From Big Kanan, Woolsey and Palisades Fires: The Calamigos Ranch Wildfire Save and the Lessons for California

Let the Homeowner Beware get Pumped! Calamigos Ranch Shares Lessons from Surviving the Woolsey Fire: A Blueprint for Fire-Resilient Living in California

NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES, February 10, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Twice in two generations, the Calamigos Ranch has found itself in the path of Santa Monica Mountains wildfire history, first as a near total loss and later as a hard won save, with the difference driven not by luck alone but by preparation. That preparation, ranch leaders say, bears the fingerprints of Bobby Milstein, founder of California based So Cal Fire Supply, a fire defense products company that designs and installs property protection systems for homes and large estates in high-risk areas, focusing on what fails first in major firestorms: power, municipal water pressure, and time.

In 1978, the Big Kanan fire started on Cornell Road near Agoura in California and swept like a flaming tsunami over the Santa Monica Mountains to the ocean, covering 13 miles in two and a half hours. Moving as fast as five miles per hour, the fire burned 25,000 acres and as many as 250 homes and structures, including most of the homes and structures on the Calamigos Ranch which was Ground Zero in the Kanan Fire.

Calamigos Ranch was established in 1937 by Grant and Helen Gerson and covers almost 400 acres. Located in the Santa Monica Mountains near Kanan Dume Road and Malibu Canyon Road, the Calamigos Ranch is six miles inland from the Pacific Ocean, high enough in the mountains to be at significant risk from wildfires. The 1978 Big Kanan Fire swept over and destroyed much of the property. Glen Gerson and his staff attempted a defense of the family property but was overwhelmed: “We were standing on the roof with hoses, then the hoses went dry because at that time there were not any big water tanks,” Gerson remembered in December of 2025. “All the fire pumps, all the hydrants, everything went dry. We watched the hoses basically go from a lot of pressure to no pressure. The fire was roaring towards us, so we jumped in the lake to save ourselves.

“We did not think about dying, we just thought about how to get out of the way. We were face down in the water with the wind blowing over our head so hard, there were rocks and pebbles and things flying over us. We put our face and our hands over the water and breathed off the water.”
Gerson and his staff survived that fire, but the Calamigos ranch was destroyed: “The Kanan Fire went right over the top of us. We lost everything. My folks lost a home they had lived in for over thirty years. My wife and I lost our home on Mulholland Highway. We lost everything and went from no debt to a lot of debt because nobody insured for situations like that back then.”

Forty years later, the Woolsey Fire started on November 8th, 2018, in Woolsey Canyon near Simi Valley and burned 96,949 acres, destroying about 1,643 structures (including roughly 1,075 homes overall and 488 homes in Malibu). Pushed by Santa Ana winds, it jumped the 101 Freeway and reached the Pacific Ocean in about 6 –7 hours, ultimately killing three people and becoming one of the most destructive fires in Southern California history.

Calamigos Ranch was again right in the middle of this, but this time, they were prepared by Bobby Milstein of So Cal Fire Supply. Gerson and two dozen of his employees defended the perimeter and interior of Calamigos Ranch - and saved it after a frightening battle. “We had a diesel engine that Bobby had found somewhere,” Gerson remembered, “he attached a pump system to it that drew out of our lake - which contained around 2 million gallons of water. Bobby engineered that diesel engine and left it on the rear loading dock for probably six months to a year.”

“About a month before the Woolsey fire, Bobby said: ‘Maybe you ought to put that pump in.’ And we did. His instinct that a fire was coming was powerful. And then on top of that, we followed through again and installed a pump capable of spraying 3,500 gallons of water per minute through five giant RainGuns that distributed enough water to save everything: landscaping, the ranch, everything.”

“That was 100% experience and instinct. You think it is simple, right? You put a sprinkler on, and what's the big deal? Right? No big deal. But it is not simple at all. And it's all the little nuances. He was explaining to me that one of the houses in the Palisades fire had a two-inch hole with a one-inch pipe in it, and just that that half inch around it - with the winds blowing at those speeds - filled that hole up with embers, and the house burned down. Bobby is a craftsman and he knows what he’s doing, and he's on to all the nuances. So 50% is the water, the other 50% is him understanding what it takes to save a place, right?”

Those who have never been in the middle of a raging, wind-driven firestorm have no idea how fast they move, how dangerous they are and how seemingly undefendable they air. A firestorm driven by 70+ MPH Santa Ana Devil Murder Winds is a fire hurricane, a fire tsunami, a fire tornado.

An unstoppable force of nature to most, unless you are prepared.

Bobby Milstein remembered: “For the Woolsey fire we drew about 700,000 gallons from the lake and another 150,000 gallons from the pools, with the rest coming from fire hydrants. We had multiple pump systems and the pump in the lake was moving at 3,500 gallons of water a minute. We also had RainGuns that are three feet long and they were spraying 750 gallons a minute.
“It was my truck and their water trucks and their crew of about 18, all trained by us. There were no firefighters from outside.
“We were only about 75% built in at that time, so we also had Lady Luck on our side. The story of Calamigos hasn’t been told and it was probably the largest wildfire save in the state if not the country.”

The lesson learned from the Woolsey Fire is the gospel Bobby Milstein and others have been spreading ever since: “Residents of the Santa Monica Mountains have to face the reality that in the event of a wind-driven firestorm, they cannot rely on city power or city water, and neither the City of Los Angeles nor the County of Los Angeles nor CalFIRE will have the manpower and resources to save their properties. Properly prepared homeowners have to defend their own homes. It can be done.”

Some citizens of the Santa Monica Mountains have heeded this warning and avoided the nightmare situation that all homeowners pray to avoid: Losing your home.

In 2024 and 2025, the Santa Monica Mountains down to the beach were swept by three wind-driven firestorms: The Broad Fire started on November 6th, 2024, burned about 50 acres, and damaged three homes, while the Franklin Fire started on December 9th, 2025, burned roughly 4,037 acres, destroying 20 homes and damaging 28 more.

The Franklin Fire was a significant fire which brought hundreds of distant fire-fighters to town and put squadrons of helicopters and “Super Scooper” aircraft into the air. But the scale of the Franklin Fire is put into perspective by the Palisades Fire, which started on January 7th, 2025, burned about 23,713 acres, destroyed roughly 6,200–6,800 structures, killed 12 people, injured at least three, and is expected to cost around $25 billion to rebuild.

In the Big Rock area, one homeowner, a well-known actor, heeded the Cave Domini (Homeowner Beware!) warnings of Bobby Milstein, spending $250,000 for a hands-off autonomous fire protection system encompassing a 35HP propane-powered pump drawing from a 43,000-gallon swimming pool, which fed eight high-intensity sprinklers gushing water at over 100 PSI over the home and the landscaping.

“What Bobby does is create a microclimate,” Glen Gerson said. “His pumps and sprinklers create a wet protective dome over a property that embers can’t get through. It works. It worked for Calamigos and it worked for several houses during the 2024/2025 fires.”

When the smoke cleared, the actor’s house was still standing in a neighborhood all but destroyed by the Palisades Fire.

The lessons learned by the Gersons at Calamigos Ranch during the Woolsey fire and the well-known actor during the Palisades Fire are lessons that need to be applied to more homes and structures in the Santa Monica Mountains. Whether or not this is all fueled by climate change, the time between occurrence of major firestorms is shrinking from decades to months. From 1970 to the early 1990s, major Malibu and Santa Monica Mountains fires occurred roughly every 10–15 years, then fires became somewhat more frequent in the late 1990s and 2000s, and in recent years, including the 2018 Woolsey Fire and the Three Fires of 2024/2025 destructive firestorms have occurred so often that residents now fear they could happen almost every year when strong winds blow.

Glen Gerson had the last word: “There are a lot of contractors and companies out there trying to make money offering fire protection, but Bobby is the real deal.”

About So Cal Fire Supply:
Founded in 2009, So Cal Fire Supply is a leading provider of wildfire suppression and prevention solutions dedicated strictly for wildfire defense, serving fire departments, municipalities, and private entities across the U.S. Founded by industry expert Bobby Milstein, the company specializes in high-quality wildfire defense systems, firefighting equipment, safety gear, and cutting-edge fire mitigation strategies and private fire brigades to combat the increasing threat of wildfires nationwide.

For more information, please visit www.socalfiresupply.com
IG: @Socalfiresupplyco

Norah Lawlor
Lawlor Media Group, Inc.
+1 212-967-6900
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