As the fires ravaging Pacific Palisades expanded and started moving toward his home in the Malibu Hills last week, Brent Woodworth connected two 100-foot hoses to his personal fire hydrant and put one on each side of the driveway.
When firefighters showed up, they used those hoses to save his home and the two next door, he says. The next day, when the hydrant’s water pressure dropped, he used a pump to take water from the swimming pool across the street so firefighters could continue hosing down the houses and fighting off embers.
All three houses survived intact, in a neighborhood where approximately 80% of the homes burned, says Woodworth, chairman of the Los Angeles Emergency Preparedness Foundation. The hydrant and pool pumped “definitely helped,” he says.