Havoc (2)

Okay… This is gonna be a long one. The past couple of days just whizzed past me with non-stop excitement. Even as I write this, there are still plenty of helicopters flying over my neighborhood. I mean, I thrive on excitement, but this was really, really pushing my envelope. Although, the best thing I got out of the experience is the knowledge that if I had lost everything, I knew I could survive. I take life as it comes at me and I would have been just fine. Sometimes, that’s one of the best things to learn in life.

All right… here goes!

I’d headed out to the set of Havoc [Bijou Phillips, Anne Hathaway, etc.]. As I got on the freeway, I saw about fifteen fire engines in one of the canyons just past my house. The police were out closing the road down there and the mountains were ablaze.

Knowing that my house was empty, I figured I’d better call production and tell them I’d be late and high tail it back to my house to get out the important stuff.

The casting director said she was just going to take me off the call and I replied that once I cleared out my house, I’d have nowhere else to go, plus if my house did go up, I’d need the money I’d be making while on set. She changed my call time to later and wished me luck as I started to drive up my mountain.

My husband was stuck in traffic from one direction and his best friend was stuck in traffic from the other direction. That left me as the only one who could empty out the house and get our cars out of there as well.

I turned onto the street that goes up the mountainside…right behind a police officer on the bullhorn asking residents to voluntarily evacuate.

Up at my place, there were fire engines in the cul-de-sac nearly blocking my driveway, but I pulled into my garage and immediately started to load the non-replaceable stuff I’d set out. I paused that task in order get my husband’s car out. He’d told me that as far as he was concerned, the only thing he cared about was his car, so I asked one of the firefighters if it was okay to drive out and then walk back up. He was wonderful. He said that even if I left the car in the garage, it’d have a better chance of surviving because my house was built using non-combustible materials, but if I could get it down the street, it might not be a bad idea.

I had to leave one car behind already–the one that blew the tire on the way to the set on Saturday, so his words really reassured me that even though the situation was bad, it could’ve been ten times worse. So I thanked the man, hopped into my husband’s car and got it out of the neighborhood as my husband was walking up the street. He jumped in the car to take it to safer ground and I started walking back up the hill. One of my neighbors picked me up and took me back to my house where I continued loading the last bits of what wasn’t replaceable. The whole area was clouded with smoke. As far as I could tell, my whole world was on fire.

At this point, my biggest regret was that I hadn’t gone through my huge wardrobe to choose out what needed to go with me, so I grabbed some of my period costumes, vintage clothes and the stuff I designed and built and tossed it in my car. Then, I had to rearrange some stuff because I was almost out of room.

After that, I figured one last trip…. and went into my closet. As I was deliberating–I mean, there were still about a hundred pairs of shoes in there!–a fireman walked in behind me. He said that I was really pushing it. We were almost out of time. And what struck me most was that even as I was grabbing the last few things, he kept standing there like he wasn’t leaving until I was out of there.

He was wearing the full yellow super-uniform and his face had splotches of soot. Then he held out his hands and asked if he could help carry stuff. I handed him what was in my arms and grabbed a couple more things. He asked if I had a cell phone and I told him it was with me. He told me to grab my charger, so that was the last thing I got out of the house before we loaded my clothes into my car.

He told me how the fire was going to come along the side of my hill and sweep around my neighborhood, but that they’d be there to fight it. There were some curtains from my garage door that he picked up and set deeper into the garage. Yeah, at that point, I was really, really, really, really understanding that that very well could have been the last time I saw my house.

As I drove down the street, my husband was walking back up. I picked him up and we went down the base of the mountain into a store parking lot where we waited for a little while and just watched the amber glow behind the mountain get brighter.

Some of my husband’s co-workers called up. They’d gone to the house to help get out the cars. I was glad they were there because I’d forgotten a couple things that they were able to grab. They met us in the parking lot and I looked at my husband…and remembered that he had probably left the back sliding window open. So, we piled into the co-worker’s SUV and headed back up the hill. They weren’t gonna let us, but they stopped the people behind us instead.

Once at the house, we closed the sliding door–it opened onto the only wood on the outside of the house–our back deck. I ran through the house with my video camera shooting what could have been my last trip through. I just kept the thing running. I’m kinda looking forward to see the video because I know I said some crazy stuff and I even stopped to grab some clean underwear. I mean–I had my priorities!!!! LOL So, while there were firemen in my front and backyard, we were heading down the mountain. There was nothing left to do but wait.

I went to the movie set. I was a hooker! The best part of the whole night was when the AD told me and the girls, “I don’t really know how to say this, but could you guys ‘ho’ it up a little more?” Yeah, what a night! We had a blast and the guys that we ‘ho’ed it up with were all really fun sports. I so loved the people on that set.

I got out at 5AM and I drove by my house on the way to my friend’s place and I couldn’t see if it was okay because there was too much smoke. I was recalled to the set last night and I left super early because the freeway was closed and I had to find a way around.

I stopped off at the base of my mountain to ask the cop how close the fire got. He told me that I couldn’t drive up there, but I could walk if I wanted to and that the fire came right up to the back fences, but the firemen were able to keep the houses safe. I breathed a sigh of relief, coughed because of the smoke, ash and fumes, and then headed out toward the set, hoping that I’d be able to come home after working. I drove past the inferno in the mountains and got on my way.

…And then as I was driving, I got a really bad feeling. Like the danger wasn’t over just yet and I wanted to turn around and go back, but I knew I couldn’t make it home and then back to the set before call time, so I got in touch with my husband and told him to walk up to the house because I had a really bad feeling. I guess the concern in voice got him curious enough to go look.

He was just about to give up and think I was wrong when as he was standing there on the back deck, with the whole mountainside still smoldering, one of the trees ignited. He said that the flame was ten feet higher than the thirty foot tree itself. [Yeah, that’ll teach him to doubt my psychic ability!!!!!] He scrambled inside the house to call 911 and the firemen came back and put out the blaze a few minutes later. He was the only one on our street at that point. Had he not been there, a few houses might’ve gotten damaged.

The fire was still raging in the wild when I drove home at 3AM this morning. There’s ash everywhere–almost like snow. The air is still smoky and hard to breathe outside. Helicopters are still flying overhead, but for my neighborhood, the worst is over. It had burned all the way up to the city-maintained landscaping just beyond my back fence.

I went to the store today and there were some firemen looking for Band-Aids and such. As I walked past the first one, I got all choked up. All I could do was just look at him and the next one. By the time I walked past the third, I finally choked out ‘thank you’ without completely losing it. His ‘you’re welcome’ reply will echo in my mind forever.

Outside the store, I drove past the fire engine and choked out another thank you and told another fireman that my house was one of the ones on the edge and he got a really big grin on his face as he nodded his head and said ‘Wow! You’re welcome’.

I hope this darn blaze goes out soon. These guys have been working for over a week. They’re missing their kids’ Halloween for this, too. These men are just so wonderfully amazing. They were both reassuring and honest that it was entirely possible we could have lost everything. And to think this was one of the smaller blazes going on in SoCal!

I know there are some vigilant people out there who would’ve stayed at their house until the very end, but my take on it was that these guys really know what they’re doing and I felt better getting myself out of their way so they’d have one less person to worry about. If this ever happens again, the only thing I would do differently is make sure I got the number of the fire trucks that were outside my house so I’d know where to send my thanks.

Okay, I think that’s about it for my fire story plus being on the set of Havoc. It will definitely show up in a book at some point. No doubt about that. I mean, don’t be surprised if some frantic heroine is in her closet gathering up her favorite clothes when a soot covered hero walks up behind her, won’t leave until she does and offers to help carry stuff out of her house. These heroes really do exist.

UPDATE: Rather than trying to figure out how to add the update to this entry, click here for screen captures and more about my time on Havoc!

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