Highway 41 Fire Student Documentary

On August 14, 2019, I had lunch in San Luis Obispo with my 7th grade history teacher Mike Burrell. He was my favorite teacher at Atascadero Junior High School (now Atascadero Middle School) when I was there 1983-1985. En route there from my home in Paso Robles it felt odd to me driving southbound on Highway 101 through the former Highway 41 Fire burn area. It was 25 years to the day after it started and that area would burn the next day. My drive included the area adjacent to Santa Margarita Ranch where the fire jumped the highway as a massive 100 foot wide fire tornado. It also included the entrance to Tassajara Canyon which experienced area ignition conditions when the fire roared through. And lastly, it included Cuesta Grade which was charred entirely, top to bottom, north and south sides of Cuesta Summit.

During lunch I brought this up with Mike and he informed me that in 1995, the year following the Highway 41 Fire, at which point he was then working at Oak Hills High School in Atascadero, he had his students put together a student documentary about the fire. After creating it they burned it on to blank VHS cassettes and sold them for $10 each for a fundraising drive.  After lunch I visited his home in SLO for the first time as we were reconnecting after all these years. Heretofore we merely briefly chatted on Facebook from time to time. Mike gave me the grand tour of his library/museum/arboretum/home which was a lot of fun. Before I left he handed me the only extant version of the documentary on disk. I asked him if I could burn some copies and donate them as well as upload the documentary to Youtube to which Mike generously accented.

Back in Paso Robles I took this disk to The Blueprinter and they directed me to Gallagher Video Services in town. I made an appointment and met with Ron Gallagher and told him my expectations. I wanted several copies of this documentary burned and I wanted nice graphic design for them that was apropos in labeling the product and I wanted an mp4 copy of it burned onto a flash drive so I could upload it to Youtube. I did this last week and today it was ready and here you go. At top is the documentary on Youtube. In the middle is the old disk and directly above is a copy of the new disk version produced by Ron Gallagher. Nicely done I think.

Mike also handed me a photocopy of an old SLO Tribune article from 1995 which recounts the story of this documentary. Read it above and if need be zoom in closer so the print is legible.

Highway 41 Fire Student Video

Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved)

Today I had lunch in San Luis Obispo with my junior high school history mentor Mike Burrell. He was one of those special teachers who left an indelible impression upon me and encouraged my early interest in history. Life took my down a series of unexpected detours so the fruit of his labors with me did not begin blossoming until my 40s when I picked up an AA degree in History at Cuesta College and a BA in History at CAL POLY SLO. Given that today was the 25th anniversary of the Big Blow-Up of the Highway 41 on Day Two of its existence, and I had to drive right through the burn scare of the fire going to San Luis Obispo and back again, it seemed like a perfect coda to this day that Mr. Burrell revealed to me that in 1995 his classes at Oak Hills High School in Atascadero for the first anniversary of the event had created a video documentary about the fire centered around various local video footage taken by local residents and firefighters of the historic conflagration. He also gave me a photocopy of an article in the local SLO Tribune about the video. He has loaned me his copy of the documentary on disc which I am going to copy and upload to Youtube and share on this blog very soon I hope.

Shakeout in the Classroom

Today public and private facilities of various functions conducted the annual Great California Shakeout. It came on a day I was embedded in my classroom at Atascadero High School. I had not heard or read any mention of the annual earthquake preparedness drill being observed at this school and I feared they were not doing it until 10:20 a.m. this date of 10/20/16. Vice Principal Allen broke in over the loudspeaker and narrated an earthquake drill encouraging all students to get under desks and such to protect themselves. I was heartened to see this as I feel this sort of thing is incredibly important and not emphasized enough in society generally. Other sorts of drills at schools are for things like fires and shootings, things which at most schools will never happen. In California there is a 100% probability that a significant earthquake will be experienced at nearly each and every school in the state eventually, something my master teacher/co-teacher pointed out to his drill-disrupted 4th period class this morning. My mom happened to drive by a small Christian pre-school observing the drill at the time appointed so this demonstrates even private education entities participated at least in some cases which I'm heartened to learn. Below is a montage of footage from the Loma Prieta Earthquake (whose 27th anniversary occurred just three days ago) led off by the now-infamous footage of a classroom on the campus of U.C. Santa Cruz getting demolished by the quake. This is followed by a high school gymnasium hosting a girl's volleyball game getting called early. As this footage amply demonstrates, classrooms (and gymnasiums) can be hazardous spaces in a major earthquake. Taking proper precautions such as diving under desks is well-advised. *Note: I forgot to participate in this drill last year so it was nice to get reconnected to it. 

Sylmar Quake Anniversary!

Forty-three years ago this morning the Sylmar Quake a.k.a., the San Fernando Earthquake, rocked Southern California. For those of you who remember it or who weren't born yet and missed it you are invited to watch this contemporary documentary about it created by the then-President's Office of Emergency Preparedness and the Civil Defense Preparedness Agency.

Alan Simmons Fire Videos Are The Bomb

In the mid-1990's I became aware of Alan Simmons Fire Videos through the Firefighters Bookstore (in Huntington Beach, CA) catalog during a time I contemplated getting into firefighting. It was love at first sight with the first one of his videos I watched. At the time I was already a connoisseur of storm chase videos such as those by legends like Tim Marshall, Bill Reid, and Dean Cosgrove. I was even a connoisseur of disaster-related documentaries which included a good many NOVA videos as well as Weather Channel videos. A bit later on I acquired nearly entire television series like Wrath of God on the History Channel as well as U.S. Forest Service stock footage videos.

I also would tape live coverage of disasters on television when they happened as I did with the Northridge Quake and the 1993 and 1996 October Southern California firestorms. Of course, back in those days it was all VHS cassette for both what I purchased as well as the format in which I recorded. Later on by the late 1990's I began taping my own storm and fire videos in Hi-8MM format but never liked my own work nearly as much as that of others and elected to leave that to the professionals and instead stick to my strong suite: still photography.

Over the course of the 1990's into the first half of the 2000's I accumulated the following Alan Simmons fire videos on VHS: 1990 Universal Studios Fire, 1992 Los Angeles Burning: Fires of the 1992 Riot, Los Angeles Area Multiple Alarm Fires Volumes 1-6 including Volume 3 which features 1994's Northridge Earthquake (much footage in this was featured as stock footage in scores of documentaries ever since). I also acquired the first six volumes of his East Meets West series. Best of all, I added all three of his California Firestorm volumes '93, '96, and '99. Add to that his Hot Shots video and I owned (and still own) copies of 18 of his videos in VHS format.

As I am now finally and reluctantly fully transitioning to only DVD format in my video library I am about to get rid of all my VHS cassettes (fire videos and otherwise) and give them all to my mother. I am now left with only Alan Simmons' more recent fire videos on DVD that I have accumulated over the past decade which are as follows: West Coast Fires Volume 1, Firestorm 2003 Volumes 1-3, Firestorm 2005, Firestorm 2006 Volumes 1-2, and Firestorm 2007 Volumes 1-3.

On my agenda is to at some point acquire the following Alan Simmons fire videos on DVD: Wildland Fire 2008, October Firestorm 2008, November Firestorm 2008, Firestorm 2009 Volumes 1-2, Station Fire: August 2009 Volumes 1-2, Southern California Fires 2010, and finally, the digitally remastered 1992 Los Angeles Burning on DVD.

Although I do not intend to purchase this video I did notice that Simmons is already offering Hollywood Arson Fires: 2011 New Years Eve Weekend. As you can see he is on top of things and continues to produce timely and relevant offerings.

Something else you have probably noticed by now is how many more firestorm videos he has produced in the past decade than in the decade previous. The times they are a changin'... as is the nature of fire in California. If you are a fire buff or disaster buff or California history buff or all of those things as I am you cannot claim to have a decent video library without having at least one Alan Simmons fire video. I cannot overstate how highly I recommend Alan Simmons fire videos. Not only are they great for your own video library but they make a wonderful gift to others as well.

For the record I have no financial connection to Alan Simmons and have never met him or contacted him other than to order a video by phone and that was long ago. Given this fact and the fact that I have acquired and seen many other fire videos from other sources over the years to which I can compare this I am able to impartially and accurately judge this product.

Below are two wonderful samples of Alan Simmons' work.