Cosmetic Surgery Blog

So, my friend and neighbor, Megan, bangs on my door a little before 4 am Saturday morning (or Friday night)  and says “There’s a fire, get up.”  I exclaim, “Again??  I was just in one last night.” (a small housefire on Thanksgiving night)

I get dressed, drag the cat carrier out again (which I finally put away last week from the last Malibu fire last month in preparation for another scare.), and start with the usual save-what-you-can exercise.  What was important to me:

Obviously my cats
My tax documents and medical records
My harddrive
two paintings
my skydiving gear
and a few pairs of jeans, some thermals and a pair of boots

I couldn’t fit my scuba gear into my car so I had to make due.  Mind you I STILL have no renter’s or fire insurance because I am getting ready to move and didn’t think I needed it.  That’s two fire scares where I wish I would have had it.

I loaded my car up with all I could fit AGAIN, asked Megan and my landlords (I live on their ranch) what else I could do, etc.  I watched as the smoke coming our way was illuminated by the moonlight and then finally the ridge grew from an orange, to red to a bright yellow glow then called my mom.  I told her Malibu was on fire again and we were about to evacuate.

Nothing was on the news yet, we had no idea what was going on but knew that the wind was blowing our way.  Then, the flames became visible on the entire ridge and a propane tank blew at about 6 AM.  That’s when we grabbed the horses and put them into the trailer.  Don, my landlord looked at me and said you should go now.  So I said good luck, I’ll talk to you in a few hours.

Megan took off behind me and we went down the canyon.  We were behind a very slow SUV so I took pics as I drove.  The top pic is from my driveway, the other is from Latigo on the way down and then from Kanan. My cats were howling from the carrier as I made phone calls to make arrangements on where to stay.  I was following my landlady driving her truck and horse trailer and Megan in her car on the 101 - they went down Malibu Canyon and made it there at the same time I did.  We were going to meet up and figure out what to do.  The horses had to go to the shelter and I was going to assist.  Turned out I wasn’t needed so I had to go tend to my cats, I took them to a friend’s and watched the news.  I was so exhausted at about 12 pm I crashed out and wound up sleeping until 4. It was the second evacuation because of fire in as many days, so I was wiped out. 

You see, on Thanksgiving night at 3:30 am I woke up with Acid Reflux (it is what it is) and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and drink some water.  I smelled an electrical burning smell and decided to go downstairs to check.  I used to work around a lot of compressors and when the powerbox used to burn out on them it would smell the same.  The kitchen was smoke free and the smell was far stronger upstairs.  So I went back upstairs and smelled around, definitely stronger up here.  No smoke though, no outlets were fried.  So, since it was about 3:30 I knew everyone was sleeping.  I went to bed early so I thought maybe something burned in the oven and I didn’t know about it.  I knew some of the fruit juice from the pies had spilled on the oven floor.  However, the smell of electrical fire is undeniable.

I thought about waking up uncle Jim but thought I’d feel like an idiot if I was wrong.  Mistake No. 1, always go with your instincts.  So I woke Mark up and he said “What’s that smell”  I said I didn’t know but it smelled like an electrical burning smell.  He said it smelled like a rubber gasket burning on a washing machine.  I said I had checked downstairs and saw nothing.  So I went back to sleep.

At about 5 am the fire alarms went off and there was smoke everywhere.  I immediately grabbed a pair of sweats and opened the window on to the roof to find an exit if need be.  My bedroom door was opened and there was smoke everywhere.  I ran to the top of the stairs to check how bad the fire was while Mark woke his aunt and uncle.  I went back to the room and within 15 seconds grabbed my purse and phone and car keys and ran downstairs.  Although everything was muted and smelled horrible and it was difficult to see, you could see an orange and blue glow in the kitchen.  Mark and his uncle were putting out the fire with extinguishers as Dianne and I ran out the back door. 

The alarms were deafening and not one neighbor woke up.  They went off for about 25 minutes as Jim removed each one.  We sat sat outside in the cold for about an hour and a half to wait for the smoke to clear enough to breathe.  We all went back to bed and called the Fire Marshall in the morning who said by the burn pattern, it was a short in the door and that he had NEVER in his career seen anything like it. The cleanup crew came at 11 am, as there was soot everywhere, as well as extinguisher powder and the damage in the kitchen.]

Anyway,  back to Malibu…Don sprayed Phoschek on the house and he, the neighbor (a fireman) and Zuma Jay (another neighbor) stayed behind with industrial firehoses to fight the fire off.  Don is my hero.

Anyway, I just talked to them and they are letting us back up tonight at 8.  However, I am waiting until tomorrow morning.  We have no electricity anyway.  Good thing is, I doubt we will have to worry about fire again unless it hits us from the valley because there’s nothing left to burn in our canyon.

If you guys didn’t know, I live on Latigo Canyon. The pics are from Latigo, both from my driveway and from my drive down. 

Thank God we didn’t burn to the ground.  We were SO lucky.  Reportedly they are letting residents back up tomorrow.