Local film explores life behind the fire lines
Local film explores life behind the fire lines
05 February 2010
published by www.thedailysound.com
USA — When a mushroom cloud of smoke appeared above the Santa Ynez Mountains as the Zaca fire exploded in July 2007, local filmmaker Jennifer Reinish headed outside with her camera.
She should collect a few frames, she thought at the time, just in case she ever needed stock footage of what appeared to be a sizeable explosion.
Those few frames quickly grew into a feature film exploring the intricacies and complexities of a major firefighting operation Behind the Lines: Fighting a Wildland Fire, a 49-minute documentary that is being screened twice during the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
There was no preparation, there was no inkling I was going to be making a film, Reinish said, describing how she stumbled across a fire information kiosk a few days after shooting that initial footage.
After chatting with a local fire captain at the kiosk, Reinish locked up an invite to explore the base camp at Live Oak Campground, where firefighting and support crews began gathering en masse as the Zaca fire raged out of control in Santa Barbaras rugged backcountry.
I was so amazed at what I saw back there, she said. It was nothing you would ever imagine goes on.
From the helicopter rescue crew on 24-hour standby to weather forecasters, mapmakers and a vendor selling T-shirts, socks, boots, underwear and gum the base camp was a buzzing hive of activity.
You think of the men and women out there with their axes and hoses and fire engines, but there is so much more to it, Reinish said. Its a massive, massive effort. Its like a city back there.
She began capturing interviews with fire officials and camp workers, firefighters and helicopter pilots. In addition to filming the campground, she traveled to the helicopter operation area on a ranch on Paradise Road.
After supplementing her Zaca fire footage with a trip to the incident staging area near the Winchester Canyon Gun Club during the Gap fire a year later, Reinish began cutting together various interviews and images.
She finished up a rough cut of the documentary within a year, and screened it during an adult education documentary film class.
They kind of ripped it apart, Reinish said. It was hard to sit there and listen to the criticism, but it was really valuable.
Back in the editing studio with plenty of notes, she revised the film into its current form. It premiered during a special screening in the parking lot of Samys Camera in June, and has since won an award at the Yosemite Film Festival.
Reinish, who evacuated during the Jesusita fire, said she drew comfort from her personal experience of the magnitude of the effort undertaken during a major firefight.
Its really reassuring to see whats going on and who the people are, she said.
She is hopeful that the documentary will also serve to dispel some myths about firefighters including complaints from some during the Zaca fire that fire crews are paid overtime on major incidents and arent motivated to bring wildland blazes under control.
Theyre out there putting their life on the line, and they hate hearing that, Reinish said. Every single one of them would rather be at home with their families than sleeping on the ground at night.
Behind the Lines screens on Monday at 9:30 p.m. at the Victoria Hall Theater and on February 14 at 4 p.m. at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Tickets are available at each venue, and minipaks and passes are available at www.sbiff.org.
Preceding each screening will be a showing of Tea Fire: Re-Birth, a 20-minute documentary short by local filmmaker Craig Harris that explores the lives of 10 individuals whose homes burned down during the November 2008 blaze.
