As the fire approached, three friends of mine stayed at my home for 60 hours straight. Two of them were actual L. A. County Fire fighters. We came in direct harms way on three occasions during two different nights. We would routinely run the pump and allow the water cannon to shoot over my six car garage and guest house. It was capable of hitting the tops of my pine trees that sat between us and the fire. We would allow the pump to run for 20 or minutes or so as the fire would rear its ugly head. This would saturate everything and allow us to check the rest of the property for any hot spots. During the course of four days, fire fighters that had heard about our set up would come up the driveway to check our system out. They were all impressed and this allowed us to stay and protect my property.

We also used the hand lines when they were most needed for fire suppression. There was not an engine assigned to us at any time during the fire like there was in the mid 1970s the last time we had a fire of this magnitude.

The Briggs Terrace was mentioned a lot in the press and my home is the second highest home in the Terrace with native brush on my perimeter. I can say that Frederic’s Last Stand™ set up gave us a great deal of confidence that we might not have had with thirty foot flames licking at my back door. I would like to thank Frederic for allowing me to use this setup and would be happy to speak to anyone one how it can be successfully used.

Thanks again Frederic!”

Tim Macdonald