Brian and Jennifer Pietro bought their home in Malibu Park in 1992 and raised their three children there, all of whom graduated from Malibu High School. Before retirement, Brian operated the Zuma Beach General Store and Jennifer ran the Malibu Boys & Girls Club. Brian told the story of their fire experience.
“We took the fire evacuation warnings too nonchalantly at first. This was at least the third time since moving to Malibu that we’d been told to evacuate. We helped people take some horses to the beach. We packed up our three dogs and three cats, but we didn’t think this fire would be any different. It seems like fire evacuations are almost routine in Malibu.
“But as it got later, we started to realize that things weren’t the same this time. The towering pillars of smoke twirling and twisting were something new. We thought, ‘Oh, shit.’ We went to Zuma Beach – the usual place to go during a fire evacuation. Vintage Grocers [across the street] was shut down, so we parked near the lifeguard headquarters. They were wonderful and invited us to come in and rest. They thought they’d be the command headquarters, but that didn’t happen.
“There were huge towering flames, easily at least 60 to 80 feet tall. Helicopters and fixed wing were trying to get in, but they were behaving strangely. My daughter said, ‘This isn’t looking good, let’s make one last run to the house to get grandfather’s statues,’ etc.”
“It was eerie – a sunny day except for the black clouds. Around our home, it was deserted. There was nobody around. We felt completely alone, like something bad was going to happen. There was a low roar of the fire – ominous, like a truck revving, like a real movie effect – very ominous sounding, very scary. So we’re scampering in and out of our house like idiots back and forth about five times loading up our car with all the statuary pieces we can carry, and we got the hell out of there.
“As we’re racing down Busch Drive, five firetrucks went flying past us in the opposite direction to where we just were – but I have a strong feeling those guys would have gotten up there, taken one look around, and said, ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’ I don’t think they knew what they’d be facing – they were used to the routine.
“Two to three weeks later, a fire captain and a government psychologist were going around the neighborhood to ask if they could be of service. ‘What can we do for you, do you need any help?’ they asked. So I asked the Fire Captain, ‘What the hell happened here?’ This place looks like a cruise missile hit it. This wasn’t just an ordinary fire.’ I pointed to a big limb that had been twisted off a pepper tree. ‘We have a refrigerator that looks like it blew up, like someone put a hand grenade inside it. And our metal roof is twisted like a potato chip.
“The fire captain said, ‘A firenado hit this place.’ He’d been on the front line at Chesebro Road and the 101 Freeway [in Agoura Hills, just north of Malibu] trying to keep the fire from jumping the freeway, and said it was the most bizarre thing: the fire got to the far side of the highway and just jumped over it in an arc. He said ‘We all looked at each other and went WTF - it acted like water and went right over our heads. It’s a new kind of monster.’
‘A normal brush fire burns at 1,200 to 1,400 degrees, but there’s evidence that this fire was burning at 2,400 degrees, and it got that hot because it was twirling around like a tornado. That’s why we couldn’t get planes in close, because they’d be sucked in by the velocity of the wind. That’s why the limb of your tree was twisted off – because it got pulled off, it didn’t burn off. The fridge exploded because it got so hot inside.’
“My father and grandfather were both professional sculptors going back generations in Italy, and we had a lot of that statuary. Unfortunately, some of their sculptures bit the dust. One piece in particular, which was tragic to lose, must have weighed 300 pounds or more. It was a big, beautiful marble bust of [American naturalist] John Burroughs that my grandfather had done many decades before.
“But we did save a total of about 20 smaller pieces, including some brass, some cement, some plaster and some bronze – old and new – some of my Dad’s and some of my grandfather’s – a mixed bag of whatever we could hand carry, so we salvaged a fair amount.
“We also took the usual important papers and photos, but some of the old photographs we weren’t able to save and they’re gone. So much is gone, you start inventorying things in your mind and things come to you. You’ll be somewhere like in the grocery store and something goes, ‘Bing! I used to have one of those.’ In some cases it’s like ‘So what, I’ll go out and buy another hand truck or another hammer or whatever,’ but in other cases, it’s stuff you can’t just go out and buy at any price – heirloom stuff.
“During the evacuation, we got in that horrible long line on PCH. It took us forever. The only thing I thought was severely screwed up was the authorities not making PCH all one-way much earlier. I don’t understand who was or wasn’t in charge. Why not turn all four lanes into one-way? It was a huge error in planning and forethought. These guys know in advance that they have overlapping jurisdictions, so why don’t they have that worked out ahead of time? You’re not supposed to play Keystone cops – you’re supposed to have it figured out.
“We got really lucky, and thanks to Jennie’s ingenuity and Brian Goldberg, real estate agent, we got into a rental home right on Busch Drive a half-mile away from our property. The insurance company is ultimately paying for it. Everybody priced-gouged, and even though that’s illegal, it’s wink/nod. It’s not illegal for the renter to offer more, and that’s who the owners rent to.”
