Shortly after their marriage in 1986, Neil and Lupe Witt moved into the Malibu Park neighborhood in the hills above Zuma Beach. Neil is a third generation avocado farmer and CEO of Cal Pacific Growers. The couple’s three daughters – Chelsea, Blaire and Allise – all grew up in Malibu. 22-year old Allise was still living at home at the time of the fire.
The day before the Woolsey fire hit Malibu, it started in the San Fernando Valley (northeast of Malibu, just across the Santa Monica Mountains). Lupe and Neil were there that night and had seen the fire burning out of control, so they rushed home and set up their fire hoses just in case the flames reached Malibu. Early the next morning, they got the mandatory evacuation notice.
Daughter Allise was on the road with her dog within an hour, but Neil wanted to stay and defend their home against the fire. Lupe spent two hours trying to convince him to leave. “All three daughters were very upset that we were taking our time, but I wasn’t going to leave my husband there by himself,” she said. “We finally left at 10:00 am after a mad rush to grab a few more things.
“I was able to get some of my Mom’s jewelry out of my closet (she passed away two years ago), along with a favorite jacket, comfy shoes, all my Bibles, a beautiful crucifix from Mexico City that was my grandmother’s, and photos. I checked every room in the house.”
As it turns out, the night of the fire coincided with a fundraising event in downtown LA – an event the couple had previously committed to attending. “It was a black tie benefit that we’ve attended for years, and we’d already booked a hotel room,” Lupe said. So they evacuated with formal wear that included a pair of gold evening shoes and a matching purse, and headed to their hotel in downtown LA. On their way out, Lupe insisted that they both evacuate in the same car: she was afraid that if they each took their own vehicle, Neil would just turn around and go back to the house.
The morning after the fundraiser, Lupe and Neil learned that their house had burned down – but it was another nine days before the roadblocks were lifted and they could get back into Malibu. “It was devastating going up our street - seeing home after home of our friends and neighbors gone was just awful.”
Digging through the ashes, the family found very little. Ironically, three of the items they found were symbols of peace, in the remains of a fire that had been anything but peaceful: a peace sign necklace, a ring that said ‘Peace’ and a photo page from a coffee table book of a hand making a peace sign. They also found a TV remote which, for some reason, was wedged in the fence outside their home.
In the first six weeks after the fire, Lupe and Neil moved seven times. One place had no kitchen, another place was in the city (Neil didn’t like it there), then a too-tiny cottage, then two different hotels. They finally found their perfect rental house just two days before Christmas.
Lupe says that “We’re now working on rebuilding. Our property on a little hill is beautiful and we raised three kids there. I loved it there – all of us did. There were beautiful sunrises and sunsets, and that’s what I miss most. We’ve been so blessed that our friends reached out to us. I couldn’t ask for anything better.”
