Lucy Walker’s New Film “Bring Your Own Brigade”

LUCY WALKER, DIRECTOR, “BRING YOUR OWN BRIGADE”: Yes, that’s right. I grew up in the U.K. in London. I’d also lived in New York City. And in those places, you think of fire as a problem that we have solved hundreds of years ago. So, when I moved to California, I was scared. I was confused. Why is the hillside on fire and why can’t they put those fires out? I didn’t understand this landscape and how fires work here and the strain that the firefighters are under. But I got to know residents of firefighters caught up in these huge fires. And I thought, oh, my goodness, what is going on? And, of course, it’s getting worse and worse.

GOLODRYGA: Yes, there are so many videos that you have compiled into this piece and images of people driving along the highway with massive fires to the left as if it’s some sort of horror movie that we’re watching. In fact, it was reality. And you really hone in on the November 2018 California fires in both Malibu and Paradise; 88 residents were killed, tens of thousands lost their homes and were displaced. And you spent a lot of time with these firefighters. And I have to say, they are heroes and the emotional toll, the physical toll that this took on them. Why was it so important for you to highlight and focus on that?

WALKER: Well, because I think that it’s easy to forget quite how extreme the circumstances are expected to work are. And with the big wild fires, you’re not going home every night. Your shift may be 70 days long and you may come home for one day and then be sent right back out again. And with fire season going longer and longer, in fact, they say, there’s no fire season anymore because with climate change, with extreme events and with the other factors that are pushing these fires. Because I learned that it’s not just climate change that’s having a huge impact. You know, we’re asking them to do more and more and the strain is absolutely breaking people. And I was really moved by that. And also, they had information for us that we’re not listening to. So, I was fascinated that they actually, you know, have incredible ideas and there’s a wealth of knowledge about how we can do better and how we don’t have to be having these huge fires or when the fires do come through, they won’t be as destructive to, you know, structures, you know, thousands, tens of thousands of homes being burnt, you know. But when the fires come through, the homes don’t need to burn, if we’re listening to people about the building codes. And so, something that is very shocking in the film is you see the fire chief of Paradise where 85 people were killed and 18,000 of structures were lost being ignored in his recommendations for building codes and I think that’s something that was really astonishing to witness as well.