A wildfire raged in Malibu on Tuesday, triggering thousands to flee, but some have refused to evacuate — and instead grabbed hold of their garden hoses, according to reports.
The Franklin fire broke out late Monday, prompting evacuation orders and school closures in the coastal, Southern California area, including across a wide stretch of the famed Pacific Coast Highway, The New York Times reported.
But some who stayed took matters into their own hands, armed with garden hoses in an attempt to defend themselves and their property.
"If you’re there with a hose, ideally a high-powered hose, you can wet everything down, make everything kind of fire resistant from those floating embers, and then save the property,” Alec Gellis told the Times.
The 31-year-old said in an interview with the publication that his goal “was to douse everything he could to keep the fire from spreading to his home and two other houses in his Serra Retreat neighborhood.”
He added that by Tuesday afternoon, without having slept since the fire began, and with help from about half of his swimming pool’s water, “everything’s super lush” because “it got such a good watering last night.”
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He wasn’t the only hose-wielding resident trying to fend off the flames.
“Some residents of Malibu Canyon Village, a complex with more than 100 condominiums along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, also doused walls, roofs and adjacent vegetation on Monday night using fire hoses and garden hoses,” Kathleen Higgins, a restaurant caterer who lives in the community told the Times.
The report added that the fire turned area wetlands “into a charred wasteland of burned palm and date trees,” and that “embers were landing on the roof of the complex.”
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert G. Luna stressed the importance of following evacuation orders.
“It saves lives,” Luna said during a news conference Tuesday morning. “And it actually impacts the lives of our first responders, because if they have to come in to save a life, they’re putting their own lives at risk.”
