California dad who tried to save home from flames before water ran out says leadership 'absolutely failed us'
A California father of two who lost his home to wildfires on Jan. 8 is calling for significant changes in leadership “that absolutely failed” the state’s residents in a crisis.
“There’s a deep part of me right now that’s like, it wasn’t just my home that burned down and my life’s work that burned down. It is the trust in the leadership and the systems that absolutely failed us,” Blake Mallen said. “…There’s a part of me that’s just let down, disappointed, pissed off, that I was … failed by leadership in a system that I worked my whole life doing what was right to get to a point that everybody’s supposed to get to.”
Mallen, a 44-year-old entrepreneur and lifelong California resident, made sure his wife and children, ages 6 and 9, evacuated safely before he stayed behind to try and save his Pacific Palisades home as flames began to reach his neighborhood.
Mallen spent Jan. 7 trying to get his family’s sentimental items out of the home and preparing it as best as he could for the impending fires.
“It is the trust in the leadership and the systems that absolutely failed us”
WATER SYSTEMS EXPERT HAS A MESSAGE FOR THE PUBLIC AS LA WILDFIRES RAGE
WATCH:
“We filled up every sink, we [got] all the towels, we put them under the doors. We pulled out the hoses. We put out the fire extinguishers,” Mallen told Fox News Digital. “We did everything. We started getting all of the … things that would be hard to replace.”
For hours that day, Mallen and his neighbor, Alex, worked to put out hundreds of “hot spots” around their homes using garden houses and buckets.
HISTORIAN BLASTS CALIFORNIA LEADERS FOR ‘NONSENSICAL’ WILDFIRE RESPONSE
As night fell, the fires and wind grew stronger, and Mallen watched as they neared his neighborhood in the dark.
“Nighttime came, and it started to turn to Armageddon.”
“Obviously, everything went dark, which means the flames look like hell,” Mallen recalled. “And I watched it come up the mountain and all the way up the canyon and jumped the canyon.”
‘DEVASTATING’: CALIFORNIA HAD RECORD RAINFALL LAST YEAR, BUT LACKED INFRASTRUCTURE TO STORE IT
Mallen said that with the winds blowing strongly in every direction, the fires became “apocalyptic.”
“It was a firestorm,” he said.
POWER GRID FAULTS SURGED RIGHT BEFORE LOS ANGELES WILDFIRES BEGAN: EXPERT
Eventually, water ran out in the very early hours of Jan. 8, so they began filling buckets with neighbors’ pool water to fight the falling embers and flames. There were no firefighters in the neighborhood at the time.
Mallen “started running” away from his neighborhood in search of firefighters “out of desperation” and came across three fire engines parked on the side of the road around 3 a.m. on Jan. 8. He knocked on the trucks’ windows, and when Mallen got one of the firefighters’ attention, the first responder told Mallen that they, too, were out of water.
“Firefighters and engines dispatched there on site ready to fight — like, trained people, heroes, ready. They could not do anything,” Mallen said, adding that it “wasn’t their fault.”
BRUCE WILLIS THANKS LA FIRST RESPONDERS WITH ‘A HEARTFELT HANDSHAKE’
Mallen returned to his neighborhood feeling defeated, but he and Alex continued trying to put out flames with pool water.
That next morning, they thought they’d gotten through the worst of it. Mallen even phoned his family members to let them know he thought he had saved his home, but soon afterward as he was walking down his street, Mallen noticed a house four doors down from his smoking from the attic — a telltale sign, Mallen said, of a house that was about to burn down.
That attic smoke eventually did as he suspected, turning into an attic fire and then a structure fire that jumped to other neighboring houses, including Mallen’s.
ESSENTIAL PHONE NUMBERS FOR LOS ANGELES-AREA RESIDENTS AND HOW YOU CAN HELP THEM
The 44-year-old eventually saw a firetruck driving on his street and “begged” the men inside to help him put out the flames that he was sure were about to engulf his home.
“I just begged them. I said, ‘This is my house right here. This house is here on fire. We need to stop this fire because if this fire goes, my house burns and the street burns.’ … So I begged them, and they listened,” Mallen said.
Mallen said the firefighters who stopped to help him put on a heroic effort with half-a-tank of water in the engine they used to help him.
LOS ANGELES WILDFIRES: CALIFORNIA GOV. NEWSOM SLAMMED FOR ‘SIDESHOW’ AS HE DEFENDS STATE’S RESPONSE
“They took in the most inspiring, ultimate stand. You could imagine a fire crew … like movie scene. Heroism,” Mallen said. “They pulled out chainsaws. They cut down on a hedge line with chainsaws in between houses to remove the hedge. They physically start pulling out trees in preparation to stop the jump. They line up the fire and the giant cannon hose in between, waiting to protect the job.”
But despite Mallen’s efforts and the firefighters’ brave work trying to stop the fire in its tracks and put out flames, the fire eventually reached his attic. There was nothing anyone could do to stop the fire from growing because there was not enough water.
Mallen and his family lost their home of seven years, which was fully paid off.
“Had that hydrant had water, my house would have been saved. Had the trucks had water, the house, the street never would’ve caught fire.”
“We were on limited rotating water. So … it wasn’t, like, a perpetual stream. There’s a hydrant literally right across from my house, 20 feet. Had that hydrant had water, my house would have been saved,” Mallen said. “Had the trucks had water, the house, the street never would’ve caught fire. … The firefighters there, that’s all they were saying the entire time.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office on Jan. 10 shared a letter addressing water hydrants running out of water, stating that “while overall water supply in Southern California is not an issue, water mobility in the initial response was an issue.”
“The ongoing reports of loss of water pressure to some local fire hydrants during the fires and the reported unavailability of water supplies from the Santa Ynez Reservoir are deeply troubling to me and to the community,” Newsom wrote. “We need answers to how that happened.”
The governor added that he launched an investigation into the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP).
To make matters worse, State Farm dropped Mallen from their insurance coverage in September, he said.
“How is it that I’m the American dream story — an entrepreneur that worked his a– off to get his family home, to pay it off, and not have debt and not have a mortgage … the dream we’re all supposed to have … and I literally did not have an option for protection, safety and security of my family home and my life’s work?” Mallen said.
A State Farm spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the company understands “this is a very difficult time for those impacted by these wildfires.”
“In general, if an insurance policy coverage ended in September 2024, there would not be coverage for a loss, regardless of the cause, in January 2025,” the spokesperson said in response to a question about Mallen’s situation. “Any consumer whose policy is not renewed by their current insurance provider is strongly encouraged to seek coverage elsewhere to ensure their property is financially protected from loss,” the spokesperson said.
LOS ANGELES WILDFIRES: ‘LIFE-THREATENING,’ POWERFUL WINDS BRING ELEVATED FIRE RISK
He noted that Californians pay “an exorbitant amount of taxes” — taxes he has been paying for decades, as a lifelong Californian — and yet, “we can’t even have water in our own hoses to protect our own homes,” Mallen said.
Mallen said he is speaking up now to share his story, which he said represents thousands of other families who lost everything when they were displaced by the California wildfires. He wants to “shine a spotlight on a story that’s ours but also represents thousands of others in similar situations in a way to create absolutely needed change,” he said.
“The only thing more powerful than a wild wildfire that just burned thousands of homes, and my home, will be the community that comes together to rebuild it,” he said.
Mallen’s family members have started a GoFundMe titled “Mallen Family Restart” to help Blake and his wife rebuild after the devastation.
As of Friday morning, Cal Fire reported that over 40,600 acres had been burned, and more than 12,300 structures were destroyed in the fires. At least 27 people were confirmed to have been killed in the blaze, though that number could rise as dozens are still missing.
Read the full article here