Bring Your Own Brigade

Bring Your Own Brigade is a captivating documentary film directed by the visionary documentary filmmaker Lucy Walker, known for employing a powerful cinematic style to divulge critical themes. The 2021 film provides an eye-opening exploration into the catastrophic California wildfires. It serves as an intriguing study of the recurring disasters, their causes, the entwined history, and the present state of the complex fire management system that exists in California, while also offering a deep-dive into the personal stories of the natives who have experienced the tragedy first-hand.

The film stars Trina Cunningham, Mike Davis, and Don Hankins, each playing unique roles that breathe life into this dramatized narrative of real events. The blend of engaging storytelling, natural disaster's turmoil, and poignant personal narratives provides a captivating journey that unfolds over two hours, plunging viewers into a world of firestorms, history, and profound human stories.

In Bring Your Own Brigade, director Walker embarks on a mission to answer the question, "Why are there so many devastating fires in California, and can anything be done to thwart them?" To answer these, she delves deep into the past and the present. The film conducts in-depth interviews with the fire service personnel, land management experts, indigenous land stewards, and residents of fire-ridden communities, whose viewpoints provide insights into the wildfire problem that has been more than a hundred years in the making.

Trina Cunningham, a member of the Maidu tribe and environmental consultant, brings to light the traditional indigenous practices for land management that have been sidelined for years, which apparently are resilient strategies to prevent devastating fires. Mike Davis, a renowned historian, writer, and political activist, draws attention to the socio-political aspects entwined with the recurring fire events, thus framing an ideological context to the crises.

As an indigenous fire scientist, Don Hankins provides a bridge between indigenous knowledge and modern science. His role in the film gives a fresh perspective on how marrying the two could possibly provide solutions to the problematic wildfire events.

In Bring Your Own Brigade, the scorching fires are painted not as isolated natural phenomena but as a result of a combination of climate change, ill-conceived fire management policies, unwise landscaping, unchecked urban development in vulnerable zones, and historically rooted misguided cultural attitudes toward fires.

Walker painstakingly traverses the terrains of Malibu and Paradise, two of California's wildfire-stricken communities. The residents' heart-wrenching testimonies and shocking visuals of fire destruction make the narrative both engaging and emotionally intensive. The film promises to take you through an exploration of the harrowing power of nature and its capacity for both creation and destruction.

Throughout its riveting run time, Bring Your Own Brigade navigates the dichotomy between humanity's control over nature and nature's indomitable will. It intimately captures the horrors faced by the communities, the brave testimonies of the fire brigade, and the quests of scientists and indigenous tribes striving for a better, safer future.

This documentary is not merely an intense portrayal of the lethal Californian wildfires but is also a pivotal commentary about how human action directly impacts nature and its devastating consequences. It doesn't shy away from neighing the heavyweights - the failure of government policies, the capitalistic greed overshadowing risk evaluation, the ignorance of indigenous knowledge, and the perils of climate denial.

In the end, Bring Your Own Brigade leaves viewers with mixed feelings. There is empathy for the disaster-stricken communities, respect for the native tribes trying to keep their heritage alive, admiration for the fire warriors who put their lives on the line, and reflection on humanity's role in these increasingly frequent and destructive natural disasters.

See Bring Your Own Brigade to be informed, to question, to feel, and perhaps to understand better that fire is not merely a foe to fight but also a natural force with which we must learn to co-exist.