The Palisades Fire

ADRIANA CARGILL: Keegan, do you want to get driving?

KEEGAN GIBBS: Yeah.

DANA WOLF-PHILLIPS: You want to go to the Grammys?

DANA WOLF-PHILLIPS: You just got to get to the Grammys.

ADRIANA: I'm in Point Dume Malibu at the wolf den — aka the community brigade's headquarters, also Dana Wolf-Philips garage, who you just heard talking. I’m standing in her driveway with  Keegan Gibbs, one of the community brigade founders.  

KEEGAN GIBBS: Drew wants me to go to the Grammys to represent the county fire to present a Grammy award. 

ADRIANA: Chief Drew Smith is one of Keegan's mentors and a longtime LA county firefighter.

KEEGAN GIBBS: I'm not kidding. 

ADRIANA: [laughter] Really? 

KEEGAN GIBBS: I'm like, really dude? He's all, no, really. He's like. Marrone asked me, and then I asked for you, and I'm like, [laughter] 

ADRIANA: Why doesn't Marrone do it?

ADRIANA: Chief Anthony Marrone is head of the LA County Fire Department. Marrone asked firefighters from a bunch of different departments to come. It's January 29th, 2025. About 3 weeks since the Palisades and Eaton fires started. Both are still going, albeit mostly contained. Keegan is looking at the ground, squirming a little. He doesn’t like talking about this at all.

KEEGAN GIBBS: There’s like 20 firefighters that are from this area, and they want somebody from the brigade.

DANA WOLF-PHILLIPS: You should go. Come on. You can do it. You can wear a tux.

KEEGAN GIBBS: That is not my deal.

DANA WOLF-PHILLIPS: I don't care.

KEEGAN GIBBS: Well, he wants me to wear this.

DANA WOLF-PHILLIPS: Okay, well you can wear this.

ADRIANA: They go on bickering like siblings for a bit. Before Dana joined the brigade, they weren't friends. They knew each other from way back in high school but that was about it. What they went through in the Palisades Fire has clearly made them closer. Chief Marrone wanted them to be honored for their heroic efforts alongside his firefighters. 

ADRIANA: Should I just get in?

KEEGAN GIBBS: Yeah lets roll.

ADRIANA: I jump into Keegan's big white truck. Keegan wants to show me what he discovered in the Las Flores Canyon area in Malibu after the fire came through, and why it could be a game changer. We turn onto the PCH or Pacific Coast Highway, and head east towards the Palisades. 

KEEGAN GIBBS: You know, hold on. Mr. Schue? Yes, sir? 

ADRIANA: Keegan's phone has been ringing off the hook everytime I’m around him.

KEEGAN GIBBS: How are you doing? 

PHONE: Good, thanks. How are you? 

KEEGAN GIBBS: I'm a little tired.

PHONE: What on earth have you been doing? [laughter]

KEEGAN GIBBS: Yeah, I know.

PHONE: Oh, man. Yeah, you deserve to sleep for a week.

KEEGAN GIBBS: Yeah, well, not anytime soon.

PHONE: We all know that's not going to happen.

KEEGAN GIBBS: Yeah, yeah.

ADRIANA: Keegan's been at it almost non-stop. Everyday, he gets up at the crack of dawn and goes to the incident command post at Zuma Beach in Malibu. There he gets orders from the LA County Fire department. During an incident, he’s the brigade's task force leader so it's his job to take those orders and assign them out. In the early days, it was helping evacuate residents, and doing structure triage while the fire was still advancing. Then putting out hotspots and doing mop-up where it had already come through. Later on, brigade members worked with brush crews to put the fire out in remote areas and now, they’re mostly helping with repopulation efforts, like escorting residents back to their homes. This week they noticed people needed help sifting through the ash and debris to look for stuff that might have survived: family heirlooms, tiles, anything really. So, they made metal and wood sifters to help residents sort through the literal ashes of their homes. 

ADRIANA: On the PCH Keegan and I continue driving. Both sides of the road look like a bomb went off, it reminds me of photos from cities shelled in World War II. Except it's not the past or somewhere far away, it's the present, right in front of me. And it's in my city. Keegan is still on the phone:

PHONE: Are the roadblocks lifted? Can we get in? 

KEEGAN GIBBS: Yeah, the roadblocks are not lifted. I'm actually pulling up to a roadblock right now.

ADRIANA: The roadblock is a bunch of cones, a sheriffs car and a man in camel fatigues — who I assume is the National Guard — he’s got a big AK-47 like gun slung over his chest and he motions for us to roll down the window. 

ADRIANA: We are entering the disaster zone. In total 12 people died, 10,000 homes and businesses were lost, and more than 23,000 acres torched. As a reminder, I'm only focusing on the Palisades Fire because that's where the brigade was active. The Palisades and Eaton fires devoured two whole neighborhoods overnight. People are simultaneously dumbfounded and horrified. Why wasn't it stopped? Could it happen again? It feels like something has broken in the psyche of Angelenos. That we're in a new era. Like we got our teeth kicked in and now no one is safe. The city is electric with dread, and the air still tastes like burnt batteries.

ADRIANA: From PRX and Wave Maker Media, this is the Palisades Fire podcast. A 2 part Sandcastles Special and I'm your host Adriana Cargill. We’re returning to Keegan and the Community Brigade two years after the original Sandcastles series. This is Episode 2: Don’t Call Us Heroes. In the last episode we saw the community brigade in action during the Palisades Fire. For the first time, trained volunteers worked alongside first responders to save homes and lives during one of the most destructive fires in California history. What happened here has never been done before in this country. In this episode, we ask: did it work? Could this small experiment be a step to unlocking a whole different kind of future? And we’ll dive into how it could reshape life with wildfire in Los Angeles and beyond. 

ADRIANA: This special continues the story of a renegade group of surfers known as the Point Dume Bombers. During the Woolsey Fire seven years ago, they came to their community's aid when emergency first responders were stretched incredibly thin. They realized there will never be enough firefighters when catastrophic wildfires like this hit, and that this problem wasn’t going away. What began as a spontaneous grassroots effort morphed over the years into the community brigade program. For more on that, I suggest you go back and listen to Sandcastles season 1. I've been reporting on these people and wildfires in Los Angeles for 6 years now and man a lot has happened! Buckle your seat belts, we're about to get into it.

ADRIANA: The mood in Los Angeles is unlike anything I've ever experienced. Everyone’s talking about the fires and the destruction. 

[NEWS CLIP: The devastation is complete and jaw dropping.]

[NEWS CLIP: Many residents are just learning they have lost all they own.]

ADRIANA: Residents have a lot of questions and anger about what happened to them. The news is full of it.

[NEWS CLIP: Residents here in Pacific Palisades are now left wondering if more houses, more lives could have been saved if that system were different.]

[NEWS CLIP: Governor Newsom has ordered a probe as to why that reservoir was offline.]

ADRIANA: People want answers. About a whole bunch of stuff: mandatory evacuations. Road closures. Toxin levels. Debris removal. And that's just the tip of the iceberg — so Malibu city is holding a town hall and it's probably gonna take hours. 

ADRIANA:  I'm here on a chilly Saturday night and the place is packed. Before the meeting gets started as people settle in I spot Keegan. He's been complaining about what he thinks is a lung infection.  He’s been in and out of the burn area for weeks now. Everyone knows it's toxic but even city agencies don't know exactly what’s there or how much of it, let alone what that could mean for human health.

ADRIANA: Are you feeling better?

KEEGAN GIBBS: I woke up this morning. I thought I pissed my bed. I soaked all the way through our top sheet, all the way through the pad, and almost to the mattress.

ADRIANA: From your fever.

KEEGAN GIBBS:  From a fever and sweat. And it smelled so bad, it was unreal.

ADRIANA: He's wearing a navy blue bomber jacket and a blue baseball cap with the community brigade symbol on them. 7 figures silhouetted shoulder to shoulder with a house in front, a mountain on fire. There’s also a red sun in the background. In this town hall, there are about 20 or so brigade members, all of them wearing the same hat and jacket. Their uniformity dominates a corner of the auditorium. During the Woolsey fire Keegan also spent a lot of time in a burn area trying to help his community.

KEEGAN GIBBS: Same exact thing happened to me three weeks after Woolsey. Only time it's ever happened. I was convulsing last night. Convulsing. I couldn't even get up to go to the bathroom. My body was going like this. It was fucked up. And I knew for a fact right after Woolsey, I was like, that was my body getting rid of all the toxins.

ADRIANA: You've been around a lot.

KEEGAN GIBBS: For sure. I can't imagine doing this full time. Let's put it that way.

ADRIANA: A recent report showed that firefighters’ blood tested before and after these fires showed elevated levels of toxic metals like Mercury, which was 3x higher, and lead, which was 5x higher than normal. This research is still ongoing - but its well established these metals can cause very serious brain, heart, and nervous system damage not to mention an increased cancer risk. Breathing in the smoke from these fires is no joke. Everyone in these zones, firefighters and the brigade, put their lives on the line. And the consequences of that sacrifice may last long after the flames have gone out. 

ADRIANA: Not long after I talked with Keegan, I see Tyler Hauptman, one of the brigade co-founders outside the main hall. He's shorter than Keegan, with radiant blue eyes and scruffy facial hair. He and Keegan have been close friends since they were little. And they’ve both watched their family members lose homes to wildfires over the years. Tyler has circles under his eyes and sounds like he has a cold. He’s been doing brigade work non-stop too. 

TYLER HAUPTMAN:  I think 12 days straight and, that was the best therapy honestly was helping the community was the thing that really was, still is what keeps me going right now.

ADRIANA: Tyler was one of 4 brigade members who lost their home in the Palisades Fire. 

TYLER HAUPTMAN: The hardest part was actually leaving the brigade and coming back to my wife and kid who are now living at my sister's house and understanding that we have some hard realities to deal with.

ADRIANA: For him and Keegan, all those questions — about the water supply, why weren't there more firefighters — they aren’t important.The wind and fuel conditions were so extreme they say, that it wouldn’t have changed the outcome of this fire very much. They saw it with their own eyes. The community brigade worked around the clock to try and save lives and homes alongside roughly 5,000 first responders. 

ADRIANA: On its face, when the meeting got started I thought I'd be watching a re-run of the Woolsey Fire Town Hall. That meeting was an absolute mess: angry residents, defensive fire chiefs, city officials trying to be peacemakers. This Palisades meeting kicked off much the same:

[CLIP: AUDIENCE MEMBER:  My question is, as I was all alone in that community at night, how do I know that next time the fire department will be present and help me defend my home and I'm not just putting up tinder this time.]

[CLIP: AUDIENCE MEMBER: Where were you? Nobody came to my street. There was no fire truck in my neighborhood.]

ADRIANA: Here we go I thought, re-run confirmed. 

[CLIP: AUDIENCE MEMBER: You let us burn! You let us burn!] 

[CLIP: MODERATOR:  Stop, excuse me, One speaker at a time.]

ADRIANA: LA County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone takes this question. Here in southern California, he's a top fire chief-they’re around 4 million people across 1.5 million acres under his jurisdiction. It's a little complicated but this is totally separate from the LA City Fire Department. For many of the areas burned in the Palisades Fire the only fire support they receive is from the county. During the last big fire there was a different chief, so this was Marrone’s first time in the hot seat. 

[CLIP: CHIEF ANTHONY MARRONE: Okay So I'll address the fire resources and the fact that you didn't have a firetruck on your street, sir, I believe you, because we don't have enough fire trucks to put one on every street. That's the unfortunate truth.]

[CLIP: AUDIENCE MEMBER: My house burned on Wednesday.] 

ADRIANA: It's hard to hear, but the man in the crowd replies that this house burned on Wednesday — the day after the fire started.

[CLIP: CHIEF ANTHONY MARRONE: Yeah, no, I understand. We did everything we could to prepare and up staffed prior to any fire ever starting.]

ADRIANA: Marrone has said it takes 3 engines to defend a single home in a blaze like this. Some quick math: in the Palisades, 7,000 structures burned so they would have needed 21,000 engines, which they don’t have in the entire state of California.

[CLIP: CHIEF ANTHONY MARRONE: Unfortunately, the fire burned into LA County. It got to your street and we weren't there. I believe you. I hear you. But please, we don't have enough fire trucks in all of Los Angeles to put one on every street.]

ADRIANA: It's not only firetrucks but also firefighters. On the morning of the Palisades Fire they actually held over the previous shift, plus the oncoming one — so all together, they had 1,800 firefighters, double what they normally have. But it still wasn't anywhere near enough. It's a mathematically impossible task to defend all homes and businesses in dense urban neighborhoods during monster fires. Repeat mathematically impossible. 

[CLIP: CHIEF ANTHONY MARRONE: But we couldn't be everywhere because there's not enough of us. I truly am sorry. But if there's anybody to blame for that, blame me. Don't blame them because they put their lives on the line that morning.] 

ADRIANA: Applause. That was definitely new. Last time, officials could barely get a word in. Judging by the questions, more people seemed to understand why this happened, and why they’ll never be enough firefighters in the face of a disaster this big. Also there seemed to be a lot more listening on the part of the fire department.  Here’s Chief Marrone at another press conference in the days after the fire:

[CLIP: CHIEF ANTHONY MARRONE: We would love to be able to stop it next time, but I don't want to lie to you. It's going to be very difficult unless we change a couple of important things.] 

ADRIANA: This change in tone from the fire department, and the change in some residents' responses — this was it. Right before my eyes the culture around wildfires was starting to shift. A small glimmer, but it's unmistakable. And that “a couple of important things” Marrone is talking about has nothing to do with water, helicopters or the number of firefighters. But it does have a lot to do with what Keegan wants to show me in the Las Flores Canyon area. 

ADRIANA: I’m back in the car with Keegan and we’re heading towards Las Flores Canyon. 

ADRIANA: I really appreciate you going out with me, Keegan. 

KEEGAN GIBBS: Of course. 

ADRIANA: I know you're not super stoked.

KEEGAN GIBBS: I don't like being in the burn zone anymore. It's just tough. It's like at the depressing stage right now where it's just like, there's no fire operations anymore. You're driving past homeowners that are sifting through their stuff

ADRIANA: Keegan’s pretty worn down. Since the fires, word of what the brigade did has gotten around. He tells me they've received more than 600 new applications. As a reminder, their first and only group so far was just around 50 people. In close by Santa Monica folks want to set up their own brigades. But there’s also interest from faraway places like central and northern California. Getting an invite to the Grammy’s is just one example of the attention he’s getting. The media are calling. He's been invited to more speaking gigs than he can keep track of. He's become a sort of bridge between the community and the agencies.

ADRIANA: It's also an interesting role because you didn't choose this.

KEEGAN GIBBS: Nope, definitely did not choose this. It chose me. That's for sure.

ADRIANA: It chose him the day Woolsey burned down his family home 7 years ago. But he also let that experience change him and his relationship to wildfire. The same goes for his co-founder Tyler. 

KEEGAN GIBBS: Tyler's going through a tough time. He's about to move into his new spot, I think, like, on Sunday. 

ADRIANA: Tyler fought all night to save his home in the Palisades. It was one of the last houses on the block to go. But once the domino effect started there wasn’t much he or anyone else could do. 

ADRIANA: That must have been so hard for him to walk away.

KEEGAN GIBBS: I can't imagine. I honestly can't imagine.

ADRIANA: As we drove, we passed houses that are still standing. Why had some survived and others not?  Keegan's been telling me for years: home hardening — techniques and principles that can prevent your home from burning in a wildfire — is the key. That’s what Tyler specializes in. His home was hardened, so then why did it burn? Here’s Tyler:

TYLER HAUPTMAN: the Palisades fire, especially the Altadena fire. It was less of a wildfire, more of an urban fire where homes would catch more homes on fire.

ADRIANA: Where the fire started, near a popular hiking trail in the mountains just above most of the densely populated Pacific Palisades neighborhood, and its high wind speeds, transformed this wildfire into what's called a community conflagration, or urban fire. Instead of from tree to tree it moved from house to house. 

TYLER HAUPTMAN: Especially on the side of the bluff that I'm on, all the homes are very close together.

ADRIANA: Housing density.  This is also really important. It's not just how close houses are to each other but it also matters what's immediately around each home. In home hardening lingo they call it ‘the home ignition zone.’ You might also hear it called defensible space: the space between you and vegetation, and you and your neighbors. Think fences, trees and decking. Every home is different but the most important area is zero to 5 feet. But research shows that up to 100 feet around a home also matters. Tyler's  home was only about 10 feet from his neighbors. So what his neighbors did in their yards absolutely contributed to his home catching fire.

TYLER HAUPTMAN: And there would be a chain reaction of homes catching other homes on fire. Complete domino effect. And that's why preparedness is the only thing to really keep that from happening.

ADRIANA: Home hardening can stop the domino effect before it starts. This could’ve saved a lot of homes. 

TYLER HAUPTMAN: This wildfire was just completely predetermined. It was going to run its course, no matter what, because of those winds. And the only thing to really mitigate that is people mitigating their homes.

ADRIANA: Home hardening is the best way for a neighborhood to protect itself.

TYLER HAUPTMAN: This is a collective effort. We're sharing the risk living in this environment and so close to each other that the more that you could do, the better off your neighbors are going to be and vice versa. So it's a total herd immunity approach.

ADRIANA: We finally turn off the PCH onto a road that goes straight up. Rambla Pacifico street is a 2-lane road, with no shoulder, on an extremely steep cliffside. There's 30 years plus of plant build up here, and no clear separation between the community and the wilderness.

KEEGAN GIBBS: What the fuck? We can't go. Hey guys, is this impassable this way?

UTILITY WORKER: Um, yeah. Impassible.

KEEGAN GIBBS: Okay. Copy that. Thanks, brother. Appreciate it.

ADRIANA: The roads are a mess. Power and water are still off in this area. And utility workers are everywhere trying to get things back up and running. We have to drive back down and around the long way through the Las Flores Canyon itself. We pass piles of rubble with lonely chimneys on both sides of the road. 

KEEGAN GIBBS: As Drew likes to say, they had a religious moment when the fire front came through. Cause look at that, look at all that fuel down there, it's insane.

ADRIANA: Chief Drew Smith is the same guy who asked Keegan to go to the Grammys. He’s an expert in wildfire behavior and knows when there's a lot of thick brush it means potentially gigantic flames. I’ve been hiking in this area before. It used to be a forest, full of lush green trees — oak, ash — all wrestling for space on crowded canyon sides. It looked like an old timey photograph of the cowboy West. But today, after this fire swept through, instead of color, everything is now black and white. The trees look like they were frozen mid scream, their naked branches reaching out for a savior that never came.

ADRIANA: How big do you think the flames were?

KEEGAN GIBBS: 100 feet, easily. I don't know.

ADRIANA: What was abundant natural beauty is now the crisped leftovers of an all-out massacre. Seeing this place like this makes my chest tight. We continue driving towards our mystery destination.

ADRIANA: That house is gone, that house is gone, that house is gone. It's like everyone on this side of the street and that side.

KEEGAN GIBBS: Yes. Wait till you see this.

ADRIANA: We pull into a small driveway that leads to a cul de sac - There are 4 houses — well, there used to be 4. In one, there's the rusted skeleton of a sports car with the glass melted into frozen puddles. Another house has just a concrete walkway with a stone fountain to one side, leading up to a lone door frame. The third, just a red chimney and the outline of a foundation filled with rubble. But then there's a 4th house, completely untouched. It’s as if there was no fire at all. My jaw drops open. I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s kind of unbelievable.

KEEGAN GIBBS: This house survived. And this is the house that Tyler and myself and Brent had done a couple visits with the homeowner and encouraged her to do mitigation work. And she did, she did the work and honestly, unsurprisingly it survived.

ADRIANA: It's surprising to me at least. We get out and take a look. It's a 2-story house with stucco siding, and brick design features. A metal fence around it. It’s got a pool in the back. There are still little pink and purple flowers and green bushes in her yard. There are even pumpkins, uncooked! Not a burn mark on the whole house. It's so out of place it looks like someone cut this out from a normal sunny happy neighborhood and copy/pasted it into a disaster zone. A mirage in the middle of a desert of destruction. 

ADRIANA: What did you tell the homeowner?

KEEGAN GIBBS: What we had recommended was separating the vegetation so it wasn't continuous. Not saying to get rid of everything. She had wood chips everywhere. And requested she replace the wood chips with like a lava rock or river pebbles or river rock. She had chosen lava rock.

ADRIANA: This is home hardening in action. Besides these recommendations, she moved vegetation away from her propane tank. She added 1/8th inch mesh on her attic vents. These small but crucial steps make the difference between her house surviving and her neighbors’ not. 

KEEGAN GIBBS: Yeah, I mean, if you're just staring at the house from the driveway, you wouldn't know there was even a fire here.

ADRIANA: It's a bit mind-blowing that it's so simple. Most of the street is gone. But here it's as if nothing happened. I’d always thought in extreme fire events like the Palisades Fire, it wouldn't matter. Turns out it still does. ​

KEEGAN GIBBS: If you do the work for the structural mitigation, you shouldn't need to be fighting fire. You shouldn't be needing to put yourself in a dangerous situation. Your house should be able to survive on its own. Sorry, I grabbed this. Hello, it's Keegan.​

ADRIANA: Keegan picks up another call. It's a homeowner in Santa Monica who wants to do a home ignition assessment. He, Tyler, and Brent have done 451 of these since 2022. To put that into perspective, there are around 3.7 million residential housing units in LA County, and around half are single family homes. There’s plenty more to do. These home assessments are one of the most important things the brigade does. Educating the public on how to live better in a fire place. They’re in the process of creating a report that will include the houses they did assessments on, who actually did the work, and how many of them survived. To the brigade co-founders, this is the single biggest thing brigades can do to move the needle on home loss. They imagine this program as a template, where home hardening teachings could spread across neighborhoods, cities and states. So the next time wildfires come knocking, there could be dramatically less home loss. Home hardening is different for every home, and if you want to hear more about it please listen to episode 5 in the Sandcastles series. Keegan tells me a big misconception about home hardening is that it's expensive. All the changes this homeowner made can be done with some elbow grease, a trip to Home Depot and a few hundred bucks. While he's on the phone I walk around peeking at the remains of other people's lives through my n95 mask and sunglasses. When Keegan gets off the phone I ask him if this homeowner will come back.

KEEGAN GIBBS: She's having a really tough time. Um, because even though her house survived, it's not like, she's not happy. So it's one of those weird things. It's like she survived, but her community didn't, and so she doesn't want to be a part of that, especially all the toxins that are around here from all the burnt structures.

ADRIANA: It's so quiet here. The only noises are crows and the wind. I imagine there used to be people walking on the street, kids playing, music coming from passing cars. What life would be like in a disaster zone, if his house survived, was also in Tyler's mind the night it burned down. Here’s Tyler:

TYLER HAUPTMAN: I don't even know if it's worth saving, it was a real bummer to have that thought in my head where I was like, I didn't want to raise my kid in this disaster area. And maybe it would be easier just to let it go.

ADRIANA: When the fire outmatched him and the brigade, he didn’t call for more resources. Looking around at this neighborhood, what Tyler's saying is starting to make sense: 

ADRIANA: It smells like that nasty fire smoke just sort of hanging in the air. 

KEEGAN GIBBS: Oh yeah, and it'll be here for months. 

ADRIANA: Keegan would know, he went through this with Woolsey. His parents, and most of the houses lost in that fire 7 years ago still haven’t been rebuilt. His co-founder Tyler is also in this same situation. He has to decide whether it's worth it to go down the long road of re-building. I asked Tyler where he was with all that:

TYLER HAUPTMAN: It's too early to tell, I, I just don't know how, how we're going to rebuild and what that's going to look like. And then I don't know how the neighborhood's going to rebuild and the rest of the community because it really is a collective effort and if we don't do it right, it's just going to happen again.

ADRIANA: If they don't build with more separation between the houses, with fire resistant materials, and harden their homes, the same story is likely to repeat itself. If Los Angeles as a whole doesn't do this, we will see the same devastation and lives lost — or maybe even worse — in the next fire. This kind of community level care on a big scale is possible. I saw it in the thousands of GoFundMe pages in the fire's aftermath. Angelenos turned to their community to help them get financially back on their feet. Most had lost everything they owned but the shirts on their backs. Tyler’s family had a gofundme page too, it raised 3x what they had hoped for. 

TYLER HAUPTMAN: I mean, I was like bawling, crying, just seeing like how many people donated and like how, like, it's just so, so crazy. 

ADRIANA: A lot of people love you and appreciate the work you’ve been doing.

TYLER HAUPTMAN: Yeah, I, I mean, I just feel the love. 

ADRIANA: We get back in the car and head down the canyon towards the PCH.

ADRIANA: Does it ever make you think of not living in a firescape?

KEEGAN GIBBS: No, because I know it's possible to live responsibly in a fire prone area. The fate of structures burning at this scale is not inevitable. We can control that. We can't control when a fire is going to happen. And that's the whole Smokey the Bear myth of only you can prevent forest fires. We think we can, but we've proven that we can't. But what you can do is prevent it from being urban destruction but that has to be done on a house by house by house by house basis.

ADRIANA: It's been a long day of driving around and looking at the wreckage of one of California's most beautiful neighborhoods. Keegan has a 1,000 mile stare in his eyes.

KEEGAN GIBBS: Happy to be getting out of this burn. It's just fucking, it's honestly, it's depressing.

ADRIANA: Why do you say that?

KEEGAN GIBBS:   I don't wanna see my community or any community burn at this scale. And to know that it's preventable, that's the toughest part to see.

ADRIANA:  The sun is now hitting the exposed metal innards of a home crumbling into the ocean. The shining steel frame looks like giant animal ribs, a carcass belly up. House after house is like this. As we drive, he points out why he thinks each one survived.

KEEGAN GIBBS:  Look at that house, that's plenty of vegetation around it, but first 15 - 20 feet’s all concrete and steel and double pane modern windows still standing. There's structures you can tell that firefighters were at, they clearly they saved.

ADRIANA: How can you tell? 

KEEGAN GIBBS: There's little stories of every structure, especially the ones that are standing. Every house has a story. 

ADRIANA: There’s a method to the madness of wildfire when it hits a home, patterns that repeat. So it's possible to rewrite it next time. Prepare your home for wildfires before they’re at your doorstep. We have to stop assuming that we have a wildfire problem, and realize we have a home ignition problem as Dr. Jack Cohen puts it. He’s a retired scientist and the preeminent researcher on home ignitions from wildfires. He's been banging this drum for about 30 years now. Keegan is a big Jack Cohen fan:

KEEGAN GIBBS: He doesn't like the word home hardening because it denotes like a wartime defense against an enemy. And what he wants to get us to is the point where we don't look at wildfire as an enemy, but that it's a natural reality. And he feels that if you use the word hardening, you're conjuring up fear. And his goal is to stop conjuring fear and I honor and respect that so much because that's why it's such a heavy lift to get homeowners to do the work is because they really do fear it. But if we reframe how we think about it, and that it's a relationship, and that you can adjust that relationship to something that's sustainable, it's not something you need to fear anymore.

ADRIANA: From fearing wildfires to embracing them as a part of a natural reality seems like a big leap. But it's possible. I know it is. Because I've seen it with my own eyes. I remember when I first met Keegan 6 years ago. Things were so different then. During the Woolsey Fire in 2018, he and his friends, a ragtag group of surfers, wandered around with bandanas over their mouths using random garden tools trying to put hotspots out. They slept in the dark with no power or water. And they actively defied authority.

ADRIANA: Keegan drops me off back at the wolf den, in Point Dume, Malibu. Standing here in the driveway it's crazy to think about how things were back then. Now they’ve got generators, lights, cases of water. There’s a huge supply tent in the back with all the fire gear you could dream of: gloves, eye protection, first aid, and specialized fire tools. All of this stuff was donated by companies. They’re sporting matching yellow PPE gear. Brigade members have taken classes on wildfire behavior, how to use pool pumps, how to evacuate difficult, elderly or disabled people. They’re asked to harden their homes too, and tell any interested neighbors about it. All of this they’ve done as volunteers, in their spare time, in between parenting, jobs and full lives. The transformation of this group from knowing next to nothing to where they are today is truly stunning. They have without a doubt changed their relationship to wildfire. And it hasn’t gone unnoticed. 

ADRIANA: I’m in downtown Los Angeles at City Hall. There are a lot of people here, especially for a 9:30 am on a Tuesday. Around 20 of them are brigade members. Even though they're wearing their matching navy blue bomber jackets and hats, I’m able to pick Tyler out of the crowd.

ADRIANA: Tyler, I see you shaved.

TYLER HAUPTMAN: Yeah, a little bit.

ADRIANA: His usually scruffy facial hair has been cleaned up for the occasion today. We usher into a gigantic auditorium with theater seating. And we find our seats. The last time they were here in 2023, the county approved the brigade program. Last time it was just an idea.

ADRIANA: So this has got to feel like, wow.

TYLER HAUPTMAN: Yeah. It was a pilot program. Nobody knew where it was going to go. In a year to have this type of success and to be acknowledged for all of our work and just to be here is a huge honor and just it's been a wild year.

ADRIANA: They launched this program a year ago in 2024. As a reminder, it's housed at Brent’s non-profit: the Los Angeles Emergency Preparedness Foundation, in partnership with the LA County Fire Department. Their funding comes from donations and a patchwork of grants from agencies like CalFire. Chief Drew Smith is also here. 

ADRIANA: Do you think that the Brigade helped save lives and homes?

DREW SMITH: I know that they did. I've talked to them and they've communicated the actions they took with people that were fleeing that didn't evacuate early like they were supposed to and they had to make legitimate rescues. And I don't have a number, but there are many rescues that they made because they had to take action.

ADRIANA: Looking back at the last few weeks, a bare minimum for considering this program a success is that none of the brigaders died or got horribly injured. I know that might sound crass but that was the biggest hurdle for the fire department to approve this pilot. Remember, life safety is their number one priority. In the end, the worst reported injuries were a bunch of them got poison oak, and someone else got an ember in the eye. It's important to say that the long-term effects of wildfire smoke are still being studied and pose real risks to human health.

ADRIANA: I see Chief Marrone here:

ADRIANA: Are you excited to be here to support the brigade today?

CHIEF ANTHONY MARRONE: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. You know, we took a chance, supervisor Horvath and I took a chance in October of 2023 to support the brigade and approve it. And no other fire department's ever done that in the United States, so I think it worked out. 

ADRIANA: And how do you think it went?

CHIEF ANTHONY MARRONE: I think it went amazing.

ADRIANA: The ceremony begins.

[CLIP: SPEAKER: We thank you, Lord, for the heroism of our first responders, and so many others who have answered the call of service and risked their lives to protect us and save us from disaster.]

ADRIANA: Next we stand.

[CLIP: SPEAKER: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.]

ADRIANA: Then we take our seats. A few other awards are given out. After, a petite woman in a colorful dress with black rimmed glasses takes the stage. 

[CLIP: LINDSEY HORVATH: It's my honor today to recognize the incredible Los Angeles County Fire Community Brigade and their heroic efforts during the Franklin and Palisades fires.]

ADRIANA: It’s Lindsey Horvath, one of LA’s county board of supervisors. Collectively, they’re some of the most powerful politicians in the region. They’re also Chief Marrone’s bosses.  

[CLIP: LINDSEY HORVATH: The community brigade began as a grassroots effort to prepare and empower our residents to protect their neighborhoods in the face of wildfires. What started as a vision to bridge gaps in emergency response, has grown into an essential force for keeping our community safe.]

ADRIANA: About 50 people were involved with the fire response and recovery efforts, spending around 5,000 volunteer hours together. They evacuated neighborhoods in Palisades and Malibu like Sunset Mesa, Big Rock and Topanga Canyon, among others. They evacuated hundreds of people and triaged countless homes. 

[CLIP: LINDSEY HORVATH: We have two exceptional leaders, Brent Woodworth and Keegan Gibbs. who have shaped the community brigade into what it is today.]

ADRIANA: All the brigade members are standing in matching uniforms behind Supervisor Horvath. To her left is Chief Marrone, Chief Smith and then Brent and Keegan

[CLIP: LINDSEY HORVATH: Brent's leadership at the L.A. Emergency Preparedness Foundation has been the backbone of the brigade. And Keegan, your commitment since the Woolsey Fire to mobilizing and inspiring neighbors has made these efforts possible.]

ADRIANA: It's pretty wild to see them all up there. I remember when this group was actively defying authority. Now they’re being honored by a country supervisor. Not to mention Chief Marrone: 

[CLIP: CHIEF ANTHONY MARRONE: It goes without saying that the women and the men standing behind me of the community brigade represent the best of L.A. County coming together in times of need to protect other residents and the communities that they live in.]

ADRIANA: I look at their faces, people willing to run themselves ragged for the benefit of others. Some have even lost their houses. Everyone up there knows a friend, a neighbor or a family member who lost a home in the Palisades Fire. Keegan steps up to the podium: 

[CLIP: KEEGAN GIBBS: This last couple of weeks has been really tough to… work so hard for six years hoping to not have a result like this, knowing it's inevitable. To see it happen to our community, to several of our brigade members, it's been something that, it's only been more fuel for our motivation to work harder long in the future. You guys have our word that we're gonna keep working really hard to make sure that when we rebuild, we rebuild more resiliently and we're going to create more fire resilient communities moving forward. So thank you for this opportunity.]

[CLIP: LINDSEY HORVATH: To every volunteer who has stepped up in these moments of crisis, your courage, your dedication, and your hard work has saved lives. You are heroes in every sense of the word. Thank you all for your extraordinary efforts. And we thank you for all that you've given to Los Angeles County. Thank you.]

ADRIANA: All this hero stuff is a bit ironic because Keegan, Brent and Tyler really don't like being called heroes. They all squirm uncomfortably and wince when someone says it. Brent here:

ADRIANA: Do you like being called a hero?  

BRENT WOODWORTH: No, I, I think what happens is it, it's, uh, misconstrued.  We're, we were doing our job.  We're not doing it to be heroes.

ADRIANA: Sometimes they huff and puff a bit with irritated sighs. Here’s Tyler:

TYLER HAUPTMAN: Calling us heroes is kind of counterproductive because it's like giving people the perception that someone's going to be there, when in reality, chances are they're not. Harden your home. Be your own hero. Literally by, raking up leaves and blowing out your gutters, removing your thistle doormat, choosing different outdoor furniture.  It's like, we're not heroes, we're just neighbors helping neighbors, and if your house doesn't ignite, most likely it’ll save your neighbor's house too.

ADRIANA: Keegan’s really passionate about this stuff too because he knows it could’ve saved his family home from burning down. In his backyard growing up was a music studio where his dad worked that was made of wood. It was accidently  hardened: ember proofed because it was built to be sound tight. It survived Woolsey while the main house didn’t. This experience was a wake up call. He realized most people, including himself, were focusing on the wrong problem:

KEEGAN GIBBS: I thought, you fix the water problem. I thought that was the problem. That's not the problem. The structure ignition issue is the problem. Homeowners not taking responsibility for their vulnerability, that's the problem. You shouldn't need to have water or a firefighter at your structure for it to be saved. 

ADRIANA: The Las Flores house had no fire support during the Palisades Fire. None. And today there are still little purple flowers happily growing in the garden as if the fire never happened. 

KEEGAN GIBBS: You should be your own hero. Do the mitigation work so you don't have to rely on a different hero to do that dangerous work for you. It's on us as communities to do the work.

ADRIANA: Be your own hero. That seems pretty radical. Keegan talks about the hero-saving-victim paradigm as being part of the problem. In popular culture, I think for a lot of people in LA, there’s an expectation that firefighters are going to come and save us. So I had to ask Chief Marrone what he thought about this.

ADRIANA: There's a quote from Keegan I want to do a reaction to: he says that the hero-saving-victim paradigm only perpetuates our refusal to acknowledge our decision to live in a fire prone area. What's your reaction to that?

CHIEF ANTHONY MARRONE: I agree. I agree. I mean, we have to acknowledge that we live in a fire prone area, and we have to acknowledge that on Tuesday, January 7th, that Mother Nature ruled the day and no matter what we threw at the fire, we could not control it.

ADRIANA: What does Marrone think could move the needle on homes lost? Here he is talking to the press in the days after the fire across town in Altadena:

[CLIP: CHIEF ANTHNOY MARRONE: So it's, it really wasn't a function of not enough trucks. It was a function of how a community is built. Are the buildings hardened? Can they survive without a fire truck there?]

ADRIANA: In no way is anything I've said in this podcast is meant to take away from the heroic efforts of firefighters. They risk their lives to help people and save our communities. And we are grateful for their service. But as these wildfires continue to break records and push past what we imagined possible, the need for society to adapt is crystal clear. Firefighters face an impossible task: homes, water systems and cities were not built for this. There's this uncomfortable tension where we as homeowners are asking them to go into very dangerous situations without doing our part. Often people start learning about home hardening, after their home has already burned down. This is the most important gap the brigade is trying to fill: to help people change how they live with wildfire before it destroys their homes and lives. They say we are not powerless. The community brigade is an experiment, a new kind of hybrid between an everyday citizen and a professional firefighter. What will come of it, I can’t say. But other avenues of change and progress on this issue are maddeningly slow. Changing codes, zoning, and the infrastructure of our power grid, those would all make a big difference. But it takes a long time, and they can be reversed by a change in political winds. From everything I’ve seen, the biggest thing the community brigade is doing is giving people tangible ways to live better with wildfire that they can do today. And equally or maybe more importantly, giving them some hope.

ADRIANA: As of November 2025, 11 months after the fires, Community brigade co-founder Brent Woodworth is still living in a hotel. His home, which was hardened of course, is just a few streets down from one Keegan took me to near Las Flores Canyon. It survived the fire but smoke and wind damage has made it uninhabitable until they are able to remediate. Brent is still navigating the long winding road of insurance claims. 

BRENT WOODWORTH:  I'm lucky that the house is there. At the same time for anyone who has gone through the predicament who has survived, there's a lot of challenges too, because everything around you is gone. And so it sort of makes it a lonely neighborhood. 

ADRIANA: Of the 3 co-founders, Brent’s home survived but he hasn't been able to go back. Tyler lost his entirely. And Keegan wasn’t in the burn zone this time, but lost it in the last fire. It's worth repeating that these people have skin in the game. Dana Wolfe Phillips, the brigade mom, has gone from wanting to be nowhere near a wildfire to full on field operations enthusiast–she’s now taking advanced training courses with the brigade. And in November 2025, a new group of around 50 everyday people started their training as community brigade members.

ADRIANA: The rebuilding process is a tangled maze of laws, exceptions and executive orders from lots of different agencies that deserves its own podcast– but here it worth taking a quick high level look: Many residents who lost homes in the Eaton and Palisades Fires are frustrated at how slow the city has been to issue rebuilding permits. In the months following the fires, LA Mayor Karen Bass expedited the permitting process- particularly for people who want to rebuild almost exactly what they had before called “like-for-like” rebuilds–which in itself another can worms we dont have time to get into suffice to say: these rebuilds still have to follow current fire codes-but those codes  mostly address building materials. As far as landscaping and the home ignition zone– that gets a little murkier as to what homeowners are required to do. AB 3074 California's "Zone Zero" legislation– which passed in 2020– has yet to be effectively implemented.

 ADRIANA: At the end of the day, what your neighbor does — which you have no control over — makes a big difference on whether your home burns. Zooming out even more, some question whether we should be rebuilding in these areas at all. Tyler has put his lot up for sale. 

ADRIANA: And Keegan, I spent a lot of time driving around with him in the burn zone after the fire. And there's something I just kept thinking about. In the middle of his dashboard is this small Hawaiian bobble head dancer, black hair, grass skirt. She’s got a ukulele in hand and a very cheerful smile. Often I couldn't help but stare at her, she was in such contrast to all the carnage we were driving through. 

ADRIANA: I love this Hawaiian dancer lady, by the way.

KEEGAN GIBBS: My daughter put that on my dash.

ADRIANA: The doll is a bit dirty with smoke stains from being in the car with Keegan the last couple weeks.

ADRIANA: How old's your daughter?

KEEGAN GIBBS: Seven. One of my three daughters is seven. The one that put that on my dash. 

ADRIANA: Keegan has been away from his family a lot, and with 3 small girls at home that's must have been a handful for his wife.

ADRIANA: How has your wife been with all this? You've been gone so much.

KEEGAN GIBBS: My wife has been an absolute freaking champion. I've been gone every day pretty much all day for 23 days now, but I think she knows that there's, it's not forever. And she knows that this is what we've been working towards for six years. 

ADRIANA: Do you hope your daughters will live here?

KEEGAN GIBBS: I hope they live wherever they want. I hope they're near by me when they're older so I can be with them, but I just hope the community can get to a place where everybody accepts that risk, not just acknowledges it, because everybody acknowledges the risk for the most part, but to accept it and to do something about it is a different story.

ADRIANA: A different story. With a different ending. I don't think anyone in LA wants to see reruns of this type of wildfire destruction again. But to write a different chapter it's clear we need to do something different. I’m not sure what will happen in the future — if this kind of citizen engagement will really move the needle — but it's undoubtedly a call for us to all put in the work. Regardless of the outcome, whether it's judged big or small, the community brigade members have my utmost respect. Not for a single heroic act they did but for refusing to give up — refusing to be rendered powerless and helpless by the enormity of the challenge before us all. They get out of bed every morning, even if they don't have a home, and put one foot in front of the other. They have chosen to find a better way to live with wildfire, even if the path there isn’t always clear. Defiantly, creatively, using whatever is available to them.  They are alchemists, experts at turning their own suffering into purpose and service. By choosing not to give up, that simple act, to me, is heroic.

ADRIANA: From PRX and Wave Maker Media this is the Palisades Fire podcast. This is a 2 part Sandcastles special. You just heard the second and final episode: Don’t Call Us Heroes. This episode was reported, produced and hosted by me: Adriana Cargill. Editing by Sasa Woodruff. Story editing by Adam Whitney Nichols. Mixing and mastering by Kathleen Yore. Music composition by Marcelo de Oliveira and music arrangement by Emma Munger. Music supervision by me, Adriana Cargill. Theme song by Medium Zach. Fact Checking by Audrey Regan. Graphic design by Talia Rochmann. 

ADRIANA: As you heard in the credits, this show is produced by a really small team, and if you enjoyed this series, the biggest thing you can do is go to Apple Podcasts and rate it five stars. Just hit the 5 star button on the show's main page at the top. And if you have the time, leave a review. We really appreciate it. And because you’ve stayed with us through the credits.

ADRIANA: Here’s Chief Marrone onstage at the Grammys:

[CLIP: CHIEF ANTHONY MARRONE: Wow. Thank you for supporting all of us and recognizing the heroes that are standing behind me and the sheroes.] 

ADRIANA: The camera pans to a standing ovation. Marrone keeps his composure, while nervously rubbing his thumb on the cuff of his shirt. 

[CLIP: CHIEF ANTHONY MARRONE: As fire chief, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize and thank first responders who came from near and far to battle this wildfire siege. In the midst of unprecedented fire conditions their selfless acts of courage and commitment were nothing short of inspiring. We are thankful to our many community partners, including all of you, for standing alongside our residents and communities to offer continued support. I am confident that we will recover and rebuild together. Because we are LA strong.

ADRIANA: Los Angeles is a place where stories are written and then rewritten, where fantasy is created and heroes are … manufactured. It's also a place where things can be re-imagined. It's just the DNA of this town. For those of you wondering if Keegan ended up going to Grammys — he did. He walked the red carpet. But he didn’t step one foot onstage