Will Rogers Staff Poised for Emergency Evacuation

With brush fires sweeping through Malibu this week, fueled by low humidity and strong Santa Ana winds, officials at Will Rogers State Historic Park set emergency evacuation plans into motion. Three big U-Haul trucks are stationed in front of the ranch house poised to take care of the cultural materials inside the Rogers’ historic ranch house, and fire trucks equipped with fire retardant gel positioned to save the structure itself. Museum curator Rochelle Nicholas-Booth, who developed the emergency plan and supervised an emergency drill three years ago, is anticipating the very real possibility that fire could once again threaten the 200-acre park and structures. Nicholas-Booth explained that State Park headquarters in Sacramento were sending fire specialists and museums curators to Pacific Palisades. In addition, Angeles District Chief Fire and Security Supervisor Frank Padilla is coordinating a fire team of all the state and local agencies that deal with fire. A team of five to eight rangers has been pulled from other state parks to help with suppressing fire and removing the cultural objects from the house. A maintenance crew has been busy removing brush, although with the implementation of the new landscape plan last year, brush is no longer threatening primary structures. ‘With our action plans, we have four hours to get primary objects out of the house,’ Nicholas-Booth said. ‘Volunteers from Camp Josepho, under the guidance of Topanga Sector Ranger Carlos Matamoros, have signed on to help with packing and moving objects.’ State Park District Superintendent Ron Schafer is in constant communication with Craig Sap, the Incident Commander in charge of tracking the status of the fire from reports from city and county agencies. ‘We are still evaluating our trigger points to determine when we start working on evacuation,’ Padilla said. ‘If embers get into La Tuna, that’s when we begin to start taking action.’ After a two-year renovation, the ranch house reopened to the public in March 2006. Years of structural neglect were remedied, and the artifacts, including furniture, rugs, books, paintings, cowboy mementos and gifts from all over the world to the Rogers family were carefully catalogued and photographed. In addition photographs of each room provide a detailed blueprint for reassembling the objects in case they have to be removed to safety. With memories of unpacking all the artifacts not too long ago, Nicholas-Booth told the Palisadian-Post that she has already retrieved the packing materials from the Topanga storage area ready for use. ‘I feel that we are prepared even if this turns out to be just another emergency drill.’