Jefferson was first elected to the Malibu City Council in 2008 and has served two rotations as Mayor. He’s an avid surfer, designs surfboards, and is the long-time owner of the Zuma Jay Surf Shop; does fire and explosion special effects for the film and TV industries; has done Explosive Ordinance Disposal for the U.S. Navy; been a stunt performer, stunt coordinator and actor in dozens of films; was the “Marlboro Man” for seven years; has authored three books ("The Hobo's Handbook," "The Armchair Adventurist," and "Surfboard Wax: A History”); and served as a former LA County Reserve Deputy Sheriff. Candace helps out at the surf shop and has been a music video editor for artists like Madonna.
Wagner and Brown’s primary home (just outside the city limits of Malibu) was custom-designed with fire-resistance in mind. Built in 1990, the multi-story white contemporary had a stucco exterior with a flat “rock roof” (asphalt with pea gravel on top). As an added precaution, there was only a single window facing the direction from which the Santa Ana wind-driven fires always came.
The couple had always planned to stay with the house to fight any wildfire that might come through; and defended their home during the major Corral Canyon Fire in 2007. Wagner had invested about $20,000 in fire-fighting equipment, including four pumps and 1,000 feet of hose with solid brass nozzles.
On the morning of the Woolsey Fire, Zuma Jay and Candace woke up around 7:30 and learned the fire had already crossed the 101 freeway about eight miles from their home. “We started preparing our firefighting equipment: the fire hoses and portable water pumps that go into the swimming pool or the nearby reservoir,” Zuma Jay said. “We had 2,000 gallons of water in the water tank and 50,000 gallons of water in the swimming pool,” he continued. “The fire hydrant 25 feet from our front door was our best defense, with guaranteed water pressure from the community’s reservoir tank nearby.
“I keep a lot of firefighting equipment on my special effects bus, because we stage fires (and then put them out) for TV shows,” Wagner explained. “I set up my equipment and laid out the hoses and got my [personal protective] gear on, and that’s when the flames from the Woolsey Fire became visible. I sent Candace into the house with the CO2 canisters (fire extinguishers).”
Twelve C02 canisters were stored on the bus, with each canister weighing up to 60 pounds each – a heavy load for Candace to try and pick up. Those were added to the fire extinguishers already stored on each level of the house. Candace’s job was to use them to put out any spot fires that might occur. Wet towels were placed all along the inside of each window. By the time they finished that task, “The smoke was so black and thick, you couldn’t see anything,” they said.
As the main fire storm and wall of fire descended on the neighborhood, Zuma Jay stayed outside his home. Wearing his astronaut-like protective gear, he faced off the 150-foot wall of flame with his fire hose. A video taken by a neighbor from across the canyon made him look like an ant standing in the face of a burning tidal wave.
The house survived that initial fire front, but it was so windy that Zuma Jay and Candace knew the fight wasn’t over – so they got back to work hosing down the door of the house and the surrounding land.
As they watched burning embers land on the flat roof, they suddenly realized they’d overlooked a major way that fire could enter the house: the rooftop weather station, satellite dish, and air-conditioning unit – all capable of trapping the blowing and burning embers. And there was no easy access to the roof for them to hose down the burning embers.
Jay tried shooting water from the hose straight up to the roof, but the stream vaporized by the time it got there. Candace then held down a ladder for Jay to climb, but the ladder started melting.
Unlike Jay, Candace had no protective gear to defend the house. Wearing socks and flip-flops, her feet were bleeding and several of her toes were badly injured when one of the heavy CO2 canisters fell on her foot (doctors ended up amputating one of her toes two weeks later; she also required surgery to repair a hernia she suffered from lifting the canisters).
Realizing that their home was in jeopardy, Candace jumped in her car and to see if she could find any firefighters who might be able to help. Upon reaching nearby Latigo Canyon, she spotted several fire trucks pumping water out of the reservoir. She pleaded with them to come and help her husband get to the roof, telling them that they just needed one guy who could help boost Jay up to the roof.
The firefighters refused to help. “And that’s when we started losing the house, from the roof on down,” they said. The couple had a difficult time keeping the disgust and disappointment out of their voices as they described seeing as many as a dozen fire engines within a half-mile of their house – some as close as a quarter-mile - and not one of them would come to help.
“I had thought they were out defending other homes, but they were not. Right in front of the firetrucks, houses were burning, and they were in visual sight of my calamity,” Zuma Jay said.
That’s when the couple made the decision for Candace to evacuate. She drove to their surf shop on Pacific Coast Highway, while Zuma Jay stayed behind and defended their property (as well as their neighbors’) until the hydrant finally ran dry. “I went to use the pool water, but so much debris and ash was in the pool that the siphon-strainer kept clogging up,” he described. “I kept having to turn off the pump to clean out the strainer and then would have to prime the pump again. Using a swimming pool for [firefighting] water is pretty labor intensive.”
Ironically, Zuma Jay managed to save some of his neighbors’ structures and homes – but not his own. His garage, swimming pool and tennis courts remained intact, but the house burned to the ground.
Wagner described the experience of watching the demise of his house. “I’d had years of experience putting out fires, but once the water was gone it was over. Just as I decided to consider the house a loss, I was hit by flying material as the roof collapsed. The satellite dish up on the roof had been mounted onto cinder blocks, and the melting asphalt and cinder blocks fell on me. My jacket was on fire from the asphalt and I didn’t know it. I ended up with burns on my back and had been breathing in carbon monoxide, so I ended up getting carbon monoxide poisoning. That’s what got me – not the smoke.”
That was when he decided to bail on the whole situation. Somehow, struggling with injuries as well as carbon monoxide poisoning, Wagner managed to drive himself the nine miles to the surf shop. “He came staggering in,” Candace said. Miraculously, the phone service (which had been totally dead) came back on just long enough for her to call 911 and get an ambulance.
Zuma Jay was taken to the hospital and placed in the Intensive Care Unit for three days, having suffered damage to a number of internal organs and his eyes (leaving him temporarily blind). Many months after the fire, Zuma Jay is expected to fully recover – but the process has been slow.
Candace says that, “I couldn’t even visit him in the hospital, because he told me not to evacuate or I’d never get back into Malibu.” Sheriffs’ deputies had blockaded all entrances to the town and wouldn’t let anyone back in for over a week (and, in some neighborhoods, not for several weeks).
The first few days after the fire, Candace lived in the surf shop with no food or power. “I had no blanket or pillow. The next morning, someone from Duke’s Restaurant knocked at the store door. I hadn’t eaten for two days and they gave me a breakfast burrito,” she said. “The next morning, when I got up and unlocked the door, they had left me three Diet Cokes. At Bluffs Park they were feeding the firefighters, and I was able to get food there.”
When Zuma Jay was finally discharged from the hospital, fellow City Councilmember Skylar Peak picked him up and they were escorted back into town by the Sheriffs’ Volunteers on Patrol. Once they were admitted past the roadblocks, they went to Zuma Jay’s in-town condo, and met up with Candace.
Zuma Jay swears that when the house is rebuilt, it will have a steel ladder anchored into the outside wall going all the way up to the roof.
