It would be a safe bet to say that no one in Pahrump is more familiar with the areas in Southern California where wildfires destroyed thousands of homes than longtime local resident Heidi Fleiss.
The convicted and retired “Hollywood Madam” provided her thoughts to the Pahrump Valley Times about what’s described by some as the most destructive wildfire in California’s history.
“I grew up in the Hollywood Hills so I’m very familiar with wildfires because they always seem to be in the hills,” she said. “My friend’s home actually burned to the ground. I was in LA last week, staying with my friends in Silver Lake, and another girl staying there said her family’s entire house, that they had for many years in the Palisades, had burned down.”
Calling all birds
Shortly after moving from Hollywood to Pahrump roughly 18 years ago, Fleiss founded an exotic bird sanctuary on the north end of town.
As such, she is now temporarily offering her property for exotic birds, mainly macaws and parrots, owned by LA residents displaced and affected by the fires.
“One lady in the Palisades had 19 birds but she put them in a marbled bathroom and left and they all died,” Fleiss recounted. “I posted on my Instagram account that all fire victims who need temporary housing for their parrots can contact me. All I got were horror stories about how they loved them so much, but the birds died.”
Similar experience in Pahrump
Additionally, Fleiss spoke about her own experience with a fire at her Fort Churchill home in Pahrump several years ago.
“In 2012 my house here in Pahrump burned down by accident,” she said. “Somehow it caught fire. I don’t remember how, but I had insurance. It was scary and I remember thinking that only idiots catch their houses on fire, but when it happened to me, I was like, I guess I’m the idiot too. I remember seeing the flames and getting all of my birds out. It was scary as hell, but it was a complete accident.”
Pahrump fire chief comments
Pahrump Valley Fire and Rescue Services Chief Scott Lewis, who has responded to countless structure fires for several decades, also spoke to the Pahrump Valley Times about the LA fires.
“They had the perfect ingredients there at the time of the fires,” he said. “They have closely placed residences, they apparently had a water issue that they were looking into there. You could have the best apparatuses, the best firefighters all stationed there, but when you get an ignition source with 100-mile-an-hour winds pushing all of the humidity away, it’s almost futile. Those firefighters did the very best that they could do.”
Interestingly, Lewis also said such wildfires have a way of creating their weather conditions during large infernos.
“It’s a phenomenon that’s well addressed in the wildland community, and they absolutely can influence and create their own weather conditions,” he advised. “It’s because all the ingredients were there where it extended from one house to the other in close proximity.”
For more information on Fleiss’ bird sanctuary, call (775) 764-0775, or reach out via Instagram.
Contact reporter Selwyn Harris at sharris@pvtimes.com