This is an episode from LAist Studios, the creators of The Big One. This next installment of The Big Disaster series will provide you with a wildfire survival guide that includes not just tangible safety tips — but hope for our future. In this episode, host Jacob Margolis examines why trees that are adapted to living with fire are now burning and how we might save them. To listen to the rest of this 10-part series, visit The Big Burn or find The Big Disaster: The Big Burn wherever you listen to podcasts.

One of the Point Dume Bombers who lost his home in the Woolsey Fire uses his pain and loss as fuel for action. He embarks on a quest to change the way we live with wildfire. The LA County Fire Department, Malibu City Council members, everyday citizens, and other fire brigades in Malibu join his quest to create a new model of community resilience. Five years later, his relentless drive might just payoff: the Community Brigade Pilot Program is ever so close to becoming a reality.

When Point Dume Bombers are pushed to their limits, will they survive the test? Part 2 of the Under Siege episode chronicles life in the harrowing aftermath of the Woolsey Fire.

Hear the motley new generation of Point Dume Bombers in action as they race to put out hot spots, save homes, get essential supplies through roadblocks, and so much more. They did it all on the fly, but their efforts have inspired a new model of community resilience in the face of ever-worsening wildfires.

Loss, hope, and resilience in the face of one of nature's most terrifying forces: wildfire. We meet a group of surfers called the Point Dume Bombers who stayed in Malibu during the 2018 Woolsey Fire and find out how they survived the most destructive fire in Los Angeles County history. 

Why do people stay during wildfires and how did the Wild West culture shape the people who live on this hilly, chaparral-covered coastline? A history of Malibu, the evolution of surf localism, and the genesis of the Point Dume Bombers. We meet the obstinate Queen of Malibu whose determination and love of land shaped the culture of one of the best surf spots in the world.