Them SCM Boys Are Just Built a Little Different
Brian Garrahan and Local Mountain Men Take Matters into Their Own Hands
By Julie Horner
With an edgy, Blair Witch-like quality, the series of GoPro style videos from Brian Garrahan reveal a time-lapse of mountain roads, towering trees, leafy underbrush, swatches of charred hillside, blackened plateaus, and twisted debris where homes and cars have been incinerated by the CZU August Lightning Complex fire. When no one else could reach the burned out mountain neighborhoods—and technically when everyone should have been long gone from the evacuated area—Garrahan and a handful of mountain men stayed behind to defend their properties and those of their neighbors.
Moving around the area dodging patrols and security roadblocks was tough, Garrahan admits. There had been heavy law enforcement presence on the ground checking IDs looking for looters and keeping people away from unstable areas. Garrahan said, “I don’t have a problem with it, they’re doing their job. But it’s scary, I don’t want to be taken to jail.”
And yet the imperative to do something was unbearable.
Brian was at the house that his father built on lower Big Basin Way when evacuation orders went out. “That was my family home; my shop, all my stuff was there. I left and did the evacuation,” he said, then realized “I can’t just sit here” knowing how absolutely overwhelmed firefighting crews were. “I grew up as a motorcycle racer, with that instinct not to be frightened, to be calm. I felt like I could control my environment; I could see the fire. Friends from Boulder Creek, tree cutters, and the people who live there, they stayed behind to save their homes, too.”
Garrahan, a professional off-road motorcycle rider, racer, and instructor and owner of Garrahan Off-Road Training in Boulder Creek lost everything in the fire. “It took me 10 years to get all the equipment for the business…helmets, protective gear, bikes. His folks collected antiques. “The bed set they bought at an auction had belonged to Ulysses S Grant.” It’s all gone now.
Once the crew did all they could on lower 236 to save the houses that were vulnerable, they moved on to other areas looking for spot fires.
“My fiance has a place on West Park. We went up on Ridge and started putting up defensive lines.” Utilizing an old dirt bike trail behind homes on the hillside, “I took it upon myself to build a firebreak.” The firebreak wound up being nearly two miles long. “I have never fought a fire,” Garrahan said.
It’s hard to point fingers. Locals simply took matters into their own hands as line cutters, tree fallers, and fire fighters house by house, because there weren’t enough resources to try to save everything. “I understand what they’re doing. They have to account for everyone. But they should definitely have a volunteer program, they should be taking advantage of that 100%. We’re not in Milpitas. We know the mountains. We’re all willing to take responsibility for ourselves…it’s our lives, our community.”
“I’ve lived here for 44 years, I know the neighborhoods really well.” Looking for spot fires, he shared raw video to social media so that evacuated residents might see through his lens what they could only imagine otherwise. “I’ve eased a lot of minds, helped people move ahead with their insurance.”
“It’s definitely a tight community,” Garrahan said. “There’s a lot of emotion for me being here so long, so much history down every street.”
Garrahan sends a big shout out to the other guys who stayed behind to help. “Joe Sutherland’s crew, Nick Yeager’s crew, and all the other guys in the BC crew for going far and beyond. Travis Tree Professionals. We’re all just mountain men, we have all the tools; it’s part of havin’ it.”
Dedicated to the cleanup, “I’m going to keep helping the community,” he says. “It’s going to be a long process.”
Photos contributed by Nick Yeager: “Boulder Creek Boys” Joe Sunderland, Mike Krk, Nick Yeager, Johnny Welborn, Aaron Reynolds, Mike Kelly, Ben Unger, Brian Pain, Jason Vincent, Brian Garrahan, Will Christianson
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