Page 376 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

TAKING A STAND ON THE TUBBS FIRE–LARRY BRODERICK
The first knock came at 1:30 a.m. A minute later, it turned into pounding. Somebody at the front door was pretty adamant. Larry Broderick, Peterson Idealease rep, stumbled out of bed to answer the door. His wife beat him to it.
“Hurry up! There’s a fire, and it’s headed our way,” his neighbor yelled. “You’ve got to get out. Now!” Then she was gone. A couple of minutes later she backed out of her driveway and disappeared down the street.
Over the next ten minutes, other friends started messaging him. Those were the only warnings he got. Some people didn’t even get that much. Broderick got his wife and kids packed into their Yukon and off to safety. Then he started making phone calls to see what was really going on.
“I called a friend who had an early morning delivery route for Clover-Stornetta Farms. He told me a fire was coming from Calistoga down through Mark West to Riebli Road. And right then, I knew the path it would take because it had happened before, back in 1964, with the Hanley Fire.” Broderick also had prior fire experience with CAL FIRE in the late 1980s, so he knew what was coming. Or thought he did.
By 2:30 a.m., Broderick was gearing up for a fight. There were no signs of fire yet. But it was coming. He could smell it. “Once I got my family out and made some calls, I did the math. The wind was blowing 50 mph and it was headed in my direction, so I started a plan. I got the right shoes on, got both my cell phones and a flashlight, strapped my car keys to my belt, and got a wet handkerchief for my face. It wasn’t smoky yet, but I had everything I needed to make a stand.”
By then, the main thrust of the fire had already blown over Hwy 101 into Coffey Park, four miles west of Broderick’s neighborhood. It shot down Mark West Springs Road and tore through Larkfield-Wikiup like a flame thrower. “It didn’t track over to my neighborhood until two or three hours later. That whole time I was in my yard fighting spot fires with my garden hoses—two hoses in the backyard, one in the front, one at my neighbors, and two more down the street. By 3:30 a.m. the embers started coming in. By 4:30 a.m. it was just a mass assault of them.”
Neighborhood house on fire
Everything was a tinderbox—high winds out of the northeast, low fuel moisture, and a drought two years standing. It was the perfect prescrip- tion for a firestorm. “I put out multi- ple spot fires at the six houses I was protecting. The main fire was still nowhere near yet, but the hills were glowing all around me. It was all from flying embers. That’s how the fire moved. Embers flew two, three, four miles ahead and started sub- fires. Then the back fire would fill in. If you could control the spotting from the embers, the fire didn’t progress until the back fire came.
374 | PETERSON: 85 YEARS AND GOING STRONG