New Series Out Now: DANGER IN PLAIN SIGHT

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First Episodes Out Now

 

Check out our new series, DANGER IN PLAIN SIGHT, about firefighters’ perspectives on wildfire hazards in Los Angeles. The series follows The Lookout Director, Zeke Lunder, on a journey from Altadena to Palisades alongside some of his most seasoned wildfire expert friends (see bios below). As they traverse the city on bikes, they grapple with historic and recent wildfire events and squarely face current and future fire danger. This series is for anyone who is curious about Southern California’s unique fire issues.

Watch the trailer. Tune in each Friday in August 2025 for a new episode.

Featuring:

The Lookout – Zeke Lunder

Zeke Lunder has worked in wildfire for almost 30 years. His experience includes two decades working as a wildfire mapping specialist and wildfire analyst on many of the largest fires in California history. Zeke has designed and managed wildfire fuels reduction projects, and worked as a prescribed fire instructor and burn boss. He started The Lookout during the Dixie Fire because there was a need for more accurate and accessible information about wildfire location and wildfire context. Zeke says, “We are drowning in misinformation, and even the good information which gets out often lacks any historical context or geographic specificity. It often seems that the public information officers on major wildfires don’t give the public enough credit for being able to understand nuanced messages or the operational details of how the fire is being fought.”

 

Retired Southern California CAL FIRE Fire Behavior Analyst & Intel Chief Tim Chavez

Tim Chavez has almost 50 years of operational firefighting and wildfire analysis experience. He has been one of CAL FIRE’s foremost fire behavior experts over the past several decades, having worked on most of California’s largest and most destructive wildfires, including the 2018 Camp Fire. Tim spent his career in Riverside County, and retired as CAL FIRE’s Deputy Chief of Wildfire Intelligence. In this role, he helped establish CAL FIRE’s new Wildfire Forecast & Threat Intelligence Integration Center (WFTIIC).

 

Retired CAL FIRE State Home Hardening Chief, Fire Behavior Analyst & Forester Dennis O’Neil

Denny O’Neil recently retired after 35 years with CAL FIRE, where he worked as a forester and fire behavior analyst, in San Luis Obispo County. Denny retired as CAL FIRE’s State Chief of Home Hardening, responsible for helping roll out programs to reduce the flammability of structures, neighborhoods, and communities.

 

 

Former Hotshot and Current NASA FireSense Project Coordinator Harrison Raine

Harrison Raine worked as a federal wildland firefighter on Interagency Hotshot crews for several years before receiving a fellowship to study international approaches to wildfires around the world including in Canada, Spain, Portugal, South Africa, and Australia. Raine graduated with his dual master’s degrees in City and Environmental Planning from UC Berkeley and currently works for NASA’s FireSense Project, supporting the development of technology and science to better understand wildfires.

 

Episode Summaries

Episode 1: Scouting Mission

Bike Tour and Fire Literacy Initiative

 

  • Zeke Lunder introduces the idea of a bike tour from Pasadena to Malibu with experienced wildland firefighters to study the landscape and provide practical tips for living safely with wildfires.

 

  • Zeke Lunder shares his background as a geographer and wildfire analyst, emphasizing the importance of fire literacy for living in fire-prone areas. The tour aims to counter misinformation about wildfires and provide concrete solutions for making communities safer.

 

  • Tim Chavez and Denny O’Neil, both retired from CALl FIRE, will share their expertise and insights on wildfire safety and urban planning.

 

Historical Context and Fire Safety

 

  • Tim Chavez explains the historical development of the LA Basin and the challenges of building on steep slopes.

 

  • Denny O’Neil discusses his role in wildfire home hardening and the importance of understanding the unique fire risks in LA.

 

  • Zeke Lunder highlights the role of strong offshore winds in driving large fires in Southern California and the advanced firefighting infrastructure that helps contain most fires.

 

  • The tour aims to reimagine how people can live safely in fire-prone areas by providing practical solutions and understanding the unique fire risks.

 

Exploring LA and Fire History

 

  • The group rides bikes through LA, discussing the city’s terrain and the historical development of fire roads.

 

  • Tim Chavez shares stories of significant fire fatalities, including the Griffith Park Fire of 1933, which was the single day highest loss of lives in wildland firefighting.

 

  • The group reflects on the importance of understanding fire history, not just of a place but also of the wildland fire community, and the tradition of storytelling within the wildland fire community and the need to remember and learn from tragedy fires.

 

  • The tour continues with a focus on the practical aspects of fire safety and the challenges of living in fire-prone areas.

 

Impact of Fire on Urban Areas

 

  • The group visits the site of the Eaton fire, discussing the impact of fire on urban areas and the challenges of defining the wildland urban interface (WUI).

 

  • Denny O’Neil explains the dangers and dynamics of not just structure-to-structure fire spread, but also the role of ember generation in spreading fires.

 

  • Tim Chavez discusses the challenges firefighters face in managing multiple fires in a given areas and the real-life context of individual firefighter decisions.

 

  • The tour emphasizes the need for community education and fire-resistant building practices to improve fire safety in urban areas.

 

Episode 2: Plan on It Happening

 

Eaton Fire Overview and Initial Observations

 

  • Zeke Lunder and the team discuss their mission to make things safer and reimagine dwelling in the hills, emphasizing the importance of understanding the details.

 

  • Tim Chavez highlights the unique nature of the Eaton fire, which quickly transitioned from chaparral to an urban firestorm, spreading structure to structure.

 

  • Zeke Lunder mentions the additional challenge of an extremely damaging windstorm that further complicated firefighting efforts.

 

  • The team discusses how fires in urban environments can lead to structure-to-structure ignition, producing embers that start other fires, making it a significant challenge for firefighters.

 

Impact of Urban Firestorms and Mitigation Strategies

 

  • Footage of civilians making intense efforts to try to save their home amidst flying embers is shown.

 

  • Tim Chavez reflects on the abrupt and devastating spread of the Eaton fire into the urban core, expressing empathy for the affected people.

 

  • The group discusses the importance of mitigating fire hazards by building back better or retrofitting existing homes to withstand hazards.

 

  • Zeke Lunder notes the changed social relationship with fire due to recent catastrophes, leading to more collective trauma around fire.

 

Historical Context and Climate Change

 

  • Zeke Lunder and Denny O-Neil discuss the long history of wildland fires in California and the intense burning seen in the Station Fire in 2009.

 

  • Denny O’Neil describes the dense brush and intense burning observed in the area, noting the changes in weather conditions over the past 15 to 20 years.

 

  • Tim Chavez acknowledges the warming and drying climate.

 

  • Zeke Lunder explains how subtle climate changes can lead to major fire environment changes, affecting firefighting strategies and fire behavior.

 

Planning for Future Fire Prevention

 

  • Zeke Lunder emphasizes the need to plan for future fires, acknowledging the uncomfortable truth that another fire is certain.
  • Denny O’Neil 1 stresses the importance of not letting history repeat itself and using the current moment to educate other communities about hazards.
  • Zeke Lunder expresses hope that the team’s efforts will help people understand the need for safer building practices and reimagining dwelling in fire-prone areas.
  • The conversation shifts to the next phase of the tour, focusing on land use planning and the wildfire hazards of affluent neighborhoods like Beverly Hills.

 

Exploring Bel Air and Its Fire Hazards

 

  • Zeke Lunder introduces Harrison Raine, a wildfire researcher at NASA, to the team for the tour of Bel Air.

 

  • Tim Chavez notes the lack of consideration for past fire lessons in Bel Air, with dense vegetation posing a significant fire hazard.

 

  • Zeke Lunder and Tim Chavez discuss the dangers of landscaping in affluent neighborhoods, highlighting the flammable nature of hedges and other greenery.

 

  • The team observes the topography and urban design of Bel Air, noting its similarity to the Palisades area, which experienced a devastating fire.

 

Challenges of Firefighting in Affluent Neighborhoods

  • Zeke Lunder and Tim Chavez discuss the difficulties firefighters face in accessing affluent neighborhoods, often requiring type one strike teams–or groups of the same firefighting resource–of engines to navigate narrow roads and private communities.

 

  • The conversation highlights the nature of these neighborhoods’ close quarters and tight spaces, leading a firefighter’s perspective on them to be “claustrophobic,” and the challenges of evacuating firefighters during a fire.

 

  • Zeke Lunder emphasizes the need for residents and the public to have realistic expectations about firefighters’ capabilities in such areas.

 

  • The team reflects on the historical development of these neighborhoods, noting the lack of consideration for wildfire risks.

 

Zeke Lunder outlines the next episode’s focus on the group’s “vacation” rental and working with homeowners to make their property more wildfire resistant, including the home hardening tips and a discussion of defensible space principles.

More Resources

Here are some additional resources related to the content of our LA Lookout Video Series: DANGER IN PLAIN SIGHT for any of our viewers who are interested in learning more and diving deeper. While we explore a lot of the complexities around wildfire in LA and living with fire in SoCal in our series, we do not offer–nor do we intend to be a source for–a comprehensive suite of resources or highly specific recommendations for fire recovery. For anyone affected by recent fires in LA, we recommend visiting the LA County Recovers website that hosts a wealth of resources and information.

 

The Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center’s website offers more information about the Griffith Park Fire Entrapment Fatalities of 1933.

 

Local Fire Departments and Resource Conservation Districts (RCDs) often have resources and services available to help you and your community live more safely with wildfire. The Los Angeles Fire Department has a number of educational videos and resources available on their website, including a host of wildfire-specific pages. The Santa Monica Mountains RCD offers a suite of wildfire and community resilience resources as well. 

 

Joining a community group like a Fire Safe Council, or even just seeking out available resources and information from them, is a great way to start to make changes in a coordinated way that can help us scale up solutions to living more safely with wildfire in the future. Information on the Los Angeles Regional Fire Safe Council and MySafe:LA can be found at wildfirela.org. One of our Major Supporters for this video series project, Fire Aside, partners with entities like those we have mentioned–fire departments, RCDs, and fire safe councils–to bolster the inspection processes for wildfire preparedness with their sophisticated software offerings.

 

CAL FIRE’s webpages offer a wealth of information and some interactive tools:

 

We also recommend checking out the Hazard Mitigation Methodology by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Wildfire Prepared Home, a Program of Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS).

Last, but not least, here are some key points about home hardening:

  • A structure’s wildfire mitigation needs to meet or exceed the surrounding wildfire hazard and exposure to that hazard (see graphic below).
  • Mechanisms that contribute to structure ignition include exposure to flames, radiant heat exposure or embers. 
  • Emergency response capabilities usually are exceeded during major events and structures need to be able to withstand the wildfire exposure without firefighter intervention.
  • Wildfire mitigations include implementing wildland urban interface (WUI) building construction standards or retrofitting older homes to a standard that can withstand a wildfire exposure and defensible space.  
  • Homeowners should always consult their local building official and fire marshal for WUI building construction and defensible space standards. 

This series was made possible thanks to the generous support of our sponsors:

Premium Sponsor

 

Major Supporters

 

E-bikes and accessories provided by: