How a courageous brain surgeon saved his Malibu street from wildfires…. 1/2
Susie Coen11 January 2025 3:00
“Without a doubt, if we weren’t here, none of our houses would be. There’s not even a 1 per cent chance”, Mr Colbert said on Friday as he poked his hose up against the smouldering remains of a neighbour’s home to stop it spreading.
The men’s diciest moment came on Wednesday night, when the fire barrelled towards them from the west, engulfing two of their neighbours’ wooden homes and sending them up in flames within 20 minutes.
First went the house two doors along from Mr Griffiths on Topanga Beach Drive, as the inferno made eucalyptus trees explode. Then the next one went up “like a Roman candle”.
“Everything was coming this way. The fire was coming this way, the smoke, the embers in the air, the wind was unbelievable”, he said.
“Softball-sized pieces on fire were landing around us,it was almost apocalyptic. It’s like, you see these things coming at you, and they land on the ground. Thank God, the majority will not go on the house, but the ones that do, you put out immediately.But if no one is here to do that, then they eventually burn the house down.
“We didn’t know when it was gonna end. That was probably the scariest thing.”
The trio responded by jumping on nearby roofs, spraying the flames and using dirt and sand to put out any fires on the ground. They got blown over several times, buckling under the power of the 80mph gusts.
His 24-year-old student son, also called Chester Griffiths, added: “This has all been, honestly, under the leadership of my dad.
“He’s been preparing for this for so long. He’s a champion, he has warrior mentality.”
Mr Colbert hasn’t slept in days. Speaking on Friday, he admits he doesn’t know what day it is. He does know he was meant to have kidney surgery on Jan 10, which he has just discovered is today.
Soot, ash and smoke have stained his skin in every cavity and crevice, but he insists he is as clean as possible, having just had his fifteenth shower since the fires began.
For the first 10 hours, Mr Colbert was entirely alone, the fire swooping towards him from the east, engulfing nearby beloved neighbourhood institutions such as The Reel Inn, a fish shack.
Then he saw a notice on his phone telling him to evacuate.
“It said ‘Get out, grab your pets, your loved ones, and leave now,’” he said.But he stayed put.
Luckily, his 93-year-old father, who lives downstairs in Mr Colbert’s home of 45 years, had been at a medical appointment and couldn’t get back.
At some point during the daring mission,Mr Colbert’s hair caught fire, but he is not entirely displeased with the outcome.
“I look like I have a full head of hair now, don’t I? It’s great. It’s all ash,”he jokes.
‘All this, and people are trying to steal too’
“Every bone in my body hurts,” he adds, limping across the sand in front of the oceanfront homes. He has never had a problem with his knee, but now it is strapped up in a brace.
His slower mobility was a challenge whenhe was forced to chase after looters who had come to raid the remaining homes.
It was Thursday evening when Mr Colbert saw two men walking down the hill.
“I started screaming at them, and then they ran. Then I went down to my car, and I turned on my car and the lights, and I set my alarm off so they know that we’re here,” he said.
“On top of all that, there’s these people trying to steal from you.”
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