NR | 1h 41m | Documentary | 2023
Serving as both a history lesson and easy-to-follow instruction manual, the documentary “Hotshot” has a distinct current day, subdued “I told you so” air to it. While the devastating Los Angeles wildfires are still active, “Hotshot” also serves as an unintended prophecy. This entire debacle could have easily been avoided through simple, centuries-old, preventative maintenance.
Originally released in the fall of 2023, the movie was written, directed, photographed, composed, narrated, co-produced, and ultimately self-distributed by first-time feature filmmaker Gabriel Kirkpatrick Mann.
Doomed to Repetition
Mann said, “The reality is in California, nobody really cares about wildfires until they show up in their backyard.”“That’s part of the reason why they’re doomed to keep having these catastrophic fires,” he said. “I grew up in the Palisades. I know the area very well. For years, I’ve been saying they’re overdue for a major fire, and nobody listens.”
Mann said, “When [the fire] hit, I was posting some comments on Twitter [X], one of which was a clip from the film, and I mentioned how we basically got shafted out of reaching a deal with Netflix, and later HBO. They didn’t like my ‘climate change’ angle, meaning I don’t believe climate change factors into these fires. They wanted me to put the emphasis on climate change. When I refused to make their desired edits, the deals were dead.”
In a carefully measured tone, Mann explains what he feels is the systemic issue regarding the climate change push. “People (X posters) seemed to latch on to that. It’s a combination of observing just how broke California is, how broken Hollywood is, and how deeply entrenched the whole ‘woke iron wall’ is,” he said.
Firefighting Navy Seals
“Hotshot” opens with a capsule overview of what a hotshot is and their history. The firefighting equivalent of Navy SEALs, a hotshot candidate must undergo a demanding and rigorous qualification program before they are even considered for what is easily one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet.There are currently 115 hotshot teams in the United States, and 49 of those are based in California. Five of those teams work in the Angeles National Forest, which covers just over 700,000 acres in the San Gabriel and Sierra Pelona Mountains.
In addition to being incredibly dangerous, hotshots make less than half the salary of traditional firefighters due to a particularly loathsome government loophole. Hotshots are classified as “forestry technicians.” They are only paid while battling fires, even though they regularly remain on site for weeks and months at a time under the worst possible conditions. Traditional firefighters are paid for every minute of their 24-hour shifts, whether working or not. This is referred to as “portal-to-portal” pay.
In the final act of the film, Mann goes into great detail of what he calls the “wildfire industrial complex” and why preventing wildfires might not be the top priority in California.
“I hate being this cynical because it sort of makes me feel like a goblin,” Mann says. “As I phrased it in the film, the previous fire seasons (June through November) resulted in (on average) $12 billion in damages. I think this ongoing fire will easily exceed $150 billion. That money doesn’t just get burned up in a pile; it goes to contractors and bureaucrats that benefit from who knows how many building permits.”
No Incentives
“It’s not to say that people don’t want the fires to stop,” Mann stresses. “It’s just … nobody is incentivized for them to try making them ever stop. For instance, the auto dealer that sold you two jeeps in the same year because one of them burned up. Do you think he’s going to storm the city council saying, ‘We’ve got to do something to stop these fires; I’m selling too many cars.'?”I mentioned to Mann that his movie reminded me of the red tape associated with water, not fire, in the 1974 movie “Chinatown” and if Northern California is purposefully dumping water in the Pacific.
He responded “That is a microcosm of the larger issue that plagues every facet of California governance and community priorities. They’re destroying dams up north to try to save fish populations. In the process, we’re hamstringing ourselves, when we know that we’re going to have droughts every other year, and messing with the water supply only makes things worse.”
Florida Does the Opposite
“Florida,” Mann says, “has the exact opposite attitude towards wildfires as California. They see every day as a good day to carry out controlled burns.” In the movie, Mann states Florida does more burns in a year than California does in 50 years, a ratio he modified in the interview. “It’s actually worse,” Mann laments. “It’s actually 75 years.”Mann concludes, “I was humbled while shooting this film. I was surrounded by these brave and dedicated public servants who risk and lose their lives, and it made me, as a filmmaker, feel very small. It was hard to shake that feeling, and [long pause] Hollywood is suffering the same fate as the rest of California.”
“They’re so blinded by misplaced ideologies. … They live in a fantasy world. … They’re not addressing reality. All of their agenda-driven content is no good and that’s why most people are rejecting everything Hollywood produces. Putting all of this on climate change … it disempowers everyone. It becomes something mythical rather than accepting that you have agency over it, and you can prevent it. Unfortunately, it takes a catastrophe like this to grab their attention.”
