by Mick Rhodes | editor@claremont-courier.com

In 1978, artist Walter Mix, Jr. and his wife Janice Mix paid $14,000 for a vintage 1924 former U.S. Forest Service cabin in Bear Canyon, about ½ mile from the heart of Mt. Baldy Village.

Built in utilitarian fashion, the cabin and those around it “were falling down by the time the ‘70s came around,” said Walter’s son, David Mix. The road that had led into Bear Canyon was long gone, washed away by a massive flood in 1938, so the Mix family, including 4-year-old David, had to hike in to access their spartan vacation home.

“My first literal memory in my life is walking up that trail to the cabin in a couple feet of snow, and the only way I could keep up was to put my feet in my dad’s footprints, because the snow was so deep,” Mix said. “It was up to my waist, practically. I can still see that as clearly as anything that I have from my childhood.”

Within a year the cabin had become a family treasure and been dubbed “little king.”

“At 6-, 7-years-old I was handing my dad tools when he was working on it,” Mix said. “He probably spent more time working on it than he did working on his paintings. That’s what we did. That’s how I learned to work.”

Mix, now 50, bought the cabin in the mid-1990s. It had been home for him and his wife Kjerstin Mix for nearly 30 years, the only one their 10-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter had ever known. It long ago became more than a house.

This photo taken from behind Mt. Baldy Lodge at 4:09 p.m. Tuesday, September 10 shows the Bridge Fire advancing over the ridgeline above Bear Canyon, with residents preparing to flee. Within a matter of minutes the fire would destroy 20 homes in Mt. Baldy Village, mostly in Bear Canyon. Photo/by David Mix

But despite his frantic efforts to save it, that investment — financial and emotional — was shattered September 10 when it was destroyed in the Bridge Fire.

“This house is like a relative to me,” a still shaken Mix said just 48 hours after it was lost. “I can’t really explain. Every corner of that house has my fingerprints on it.”

What follows is a chronological account of the days leading up to its loss.

Sunday, September 8

Mix and his family were returning from day at the beach that evening when he heard there was a fire in the San Gabriel Mountains near Mt. Baldy. Fire is a fact of life in the mountains. He’d heard these warnings dozens of times and wasn’t alarmed.

“It sounded like it was way down in the bottom of Cow Canyon toward Azusa Canyon, many miles west of Mt. Baldy,” Mix said.

Monday, September 9

Mix was surprised by a notice in the morning advising Mt. Baldy to evacuate. He couldn’t recall which agency delivered it. “That’s part of the story here. There’s so many agencies that are in on these things that it’s kind of hard to know who’s saying what,” Mix said.

Later in the day he saw a post on the Mt. Baldy Residents Facebook page that stated simply that the fire had reached Peacock Saddle near Glendora Ridge Road, about six miles from Mix’s cabin.

“So when I heard it was that far out, I rode out there on my ATV and I saw that it was far and said, ‘Oh, we’re not going to pack up at 9 p.m. We’ll go in the morning.’”

The Mix family knows the drill well. Their children packed one box each with clothes and keepsakes before heading to bed.

Tuesday, September 10

His family headed down the hill early in the morning. Mix, a fundraiser for nonprofit Anthesis, went about his workday from his home office and packed some of his things, just in case.

He monitored the various fire agencies’ and Mt. Baldy Facebook groups’ posts throughout the day.

Then at 1:23 p.m., “There was a plume in the sky that just didn’t look right to me,” he said.

He hopped on his all-terrain vehicle, headed into Mt. Baldy Village and parked behind Mt. Baldy Lodge. An increasingly threatening plume of hot smoke was bearing down on the heart of the Village, and Mix was startled by something else: there was not a single fire truck in town that he could see.

Something had to happen — and quickly. He returned home and phoned his brother, who has worked closely with 5^thDistrict LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger. Soon after, Mix reached Barger via text, and they had a brief conversation.

“I’m like, ‘Where is everybody? We might need some help here. There’s nobody in town,’” he said.

Barger put him in touch via text with Deputy LA County Fire Chief Eleni Pappas.

At 3:42 p.m., Pappas responded to Mix’s pleas for fire crews in the area thusly: “We strongly believe that the fire will not impact the northeast area, including Mount Baldy. All indications are it is moving into Wrightwood and moving south towards LaVern [sic] in San Dimas. Those are the areas we are concerned about.”

At 4:03 p.m., just 21 minutes after receiving the reassuring text from Pappas, any sense of hope that things were under control was crushed when Mt. Baldy Fire Department posted on its Facebook page, “Any residents still on the mountain should evacuate ASAP. The fire is burning rapidly to the east.”

He then flew back down to the Village on his ATV, where “The sky was blowing this red glow, unlike anything I’ve seen in my life,” Mix said. (Mt. Baldy Fire Department Chief Graham Hendrickson later told him the wall of flame he was seeing at that moment coming up over Cow Canyon was more than 100 feet high.)

Back at home he grabbed his laptop, loaded it and his two remaining Bear Canyon neighbors into his truck, and headed quickly down the mountain.

“Once that fire with those huge flames crested the ridge, it started making its own weather,” Mix said. “It was a firestorm at that point. So it was really kind of a matter of escape in those initial moments.”

This photo was taken at 4:32 p.m. Tuesday, September 10 from the Hog Back area between the Mt. Baldy Road tunnels and the turn off to Barrett-Stoddard Canyon, looking up the canyon wall toward Sunset Peak. Photographer David Mix was in touch with fire officials at the time, and sent them this photo while desperately asking for firefighting resources to be brought to the area. Photo/by David Mix

Parked near the northern end of the tunnels on Mt. Baldy Road, he resumed his text correspondence with Pappas. He sent her photos, his pleas for help growing more desperate.

And with the firestorm raging, he waited.

By 6 p.m. resources “began trickling in,” Mix said. “At that point it was too late. If we had the resources in place in the late afternoon, if we had fire engines all the way up that road — we have fire hydrants all the way up the road — we would have put the fire out. We would have defended those homes, no problem.”

David Mix with a photo of his undamaged Bear Canyon home contrasted with what remained on September 12 after the Bridge Fire destroyed it two days earlier. Courier photo/Peter Weinberger

Sometime later, “losing my mind with frustration,” and with the fire still roaring, Mix made his way on foot from where he was parked on up the mountain, looped around the fire, and hiked to the top of Goat Hill ridge.

“I could not leave until I knew what the outcome was,” Mix said. “I was of course hoping for a miracle. When I saw that my place was gone … it was the longest walk back I’ve ever had, man.”

Epilogue

The Mix children have only known their Bear Canyon home. As such, their father is determined to return, if not there, somewhere nearby. He has some savings, he said, and regardless of whether it be as renter or owner, he’s resolute to get back to mountain life.

This story is not unusual, especially in California.

But the Mix’s version may end differently.

A GoFundMe campaign established shortly before I spoke to Mix at 9 p.m. last Thursday, September 12 had reached $40,000. By 4 p.m. Friday, 686 people had contributed a remarkable $71,508.

That so many have felt compelled to help is not surprising. The Mix family has long had an open door policy to those in need of shelter, especially among the Native American community. It would seem it’s Mix’s turn to be the recipient of the kindness of strangers.

“It’s been the most bizarre turn of events, going from feeling like you’re losing all that you’ve built that supports your way of life and your family’s well-being to having people showing up out of nowhere,” Mix said. “I was overcome by … everything that goes along with loss, all those things, and I’m also overcome by peoples’ generosity right now. I’ve never experienced anything quite like it.

“I know that I don’t feel hopeless.”