The 26th anniversary of the Panorama Fire is on Nov 24 2006.
Wildman produced and directed a video of the event that was recently transfered to a DVD format. Here's Wildman's story.........
In 1980, I had been doing a lot of industrial videos and films as both on camera talent or producer. I had purchased a broadcast quality Sony 3/4" deck and camera and had been putting a lot of small projects together. On a warm November day, I had been conducting interviews for a PBS documentary about a freeway crash that killed eleven people in the fog. I monitored the radio and heard our units heading for San Bernardino to help with a vegetation fire. I figured I'd tag along and get some stock footage of wild fire. Little did I know what we would be driving into or how long I would be involved.
As we drove into San Bernardino, it became apparent that this was no ordinary fire. The sheer size and volume of smoke and flame was incredible. Forty-king came on the air and stated that he was over the high school at a hover and the air speed indicator was reading ninety mph. CommCenter came on the radio and told all units coming in to take independent action until some plan could be organized. Block after block was on fire.
I gave the camera to my driver and showed him how to work it and joined up with my engine. I fought fire for 24 hours while he tried to stay out of the path of the flames and came up with some good shots. The fire was so intense that if a house had just a little bit of flame on the shake roof, we would move two houses over....because it was going to the ground in spite of our best efforts.
On the second day, I resumed shooting and shot until the end of the fire. Sony brought me out cases of tape and batteries from LA. I slept at whatever fire station I was at and most often slept in my car. It was an incredible experience.
When it was all over, I had some 75 hours of raw tape and needed a place to edit. The Air Force ran the Department of Defense Audio Visual center at Norton and had state of the art equipment. I am sure when they agreed to help, they thought I might have a few hours to put together. They never flinched as we unloaded case after case of tape to be bumped up to reel to reel two inch tape. For the next 16 weeks, I worked from 7 to 3 for the Air Force narrating training films or working on live TV broadcasts and from 3 until 10 pm, a crew of five worked on the Panorama program.
I would go home and write the narration and storyboard for the next day's work. We listened to every 911 call....every piece of radio traffic and collected over 30 hours of outside film or tape that was used in places. Because my microphone was too sensitive, all of the sound was unusable because of the wind noise. So....everything you hear on the program had to be created in the studio. Wind...fire....buildings burning...all were layered sounds that we made on the foley stage. We went around and arranged interviews with dozens of folks and cut those into the program to help illustrate the magnitude of this fire.
When it was over, I was drained. Watching the devastation over and over....seeing the hundreds of homes destroyed day after day, was difficult. It has aired a number of times on PBS and footage has been used in over 25 TV productions around the world. I am proud of the effort and believe that it still stands alone as a chronicle of what happens when fire comes down the mountain. I was proud to be able to tell the story of the men and women who put themselves in harms' way for the good of us all.
We've been able to reduce the 1 hour video to a 31.2Meg movie for Internet viewing:
(Save the file to your hard disk before trying to run.)http://www.incidentcontrol.com/disaster/Panorama1.wmv
