Dousing Disaster

Eric Herman

For many people, the devastating wildfires that swept through southern California in October 2007 are just another memory, washed away by the tides of current events. But for those who lost their homes in places like Malibu, Lake Arrowhead and Rancho Bernardo and elsewhere, those horrifying blazes will be part of their daily lives for months and years to come as they struggle to rebuild and recapture any sense of normalcy.

As a southern California native, I grew up knowing that fire and earthquakes are facts of life here and that being prepared is something everyone should take seriously. During this most recent natural disaster, however, I was certainly not alone in seeing a lack of basic preparedness in images of homes burnt to the ground with full or near-full swimming pools just a couple paces away.

As the fires were finally being brought under control, I received a call from Toby Roland-Jones, director of the Hawthorne Gallery in Big Sur, Calif. – a longtime reader and friend of the magazine who is also a volunteer fireman. He’d seen the same images I’d seen and passionately urged me to use WaterShapes to call for action in getting all pools in potential burn areas outfitted with pumps and hoses that would enable residents to use pool water in fighting fire.

Fresh off that conversation, I received an e-mail from a close friend of mine whose home borders state land in Santiago Canyon, Calif. – one of the areas hardest hit by the recent inferno. He included several images taken of him by a neighbor as he stalked towering walls of flame that approached the edge of his property.

My friend was several steps ahead in the game: Years ago, when he built his backyard paradise, he’d had the foresight to purchase a portable pump unit and fire hose that he kept stored in a tool shed. He also made sure the local fire department knew where the equipment was and that they had a key.

As the flames licked the fringes of his hilltop lot, he used that system for the first time, single-handedly fending off the flames long enough for firefighters to arrive, take over and save his house. As he tells it, without that equipment, his home would very likely have been engulfed in flames – but, because he had this reservoir of 45,000 gallons of water, a high powered pump and a proper hose and nozzle, he was able to deliver enough water on enough critical occasions that his home (and those of some of his neighbors) were saved.

It’s also worth mentioning that because of the location and size of his lot, fire crews used his property as a staging area and fought the flames from that position for more than two days, with crews sleeping in shifts in his gazebo. City officials even held a televised press conference at his home, a story he recounts with no shortage of pride.

It is indeed a great story, and one that absolutely supports Toby Roland-Jones’ contention that pools in areas subject to fire should always be equipped with systems that enable a pool’s water to be used to protect the property. This is not a new idea, but it’s ever caught on in a big way – and should have by now.

I can’t help wondering how many homes might have been saved in October had we all taken this commonsense technology more seriously.