Group of Malibu residents stay behind to save their homes from Franklin Fire: 'It was scary'
MALIBU, Calif. (KABC) -- When the Franklin Fire broke out in the hills of Malibu late Monday night, many residents heeded the evacuation orders and left their homes, but one group of courageous neighbors stayed behind to put up a fight.
Video from the scene captured Abel Rodgers on the roof of his Malibu home at 2 a.m. Tuesday with a high-powered hose fighting back against the encroaching flames.
"You just kind of kick into action and do what you have to do," Rodgers said. "Avoid the smoke, wrap something around your face and just hope you can get it taken care of."
The flames and showers of embers swirled through the area for hours. Rodgers described the fire as "fierce."
"It almost had an apocalyptic kind of glow to it. It was scary," he said.
Alec Gellis was also there trying to keep the flames at bay.
"The fire was coming in, it was blazing. Everywhere you looked, there was fire. It seemed like there was no way out," he said.
The two men and a third friend were up all night making sure their home and their neighbors' homes weren't lost. None of them got much sleep.
"That was a crazy night. We started at 11... went until like 2 p.m. and then kind of just been like going around and just checking in on everyone," Gellis said.
Some weren't so lucky. Just up the hill from their Serra Retreat-adjacent property, several homes and cottages burned to the ground. About half a mile west, multiple vehicles burned, including several Porsches and a vintage pickup truck.
But more might've been lost without the efforts of that group of men.
"Putting myself at risk, you know. If things got real bad, I definitely would've gotten out of here, but I think we managed things pretty well and so that didn't have to happen," said Rodgers.
