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In a Firestorm, Four Men Saved HRL Laboratories

LOS ANGELES, October 31, 2007. Sometimes heroes are found in the most unlikely of places. Located in Malibu, CA, HRL Laboratories is a high-tech research laboratory owned by Boeing and GM. In the early hours of Sunday, October 21st, HRL was engulfed by the Malibu Fire that started in the canyon area across from their campus. While the county fire response teams were coming together to save a community in imminent danger, four unlikely heroes were already hard at work saving the two major HRL buildings and literally preserving the livelihood of over 300 staffers.

Notified at 4:00 am by John Donnelly, on-duty security guard from Pinkerton Services, Ralph Casarez, HRL’s Security Inspector, was already leading the heroic effort to save his place of employment. Ralph had hurried to work to start his emergency shut-down procedure. Ralph was the natural first call for the security staff. He is the point man at HRL for all fire-related activities. Carrying his fire-fighting gear and emergency response team identification got him through the initial Highway Patrol roadblocks that morning, but he became momentarily stalled behind a fire marshal and a team of female convicts. This unexpected initial fire response crew was working with picks and shovels on Malibu Canyon Road just around the corner from the Labs. "I kept trying to get by them," Ralph says, "but then saw that they were also trying to move a downed telephone pole from the middle of the road. While I was sitting there, I suddenly noticed my car tires were starting to smolder. Luckily, they moved the pole and let me through. It was getting mighty hot at that spot!"

Within a matter of minutes, the fire had reached the outskirts of the HRL campus and took over two trailers and a guard shack. Smoke was surrounding the facilities. In the early morning hours of the first day, in the powerful winds and the low humidity, everyone was wondering if they would be able to stop the destruction of the workplace they value so highly.

L.A. County Fire Department and the Burbank Fire Departments trucks made their way to the parking lot and started fighting the biggest fires. Ralph couldn’t help but say, in recollection with a smile, "then they left me" to try to save houses in Malibu proper. Burning embers were still flying around, carried by extremely high winds. Without hesitation, Ralph and John, joined by a second Pinkerton security guard, Billy Mitchell, and fellow HRL employee Jim Thompson — also a trained firefighter— with their protective gear on, proceeded to the multiple new blazing sites. Together, they used over 50 fire extinguishers and countless gallons of water from HRL fire hydrants to combat a total of 32 fires.

Ralph broke his foot on Sunday while knocking down the biggest threat. A car on the facility grounds caught some flying embers under the front wheels, the engine caught on fire, and flames jumped to the roof of one of the main buildings. Because the other three on site at the time were spread around the perimeter, Ralph was alone to stop this one, which he did by strategically aiming the water from the hose at an angle into the wind, putting out the fire before it could spread and enter the building vents.

During the next few days, driven by the sheer desire to save their work and prevent any further damage to the community, without any sleep or food, the four men took on the fires, often doubling up on some, but just as often having to work solo on flareups, with 10- to 15-foot visibility because of the smoke and with a total lack of power—including no communications to the outside or even to each other during the height of the threat.

As the main fires were gradually controlled in Malibu, other HRL employees were able to get to the entrance to the driveway, bringing needed food and recharged cell phones to the four HRL heroes, and then later in the week to help remove still smoldering debris from the driveways and stairwells. Five days later, when HRL had power and on-site communications again, the four had finally gotten some well-earned sleep—-medical attention for Ralph's foot—and the undying gratitude of their HRL peers and community.

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HRL Laboratories, LLC, Malibu, California,  is a corporate R&D laboratory owned by Boeing and General Motors. HRL provides custom R&D and performs additional R&D contract services for its LLC Members, for the U.S. government, and for other commercial entities.