From 1999 through 2010, a humble little house on the border of Pasadena and Altadena, California was one of the hubs of the early Star Trek fan film scene. The house belonged to fan filmmaker and CG artist ROB CAVES, and it served as the “studio” for 50 episodes of STAR TREK: HIDDEN FRONTIER and another 20 episodes of multiple spin-offs fan films and series. I was there for the filming of several episodes, and even appeared in one as an alien guard.
The house had a living room and kitchen in the front where actors and crew would hang out between scenes, a master bedroom off the kitchen where Rob slept, and the rest of the space was dedicated to serving as a studio. One bedroom/office was turned into a make-up room with mirrors, a countertop, and wigs and prosthetics against the opposite wall. Here’s a photo of me getting into makeup in 2008…
Another alcove held costumes, a third was dedicated to the green screen, and a back room was used for equipment like lights and boom mics. And finally, in a small nook in the very back of the house—only large enough for one or two people to sit at a single desk and crammed with digital equipment—Rob would squeeze himself in to composite the green screen footage against virtual backgrounds while scenes were being filmed. (Those were the days when video files were still very large and hard to edit; so it wasn’t practical for a non-professional to capture green screen footage first and then composite it later.)
Rob has since moved on from producing Star Trek fan films and is actually rather passionately involved in model trains these days. But he and I still have some contact every now and then. Last night, I e-mailed him to check if he was safe. I didn’t hear back directly, but this morning on Facebook, I saw him post the following to his feed…
I have not marked myself safe because we are not yet out of danger, but we are here and ok as of this post. Fighting for our house and our train club in Altadena. We are sleeping in shifts, watering the house, and walking the perimeter looking for embers. The scene is awful and horrific. Friends and members of our club have lost everything, and it is ongoing. We could be next—it just depends on the wind, chance, and luck. So we are doing what we can. I appreciate the well wishes and people that want to know we are safe. We are not, but we will leave when there is nothing left to protect. We are also here to protect against looting.
The guys in the club that helped us evacuate much of the model train collection, you have our thanks. Risking your guys’ lives and health is appreciated. We were able to save so much more thanks to you.
I’m sorry I can’t respond to everyone’s DMs; I have been just too busy, and my answers may be short. This post will hopefully cover things for now.
We never thought a wildfire could get homes this far from the mountains, but it did, jumping with embers all over miles of urban city. Picking and choosing what blocks to level and which to spare. Winds are calm tonight. But that is expected to change. Will update when I can.
This is a very small portion of the video taken driving around town. It’s very sad…
Please join me in wishing (hoping/praying) Rob and his friends all the best for safety and no damage to home or property for the remainder of this once-in-a-generation wildfire event.
And indeed, that is exactly what it was. Some are saying that L.A. was caught unprepared, but nothing could be farther from the truth! With drought and changing weather patterns, wildfire “season” is now a year-round event for us, and Los Angeles spends $820 million/year on firefighters and equipment. And if there was more money available in our budget, that number would be even higher. We take fires extremely seriously in this city!
So what happened?
Basically, it was the perfect storm—an ultra-rare weather event that led to a “dry hurricane” hitting southern California with 100 mph gusts of arid desert winds for a prolonged period of time. Having already been stuck in a multi-year drought, Los Angeles is also experiencing a La Niña year with ultra-low precipitation. Our last significant rainfall was Thanksgiving week, folks! (November-March is supposed to be our rainy season.)
When things are this dry, nearly every tree, bush, and shrub becomes fuel—and a single downed power line can spark a wildfire with the gusting winds picking up embers and spreading them like popcorn popping with no lid on top. This was what it felt like on Tuesday night in West Los Angeles on my street…
And this was CALM(!!!) compared to the winds that were blowing in Pacific Palisades where the first fire started the previous morning and Altadena where the second fire sparked later on that same evening.
By the following morning, this is what things looked like from the roof parking lot above a Best Buy near my house…
This was a natural disaster of historic proportions, and it is still going. My wife and I know several families now who have lost their homes, including one of my son Jayden’s teammates on his robotics team.—a house we were in just after New Years! Others have joined nearly 200,000 people in evacuating from their homes, not knowing if those homes will even be there when they return and powerless to do anything to stop the inferno. When the winds are blowing this hard, it’s not a question of how much water your have (L.A. does have water, Mr. Trump) or how many firetrucks or firefighters. Thousands of additional firefighting personnel have rushed to Los Angeles from other counties and other states, and as the L.A. fire chief said in a recent press conference: every seat on every fire vehicle is being filled.
One meteorologist compared the efforts of these brave firefighters to “bailing water out of the sinking Titanic with paper cups.” You try to do as much as you can, but in the end, nature always wins…be it a tornado, earthquake, hurricane, flood, volcano eruption, polar vortex, or raging wildfire.
This evening, three of eight local wildfires continue to burn in L.A. County with 0% containment on each of them, the most recent one in West Hills—the Kenneth Fire—having started just a few hours before I began writing this blog. And the strong, dry Santa Ana winds are forecast to continue well into next week. This is far from over, folks.
For now, I and my family remain safe. But our most treasured belongings, papers and emergency supplies are packed up in our garage right now and ready to be loaded into our two cars. We can drive two hour east to stay with Wendy’s parents if we have to. School has been canceled for Jayden today and tomorrow due to air quality. (If you go outside, it smells like a chimney…even here 8 miles away from the nearest fire.) But at least Jayden still has a school to go to. Numerous schools and recreation centers have burned to the ground, leaving countless children with no way to learn starting on Monday when other schools reopen. Shops and businesses are destroyed. Famous restaurants along the historic Pacific Coast Highway have gone up in flames. Neighborhoods I drove through just a few weeks ago now look like Gaza or war zones in Ukraine.
I say all of this because I saw the following tweet reposted by some idiot to Facebook yesterday…
It disgusted me. First of all, in addition to being inappropriate, it’s inaccurate. We sent the Ukrainians surplus medical supplies including bandages, tourniquets, gloves, wipes, hand sanitizers, and eye protection. We didn’t send them firetrucks. Also, we do have both firefighters and water, as you can see at the end of this video of the urgent battle agains a fire that broke out in Runyon Canyon (near the famous Hollywood sign and Griffith Observatory) last night about 5pm local time…
Fortunately, that was one of the fires that our brave firefighters were able to get under control. But here’s my real message: this is NOT the time to try to score some cheap and meaningless political point. This is a tragedy of epic and historic proportions. It will take years and possibly even decades to rebuild and replace the hundreds of billions of dollars in lost property. There might not be enough money from even the wealthiest insurance companies to pay for all of the claims. And then there is the loss of life. Fire crews, police, and deputies haven’t even begun to dig through the countless streets of destroyed houses looking for the charred remains of people who weren’t able to escape their homes, as these fires hit many areas in the middle of the night and spread so quickly that many people didn’t even realize what was going on. BENNY HALL, who produced the fan film LET OLD WRINKLES COME in 2019, posted to Facebook that many people in his condo complex near Runyon Canyon last night were sitting in their apartments waiting for the fire alarms to be shut off! And much more tragically, I saw a person on the news describing how he was helping a friend clear things out of his home and was about to run back to grab the person’s pet when a firefighter held him back, shouting, “If you go back inside, you will die!”
This is a moment that needs sympathy, love, and support, my friends—not political agendas. Pray for L.A. and the millions of people who have been affected. We need your strength, not stupid gloating.
Thank you for reading.
All the best for you and your family and friends! We heve friends in LA too and we feel with you!
Thank you, Manuel.