Yesterday we had the privilege to meet David Shepard, the owner of a house deep in the woods in northern California. His log house with a metal roof survived an onslaught from the 31,000-acre Eiler Fire about 40 air miles east of Redding, California without a scratch. Even his stacks of firewood on the porch and in the yard are completely intact. The fire burned completely around his place, right up to the structure on one side. Helpfully for when a fire burns through the property, the house is flanked on two sides by a creek that forks just upstream from the structure.
When we asked Mr. Shepard if he was at the house during the fire, he said, “Do you think I’m crazy?”
As you can see in the photo above, just across the creek multiple tree torched, indicating that it was burning intensely just 75 feet away from the house. We saw no indication of any retardant drops from air tankers, probably because they were not allowed to place retardant near the streams.
Mr. Shepard, who prefers not to have his picture taken, is a film preservationist — he restores film. We asked if he worked with old nitrate base films which are extremely flammable and can even spontaneously combust if stored at a high temperature in an area where the heat can’t dissipate. He said he has some in the house but they are stored in metal containers.
We later Googled Mr. Shepard and discovered that the modest man produces movies and is an award-winning film preservationist, receiving, among others, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Denver Silent Film Festival.
While we were at the house an engine crew from the Tahoe Douglas Fire District arrived to do some additional mopup. Much of the area had already been heavily mopped up, to the point of becoming muddy, probably by using water drafted out of the creek. But there had not been much done on the other side of the creek, and a few smokes created some concern for Mr. Shepard, who had called and requested some additional work from the firefighters.
One reason the area across the creek had not received much attention was that there was no easy way to cross the six to ten-foot wide water course. Captain Chris Lucas and his crew of Jessie Rowan, Ben Pratt and Shean Bailey solved that problem by taking a ladder off the engine and using it as a bridge. After extending it vertically, they lowered it across the water by using “baby hose” as a rope. The firefighters then got on all fours and crossed on the ladder.
What great photos, be they tragic at the same time. I’m a long time friend of David and had been calling since the fire headed that way, but got his message machine which gave me hope the house was OK. Then I finally got through to a friend of both of us in Burney and she thought he was somewhere in the area with his 10 dogs, another part of David he didn’t share, he’s a dog rescuer. David has countless awards, US and European, praising him for his silent film restoration. He attends numerous silent film festivals year round. He and I started the Redding Film Festival over 10 years ago, he and I rendezvous at the reknown San Francisco Silent Film Festival each year. David is a rennaissance man, and we’re lucky to have him in out midst, not to mention his home and 4 freight containers of silent film on this property. I’m sad for the forest fire around him, it has sheltered his home for 20 years, but we can live with solace that he has a place to return and continue his lifetime work. Frank Treadway-Redding CA