's a concept in fire 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:48.160 safety where you have this five ft defensible space they 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:50.680 call it, so you don't have anything flammable within five 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:54.200 ft of your house, and that's sort of like social distancing. 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:58.320 Then the aerosol dispersion is like the embers when you 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:01.760 have the virus that little particles that will come out 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:04.480 and infect people. That's actually the same as the embers. 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:08.200 That actually how far start is these ember storms get 0:20:08.280 --> 0:20:10.600 carried by the wind and actually will catch So it's 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:15.840 a really eerily perfect analogy with the pandemic. So that 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:18.760 really got me thinking. Of course, another interesting thing about 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:21.159 the film is that in looking at these two fires 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:24.440 that were kicked off by the same wind event in Paradise. 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:26.640 They called it a red hill in a blue state. 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:30.879 So even though California is mostly Democratic state, this area 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:33.800 of Paradise in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada is 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:39.120 a much more moderate or even conservative area, lots of guns, 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:44.879 lots of Republicans, and much more rural sort of mindset. 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:51.120 And Malibu it's a much more democratic place and much 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:54.240 more well to do as well. So the socioeconomic disparity 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:57.360 was astonishing than Malibu. The average home price was over 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:00.680 ten times more than the average home price in Paradise 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:04.040 that burned. So it's really interesting, So describe what happened 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:07.760 in Malibu. The fire was aware, the fire was everywhere. 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:11.560 It was a huge fire. And you're right, Malibu is 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:15.159 such a gorgeous, gorgeous place just outside of Los Angeles 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:20.320 and just spectacular, spectacular countryside, spectacular scenery over the ocean. 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:23.919 But with those hills and canyons that give you these 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:28.679 spectacular views, you have a lot of vegetation and you 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:31.679 have a lot of wind, and when those winds just 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:35.720 line up just right, you get these terrible fires. And 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:39.159 on that day it was a monster and it was 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:41.440 in so many canyons and it was all going off 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:45.440 at once in this gigantic incident. It did. It burned 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:47.879 right into Point Doom, and everyone said, oh, the Point 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:52.040 never burns, and it did. And I'm sure you you too. 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:54.720 You know, I have friends that lost their homes there 0:21:55.359 --> 0:21:58.000 and was able to film with them as they went 0:21:58.000 --> 0:21:59.480 through that, and we were able to film with the 0:21:59.520 --> 0:22:03.000 fire depart as they're driving around trying to fight this fire. 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:06.280 But it's huge, and the public didn't quite get it. 0:22:06.320 --> 0:22:08.480 The public didn't quite understand that it wasn't sort of 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:12.439 the firefighter's fault for doing a bad job, whereas, in fact, 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:17.400 as fire was so humongous, and every firefighter was out 0:22:17.400 --> 0:22:22.359 working without sleep for days on end, and yet you 0:22:22.480 --> 0:22:27.240 just can't fight afar that big. And what was extraordinary 0:22:27.280 --> 0:22:29.800 given the scale was that not more people died. At 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:33.280 least three people did die, and I forget how many 0:22:33.320 --> 0:22:37.000 thousands of structures, but thousands and thousands and thousands of 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:41.720 incredible homes were lost, and it was devastating, and most 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:43.800 of those were not not in the Point, but up 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:45.640 in the hills on the other on the land side 0:22:45.680 --> 0:22:51.840 of the highway. Yeah, exactly, like that exactly exactly, loads 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:55.359 of those canyons up there. You can just drive up there, 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:58.879 and it looked like, you know, instead of the normal vegetation, 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:01.439 it looked like a kind of like a kind of 0:23:01.720 --> 0:23:04.480 singed pig hide or something. I can't describe this landscape, 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:07.000 but just looked everything was just burned and black, and 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:11.240 the houses, the footprints of the houses looked like ashtrays. 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:15.840 You can see that imprint of where the house would be, yes, 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:19.399 a different different colored material exactly. And then once in 0:23:19.440 --> 0:23:23.640 a while just a strange building that you know, strangely 0:23:23.680 --> 0:23:26.840 wouldn't have burned, or actually not so strangely, because some 0:23:26.840 --> 0:23:28.720 of those buildings were actually designed not to burn, and 0:23:28.760 --> 0:23:32.280 we did have the proper defensible space and there are 0:23:32.359 --> 0:23:34.440 ways I learned that you could protect them. But it 0:23:34.480 --> 0:23:36.840 was very surreal because you'd see some of the structures 0:23:36.920 --> 0:23:40.000 did survive, but some areas that were whole canyons or 0:23:40.040 --> 0:23:42.720 whole streets where all the structures were burned, and it 0:23:42.800 --> 0:23:47.639 was absolutely devastating. And also, you have, it gave rise 0:23:47.680 --> 0:23:49.840 to a lot of conspiracy theories, as with the pandemic. 0:23:49.960 --> 0:23:53.520 You know, people would say to me and perfectly sensible 0:23:53.520 --> 0:23:57.600 looking people that would start out, you know, seeming very smart. 0:23:57.680 --> 0:24:00.640