2025 Los Angeles
Wildfire Response

On January 7, 2025, devastating wildfires rampaged through Los Angeles, burning over 40,000 acres, destroying thousands of structures, and killing nearly 30 people. Residents of Palisades, Pasadena, and Altadena, California returned to nothing.

Upon receiving mission assignments from FEMA, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was tasked with assessing, removing, and safely disposing of hazardous materials from all affected areas within 30 days — finishing just shy of 29 days. I was assigned as an assistant public information officer and primary videographer while fires were still active in the Palisades and at the Eaton Fire.

The initial expectation was straightforward: grab b-roll and distribute it to outlets in the Los Angeles market. Walking the Altadena site with EPA personnel, I overheard a discussion with Torri Huelskoetter, the EPA Federal On-Scene Coordinator who had deployed from Region 10 — specifically, from Alaska.

I raised my camera and began recording. What followed was a non-narrative electronic news-gathering package built entirely in the moment. Huelskoetter spoke with authority on the science of the cleanup and with genuine empathy for those who had lost the most — and she brought a detail that made the piece land: she had come from Alaska. That specificity transformed a b-roll trip into a story.

In addition to the Spectrum News pickup, I delivered b-roll packages directly to CBS for use on 60 Minutes.

EPA Community Involvement Coordinators provide the human element of the agency's mission — meeting residents where they are, connecting them with the right resources, and bridging agency operations with community reality. I followed Olivia Lopez, a CIC deployed from Region 1 in Boston, through her work in Palisades neighborhoods and at the Ronald Reagan American Legion Palisades Post 283.

Lopez's work included facilitating communication between displaced residents and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which conducted Phase Two debris removal operations. Her story illustrated what EPA's community-facing work looks like at the human level — not a press release, but a person with a clipboard at someone's front gate.

EPA Region 9 Deputy Regional Administrator Cheree Peterson visited multiple sites spanning the Eaton and Palisades fire areas. I covered her site tour with USACE leadership as EPA transitioned from Phase One hazardous materials removal to Phase Two debris operations — a critical handoff moment in the mission's lifecycle. The video documents both the scope of cleanup and the interagency coordination that made it happen on a compressed timeline.

The capstone production covers the entire LA wildfire mission from a communications perspective. I interviewed Rusty Harris-Bishop, the Public Information Officer for the response, for a reflective piece on what the mission demanded and what it meant. Harris-Bishop offered the kind of candor that only comes from someone who has just finished something enormous.

The piece was recognized by EPA Administrator Zeldin and the White House, and Harris-Bishop's interview was submitted to the 47th Telly Awards in the Crisis Communications category.

Producing public service announcements during an active disaster response is rarely clean. I produced two PSAs informing community members of EPA and USACE operations — and each required a different approach.

The first PSA featured two subjects who had time to read the script and commit their lines — the result is a well-coordinated, polished piece that reflects the agency at its most prepared. When the situation allows, this is the standard.

The second PSA was built under real constraints: a last-minute change in who from USACE would appear alongside EPA Incident Commander Tara Fitzgerald. The substitute hadn't seen the script. Rather than force a full read-through without a teleprompter, I simplified his portion to talking points he could expand on naturally, and built the edit around deliberate cuts to cover the gaps. The result works — not despite the limitation, but because of how we responded to it. That's what field production looks like.

What started as a compliance problem became an editorial opportunity. The b-roll didn't just cover the problem; it enriched the story. The result is a piece that tells the story the CIC wanted to tell — legally, clearly, and with a narrative that wasn't there in the original cut.

Every video produced during the LA wildfire response was built for two formats simultaneously. Operating out of Burbank — across from a Netflix office, in the heart of the LA media market — social distribution wasn't an afterthought. It was part of the acquisition plan.

Composing for both a 16:9 broadcast frame and a 9:16 vertical crop from a single take meant no second trip to the field, no separate social shoot, and no compromised framing in either format. The subject stays centered and readable in the Reel; the wider frame carries context for the full broadcast cut. That decision happens at the moment the camera goes up, not in the edit bay.

Each YouTube production above has a corresponding Instagram Reel — same footage, recomposed for vertical, distributed across both channels from one day's work in the field.

Shooting with a Sony Alpha camera gives me the flexibility to switch between formats when convenient. In addition to video support, I packaged photography that gave recipients options — stills for immediate editorial use alongside the video product. An audiovisual package that serves multiple channels at once is a force multiplier in a resource-constrained response environment.

EPA contractors worked burned-down parcels, searching for hazardous household materials — including unstable lithium-ion batteries capable of igniting beneath debris.

Not all of a crisis response is on the cleanup site. EPA Incident Commander Tara Fitzgerald, Public Information Officers, and Community Involvement Coordinators addressed citizens at a town hall in Duarte, California — a meeting that turned hostile as EPA, state, and local leaders sought to address community concerns over nearby debris processing operations.

Covering that room required a different approach. These are photographs of real frustration, real fear, and real officials trying to build trust in real time.