Ben Marcus Rules

 You have a lot to say about fire defense in the Santa Monica Mountains and the urban interface, but if I can boil it down to a paragraph, it’s this: “Once a wind-driven firestorm goes out of control - and that can happen in minutes - no fire department is equipped to knock it down. That means citizens building homes in the Santa Monica Mountains and the urban interface have to accept responsibility for their own homes and property.”

Correct. The responsibility for home safety has to shift to the homeowner. 

Let’s go back a bit. Where were you for the Broad, Franklin and Palisades Fires?

Broad Fire, I was at my business which is located in Agoura Hills, building pump systems. I didn’t feel the urgency as the fire was mere feet away from the Great Pacific Fire Break and resources were heavy including the first activation of our newly formed LA County Community Fire Brigade. 

Great Pacific Break is good. Years ago a Fire Captain told me: “Malibu has the best firebreak in the country: The Pacific Ocean.”

Franklin Fire, I was boots on the ground immediately. I was part of the Community Brigade Division that protected the Malibu Pacific Church and was directly involved in the save of their preschool, other duties on that fire were mopping up spot fires up on the knolls and down throughout Serra Retreat.

Palisades Fire, I was in the thick of it for days, from Rustic Canyon, to Pacific Palisades, Big Rock and beyond, it was a real heavy and heartbreaking event.

Were you threatened by any of them?

Well being boots on the ground I am directly putting my life in a very dangerous situation , but due to my training, experience, critical thinking, equipment, and strict adherence to the rules of fire fighting I minimized the chances of a bad outcome.

You lived on Malibu Road for quite a while but now live at Malibou Lake.

Yes, 18 years on the road, we moved to Malibou Lakeside summer before last,

Were you there before or after Woolsey, because I think Malibou Lake got scorched by Woolsey?

 I lived on Malibu Road during Woolsey and yes Malibou Lake area got scorched badly.

You saved Calamigos during the Woolsey Fire and I’m sure they are very glad of that.

Yes, everyone involved in the Calamigos Ranch from the owners to all the employees are more than glad we pulled that one off. I was not alone in that accomplishment, we had trained a number of their ground staff, regularly did drills, and religiously maintained the equipment. 

On the phone you said you used a million gallons of water to defend Calamigos? Where did that H20 come from?

In the 1978 big Kanan Fire,  Calamigos burned to the ground. The Gersons lost everything. The lake I used to defend the ranch during the Woolsey Fire, in 1978 Glen Gerson dived into it and saved his life. For the Woolsey fire we used about 700,000 gallons from the lake and another 150,000 gallons from the pools, and the rest from hydrants. We had multiple pump systems and the pump in the lake was moving at 3500 gallons of water a minute. We also had sprinklers that are three feet long and they were doing 750 gallons a minute.

We were only about 75% built in at that time, so we also had Lady Luck on our side.

And LACO or CalFire equipment there?

It was my truck and their water trucks and their crew of about 18 - all trained by us. There were no firefighters from outside. The story of Calamigos hasn’t been told and it was probably the largest wildfire save in the state if not the country.

When people complain about the Palisades Fire and say that reservoirs weren’t full and hydrants weren’t working, I say that when the wind is blowing 80 MPH and heat is bending steel, you could have dumped every gallon of water in LA County on that firestorms and it would have made zero difference.
For the most part, the general public has unrealistic expectations of what our fire departments are capable of. There is an extremely small window to control a fire start on a red flag day, and that window is five acres. If it can’t be held to that, it’s going to burn until one of two things occur: The fire hitting the ocean or the wind either stopping or shifting thus blowing the fire back into the black which is the area previously burned. There is not a City in this world that has the infrastructure to deliver the amount of water needed to combat a wind-driven fire. Dry hydrants have always been a routine side effect of our wildfires.

These fires have inspired choruses of kvetchers the same way police sirens inspire howling choruses of coyote in Legacy Park. Some of the kvetching is along the lines of “California has no forest or brush management.” When I’m arguing online, I usually say: “Firestorms are brush management and forest management. Humans are just in the way of a natural process.”
Fires have been burning our hills and mountains for a millennia, the difference now is people are building homes and choosing to live where maybe they shouldn’t. I think it was Juan Cabrillo the Spanish explorer, he arrived off our coast in 1542 , the hills were on fire and the sky was covered in smoke. He named San Pedro Bay, “Bahia de Los Fumos o Fuegos”  Although this fire started in the brush, once it got into the neighborhoods the homes became the fuel. A combination of unhardened homes in high density areas with a lack of defensible space led to the urban conflagration. 

Did you have any other successes during the Woolsey Fire?

We enabled many successful defenses during the Woolsey Fire . Pre-Woolsey our systems were not fully automated. We built manned standalone pump systems and trained the home owners how to use them. We would use gels and other additives to enable homeowners to Gel their properties and evacuate to safety, or stay and defend through proper training and auxiliary safety equipment.

How many homes in Malibu and Palisades are employing your system right now?

Currently we have maybe 25 homes with fully autonomous systems requiring no human involvement, and over the years probably another 75-100 non-autonomous systems.

How long does it take to install it and what is the range of costs?

Length of time depends on the property. Our systems are not off the shelf components. Our pump systems are proprietary and custom built for each property. Our sprinklers - which we refer to as RainGuns - are not the type available at your local garden or hardware store. Our wildfire sensors are also built in house and can detect a square foot of flame at a quarter mile.
Range of cost: our Portable Fire cart systems start at $7k, a hard-mounted manned system starts around $25k, a Series One fully autonomous system will start around $110k, and our Estate systems start around $220k.

Do homeowners who use your system get breaks on fire insurance?

Most of our clients with our fully autonomous systems have had drastic reductions in their premiums. A few have solely gotten coverage due to them, and a couple have had reductions so large the system paid for itself within the first year. We regularly meet with insurance underwriters at our clients’ homes to help them achieve coverage.

One client up one of the canyons had our system for three years and then AIG pulled out of the market. He called me, panicked, because the best price he could find for coverage was $700K a year. Through one of the companies who really likes our systems, we got him coverage for $120K a year. Total savings to date, well over $2,500,000

To quote Spicoli: “Righteous bucks!” Can you point to homes in Malibu and Palisades that were protected by your system while the rest of the neighborhood was destroyed?
We only had four homes with fully autonomous systems in the direct path of the Palisades Fire. Three survived, but unfortunately we lost one. They were all up in Big Rock which was one of the Malibu neighborhoods that got utterly decimated by the Palisades Fire.

When we were talking on the phone you said you saved the home of a well known actor. I saw the aerial photos. The houses around looked like they’d been hit by a Death Star or something, but the actor’s house was still standing.
That house had a complete property system protecting all the landscaping as well. We were able to achieve that save due to the fact he had a pool which held about 45,000 gallons which is equivalent to 90 Type One fire trucks on site.

That’s their private reservoir? Not city or county water?

Yes, all of the people I work with have to have their own water supply. We do nothing on municipal water. There's companies doing stuff with municipal water and I think it's highly irresponsible, because as we know, the hydrants go dry. 

Is it correct in Palisades the water pressure in the tanks was created by the weight of the water?

Well it’s not just the weight of the water, but its the weight of the water and the elevation of where the water tank is located. For every 2.3 feet of elevation you get one PSI. So if you want 100 PSI you need the tank 230 feet above the neighborhood.

What is the ideal PSI?
The more the better. The problem in the neighborhoods of Malibu is the water’s pumped out along PCH and then additional pumps are required to flow water up to the tanks in the canyons above the neighborhoods. For instance, Big Rock has three pump stations and Big Rock was supposedly the only neighborhood that had hardened the water system, meaning the neighbors of Big Rock worked with the water district, and there were three backup generators on the pumps to fill it in the event of power loss - which we always have in our big wildfires. 

So what happened in Big Rock was: when the water district installed the generators, they chose to run the power line to the transfer switch in PVC conduit above the ground. 

The very first generator at the bottom was taken out as the fire came across the field where it was sitting, and it was down. So the tanks up on the hills aren't refilling because there's no power. And then as homes burn in the neighborhood, every home, all the burned pipes, water is pouring out of the foundation. 

Your pumps are custom-made by your team and powered by propane?

Yes.

Zuma Jay said he goes around and turns off water in houses that are leaking.

Every home is free flowing water. So basically, the tank’s draining because of all the burned homes, and there's nothing refilling the tank, and there is no water left in the hydrants for the fire trucks to pump or refill.

So again you’re saying, you can’t rely on municipal systems. Your pumps run on propane. You have your own water supply. It’s self contained, and it works.

Correct. What we build is known as a standalone system. The world could be collapsing around and it’s not going to affect our ability to pump water and protect your home.

Do you think every home in Malibu should have a standalone system?

Everything in wildfire defense is a layer, and a standalone system is the last layer. Home hardening and defensible space are the most important aspects of trying to protect a home.

We’ll get into that in part two.

Thank you.

I poked around on Google Earth - which has been updated to show how many lots have been cleared - and I saw one of the homes that was saved by your system. There is a lot of landscaping that is still there, and the home appears to be unscathed, while all around it is destruction. Can you detail all the equipment you had there and the PSI and what it cost? Because you saved that citizen millions of dollars and many years of headaches and heart aches.
That property has a system we refer to as a First Defender Estate Series System. We designed the pump system solely for our wildfire threat which as you know is wind driven. It’s a scaled down version of the primary pump we used to save Calamigos Ranch. 
The system was built to induct Gel or Foam but neither was used for this fire. The water is dispersed through eight large, agricultural-style sprinklers that we refer to as RainGuns. 
The unit and its operating system are completely proprietary and only available through us. The engine is 35HP coupled to a pump that flows around 350GPM @ over 100PSI. 
The unit is powered by propane and runs off of two deep-cycle automotive batteries. 

Isn’t it dangerous to have propane in a fire environment?
Not really, every house has natural gas or propane. 

Just for comparison, Chat GPT says the typical PSI for a home is 40 - 60 PSI. Are those the heavy duty water dispersers you would see in Idaho or somewhere irrigating fields?

Yes, exactly and they are separated into two zones so four  are on at a time. The RainGuns are strategically placed to take advantage of not only the prevailing winds and also accounting for fire-driven winds. 

Can you say what it cost or is that classified? I’m guessing around $250,000?

As far as cost, the Estate Series systems start at around $200,000 plus the ground trenching and pipes which is something we don’t do, and the clients’ pool will also need to have a draftline possibly added so we can access the water. 

What is a draftline?

A draftline is a pipe cored and waterproofed into the deep end of the pool to feed the water supply to our pump system. Our Estate Series requires a 4” draftline to achieve the flow we designed it for.

What inspired them to look into home protection and when was that installed? 

Their inspiration was due to knowing the history and the high frequency of fires in and around Malibu, as well as surviving the prior fire of 1993 that decimated Big Rock and eastern Malibu and the cold hard reality of the certainty of it happening again. 

As to that property, the owners have been super vigilant about hardening that home and exploring every option currently available to protect it from possible destruction in a wildfire. They actually called and got quotes from every company in the country that builds wildfire defense systems. When they found out I was the one who designed the Calamigos system they reached out to me. 

How long did it take and were there any barriers?

We installed the system in 2019 after the Woolsey Fire. Every system is custom built and designed for the individual property. Between the trenching, piping, coring for the draftline, and fabrication of the system: several months.

There was a lot of landscaping before the fire and a lot after. How did you protect it all?

As far as their fuel load from the landscaping which you noticed, the system we installed is a complete property system, not just the house, which enables our clients to have fuels in a closer proximity to the home then they could without it. Irrigated vegetation is full of water so it’s harder to ignite, soaking wet vegetation extinguishes the embers as they land on it.

Do you know how many gallons of water you used over what length of time? Was his pool drained and were you able to refill it while the fire was raging?

We used approximately 45,000 gallons of water to save the property over a 12 hour period. When the system is operating it’s always doing the maximum flow. We program the system to cycle so after a thorough drenching it cycles to keep the hydration and moisture level up. The system was triggered when the fire got to the base of Big Rock, and yes by the time the threat was over, very little water was left in the pool. As far as refilling, unfortunately the municipal water system and its standby power failed - so no.

I also looked at the aerials of the Calamigos Ranch after your crew fought to save it during Woolsey. Again, destruction on all sides but Calamigos looked unscathed. I’m starting to think you’re onto something here. Have you gotten many calls since Palisades?

We’ve gotten calls. We were more than busy prior to the Palisades Fire, and now we are inundated.

How many people do you employ?

Just a handful.

Can you point to homes using your system that were still damaged, and explain what the limits of your system are?

Any home that was truly saved by a system due to threat of a wildfire will have some damage on the property. Be it landscape damage, smoke damage, pool cover damage, if there is nothing damaged in my eyes it’s not a legitimate save. Our systems are limited by two things: the amount of water stored on site, and the client’s willingness to adhere to strict home hardening protocols.

Going back to some people in Palisades feeling they weren’t threatened by a firestorm. Like in the Alphabet Streets you could feel removed and not threatened there. Closer to the ocean than the mountains. But it was all an accident no longer waiting to happen.

I don't know if you put that solely on them or the real estate agents and brokers that sold them their homes. But that was an urban conflagration that happened there. That's just bad planning. That's homes built too close together, and you cannot defend homes when they're built that close together. 

Not everyone's built to be in that kind of environment, and not every home is actually savable and defendable. It's really up to homeowners and the whole dynamic has to change. When you have people building homes more concerned about some architecture thing or vegetation or look than building to suit the environment they live in  and what’s going to keep them safe - you're gonna have an issue. 

Well people with money want to do what they want and not be limited by anything, including force majeure.

I'm one of the team leaders in the LA County Fire Brigade, and our biggest mission is educating homeowners about home hardening. Keegan and Tyler regularly go out and evaluate homes for hardening. 

It’s all just science. 

Zone zero is the first five feet around the house. It's been proven zone zero is the most important and it’s going to make or break you in a fire. All the science was done by Dr Jack Cohen, so a properly hardened home should be able to survive without any firefighters present. 

I go inspect homes all the time, and I have to tell people: “You know what? There’s a new law, and you're going to have to remove every bit of vegetation within five feet of your walls.” 

People say: “What do you mean?” I mean all that there needs to go. And you can do it now to get ahead of the law, or you can wait till someone tells you to do it: five feet is zone zero. 

It seems like five feet isn't enough. When you have flying embers, don’t they do a majority of the damage? So it could be a Zone Hundred Foot.

Embers burn 90% of the homes with no direct flame impingement at all near the house. I'm on the Fire Safe Council of Malibou Lake. The first meeting I went to, all the members were really excited, because the MRCA gave us a $50,000 grant for brush clearing and a big chipper. So they're all super excited, and I start laughing. 

They ask, “Why?” 

I said, “You know, I love nature. That's why I live here. I hate cutting things down, and I believe in reasonable brush clearance. But clear a mile if you want. These winds can carry an ember up to five miles.”

Fire breaks don’t matter when the embers are flying.

I tell them I'd be more concerned with what's on your neighbor's deck than the brush out there on the hillside?

That's right, because the firefighters showed me along the beach, that what lit up a lot of houses, was the wood pilings underneath. The fire just jumped from wood piling to wood piling and burnt from underneath. And there was also no separation between the houses. If you can put down a sheet of water that might protect the house next door you have a chance. That's all going to be different now too. New regulations. Live and learn.

On PCH between LA County Fire and the Community Brigade,so much water was being pumped trying to save the homes. But trying to save something once it's on fire is next to impossible in these conditions.

Yes I have videos of homes directly across from Station 70 at Carbon Beach and they’re burning up even with tsunamis of water being dumped on them by multiple engines.

It's only going to change when the people living there make the change. They need to accept ownership of their choice of where they decide to live, and accept the reality that the municipal infrastructure will never exist to be able to protect every home in a wildfire urban interface.

It’s on the homeowner not the fire department, because the fire department probably doesn't want to admit it, but once a fire is burning at a thousand degrees plus in 80 mile per hour plus wind, there is nothing they can do about it. Water just dissipates and evaporates.

On the record, I think LA County Fire is maybe the best fire agency in the world. And I'll give them props that we could not be more blessed. After the Woolsey fire, I was invited out on the fire boat, and there were probably 35 of us: some state senators, LA County and Ventura County heads, state parks, sheriffs, all these people, city council members, just to look at the footprints of the Woolsey fire and share thoughts.

My comments were directed straight to LA County Fire: “Here's the deal. I know you guys don't want homes to burn and lives are more important. As I also know that if you had every soldier, all the armed forces on the ground, it wouldn't make a difference.”

“I think you guys need to be brutally honest with the residents, and you need them to be your partners. And if you were honest with them, then maybe they would harden their homes and mitigate the vegetation and look into stuff like what I do to change the dynamic of what's going on.”

We should throw some props to the current LA County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone who held a press conference after the Palisades and said exactly what I’m saying. He was brutally honest.

Here it is in People Magazine: “During a press conference on Wednesday, Jan. 8, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone… said the city does not have enough personnel to handle the evolving situation on its own. “No, L.A. County, and all 29 fire departments in our county, are not prepared for this type of widespread disaster. There are not enough firefighters in L.A. County to address four separate fires of this magnitude,” Marrone said. “We’re doing the very best we can, but no we don’t have enough fire personnel. The LA County Fire Department was prepared for one or two major brush fires, but not four, especially given the sustained winds and low humidities.”

Here we are in August already, and fire season is just around the corner.

Correct. Let’s hope this is a wake up call for citizens of the Santa Monica Mountains and they will take responsibility for the hardening and protection of their homes.