November 15, 2018 600 AM
FORT DAVIS – Joe and Lanna Duncan of Fort Davis lost their Malibu home to the Woolsey Fire in Southern California last week. “We are fine,” Joe Duncan said on Wednesday. “Lanna is more traumatized than I, she is more sad. We had done much to the house, a 30-year-old house which we bought six years ago. It was facing the ocean, overlooking the Pacific with great views, a beautiful spot in the world.”
Joe said that the guest house, which was Lanna’s art studio and an office, also was gone in the wildfire, as well as their garage that housed a car.
Longtime Fort Davis residents and former owners of the Hotel Limpia there, the Duncans own The Hotel Paisano in Marfa, the Hotel Capitan in Van Horn, and The Lodge, in Ruidoso, New Mexico. Joe said that they were luckier than most. “We have lost our house in the fire and at least 15 families in our neighborhood lost their homes, too. They lost everything. This was our second home, but we didn’t have all our lifetime treasures out there, so we didn’t lose everything. I feel bad for those who lost everything, all their personal property.”
He said they could see the fire approach the night before they had to evacuate. And talk with neighbors indicated that previous nearby fires usually burn to the Pacific.
He said they went to bed and at 7am the following morning, Friday, everyone received an emergency call to evacuate.
“It took us about an hour to get out of the neighborhood, but we still didn’t’ take it seriously” Joe said. Some keepsakes had to be left behind, but “we took other things that were easy to fit in our car.” The fire hit Malibu at about 2pm Friday, and the Duncans fled five hours before.
Joe said that one of their neighbors stayed behind and saved his house. He said that of the seven houses in their neighborhood, three burned.
One of his neighbors and his wife stayed behind to save his house. “The neighbor who saved his house has lived through several other fires, he is a survivalist,” Joe said. “He had a generator to suck water from his pool and fought the fire, but his hoses didn’t reach our house.”
Joe said that the air quality was bad, and the neighbor and his wife had masks and were prepared for the fire. As palm trees caught fire, those trees ignited and caught some houses on fire.
The Duncans drove north to stay in Santa Barbara. They have a friend, another neighbor, who had connections with news stations and a news station was asked to take aerial photos of their neighborhood to see if their houses had survived the fire.
“We were at a restaurant Saturday night when Lanna got the aerial photos and saw that our house had burned,” Joe said.
“It was terrible, awful, all you could see was rubble, checkerboard, one house standing next gone, all checkerboard.”
He said it was very similar to the Rock House fire that devastated Fort Davis several years ago, where one house burned, but the one next to it survived. And the misinformation was also very similar.
On Sunday afternoon, they were allowed to go to their neighborhood to see what had been their home.
On Monday, Joe and Lanna drove to their home in Fort Davis, arriving there Tuesday night. Their son Malcolm lives in Los Angeles, and he stayed there.
Joe said he and Lanna have “appreciated everyone’s concern.”
They hope to rebuild their Malibu getaway. “We feel we have good insurance,” Joe said. “It takes years to rebuild, and the coastal commission is slow to give approval to build, but we will rebuild.”
