The Looting Of Malibu, Blazes, Police And The Civilian Resistance To The Woolsey Fires

Starting on Friday, with flames engulfing Point Dume and a mandatory evacuation order in effect, surfer and lifeguard Andrew Jacobson and a dozen of his friends and family hung back to do what they could to save their community. Now into their fifth day battling the blaze, supplies are starting to run low and the gravity of the situation around them is beginning to take hold. 

This morning Stab caught up with Jacobson from inside the fire zone. He was able to get cell phone service while standing in the remains of a burned-out house.

Here’s Andrew’s account from ground zero: 

Everyone here in the community has been ganging together and is just trying to make everything better. The first two nights were crazy. On Friday night the fire was so much that there wasn’t much you could really do. People were saving their houses and stuff, but it was just chaos. Multiple people that stayed here were able to save their homes and a lot of others, that’s for sure. 

Then Saturday the fires continued to burn, hot spots and everything, and that’s when our whole crew came in and found ways through the roadblocks—basically taking all kinds of crazy routes in. We’ve been putting out hot spots ever since. We were putting shit out that could have been really bad all day Saturday and Sunday. The wind just keeps picking up and there are still hot spots. Today seems okay, but there’s another fire going on up north, so we’ll see what happens.  

I’ve been rolling with the Point Dume crew, people I grew up with…Keegan Gibbs, my two brothers, there’s a ton of us, like 13 of us that have been on it. Sam McGee has been one of the biggest assets. It’s just gnarly. It’s getting to the point now with the supplies that people are starting to look out for themselves, so we’re trying to coordinate that. There’s a command post at Point Dume school that’s been set up for people to bring their stuff so there can be an organized distribution process. 

There’s been a bunch of looters. The looters were insane all day on Saturday. There’s been cops busting them, but they’ve been riding around on little dirt bikes with backpacks and going into houses and taking jewelry and stuff. It’s like an apocalypse, every man for himself. It’s weird. I haven’t been watching the news, so I don’t know how bad it is, but being here is just fucking weird.

It’s a war zone.  

Emotions really haven’t hit me yet because I’ve just been working with my friends and helping the community. It hasn’t really hit me how gnarly it is. I mean, all my friends’ houses, the high school, all these childhood memories, it’s all gone. Luckily my house is fine, I was in the Point Dume Club, the trailer park, but there were three houses that went up there. The fire was rifling down this gully and it hit the three trailers and they lit up. If the wind had switched for one second to go more north the whole Point Dume Club would have been on fire. Luckily, it didn’t make the jump. It’s all those little gullies where the fire’s racing through and those houses on the gullies are the ones that really got messed up. They’re all just destroyed. It’s so weird how it just jumps around. One house is fine and then all these others are gone.  

My friend’s dad was up all Friday night literally getting buckets out of his jacuzzi and throwing the water on his house. It was the most insane thing ever. Then at 4:00am a cop rolled by and put him on the hood of the car, thinking he was a looter. He had to go hands down on the hood of the car while there were all these hot spots around. Then he had to go get his ID out of his car. It’s just so weird how everything’s working. 

The Point Dume Bomberos are: Sam McGee
Keegan Gibbs, Leo Harrington, Skylar Peak, Andrew Jacobson, Jamie Jacobson, Kelly Jacobson, Dru-Ann Jacobson, Pamela LeGrand, Jake Jacobson, Ryland Lancaster, Beau Bigelow, Nick Nushawg, Jack Platner, Alex Orbison, Tyler Hauptman, Lyon Herron, Dune Newhouse, Mikey McCann, Sean Merrick, John Merrick, Dawn Merrick, Zak Katz, Nick Katz, Bridget Katz, CJ Keossian, Alec Houge, Riley Smoller, Jackson Winner, Layne Stratton, Jake Kelley, Robert Spangle, Ryan Houge, Jake Burghart, and Nate Bressler

A small glimpse of the destruction.

I’m coming off of a knee injury and I’m running off of so much adrenaline right now. I’m glad it wasn’t a month ago because I’m able to function and help out. I’ve just started running and physical therapy, and I’m so thankful I’m able to do my part. The firefighters are doing a great job, but they have so much other shit on their plate, they can’t get into all these ravines and hit these little hot spots. That’s what we’re doing. If we didn’t get them out the fires would have spread, big time.

You can now drive out of the area, but once you go out, you’re pretty barred for coming in. I’m an L.A. County Lifeguard too, so I can put on my uniform and show them my ID and get in, it’s even hard for that, but if you’re just trying to get in it’s not going to happen. They said they’re going to give a three-day notice before they open up Malibu and they haven’t even given that notice yet, so who knows when it’s going to open up.

Support the Point Dume Bomberos by donating to their GoFundme account. 

HERE.