Dutch Merrick fought to save his house for hours on Tuesday night and well into Wednesday morning. As one of the wildfires currently ravaging the L.A. area, the Eaton fire, charged toward his neighborhood in Altadena, California, the veteran prop master and armorer did what he could — continuously watering his roof, plants and the dry leaves on his lawn with a hose in an attempt to repel the flames. Eventually, a hailstorm of embers and cinder began to subsume his neighborhood, and he fled before the sun rose Wednesday.
Though he doesn’t know for sure yet, Merrick is fairly certain his home is now gone. It’s a bitter pill to swallow after what he describes as a series of challenges for workers like himself in the entertainment industry: the COVID-19 pandemic, the double strikes in 2023, and the damaging production slowdown that lingered after. In the last few years, he’s adapted by launching new business ventures including a prop gun set safety workshop and a live fire learning course. But all of his materials for those classes were in his house and, he believes, have gone up in smoke. Merrick now feels he has to start anew — again. “I keep reinventing myself. And this just kicked me right in the gut,” he says.
He’s not alone. For local crew members who have weathered a grueling few years, the L.A. wildfires have brought devastating new challenges. Simultaneous blazes have scorched tens of thousands of acres in the L.A. area over less than two days, prompting the evacuations of more than 100,000 people and destroying over 1,000 structures, some of which were homes of entertainment workers.
“So many members of the entertainment community and members of the IA have struggled since COVID,” says Mike Miller, the vice president of the major crew union IATSE and the director of its motion picture and television department. “And this is just going to compound those struggles.” Miller estimates that, at a minimum, hundreds of his union’s members live in evacuation zones in the county.
As of press time, the largest blaze, the Palisades Fire — which began in the affluent coastal community of Pacific Palisades, abutting the ocean — had spread across more than 15,000 acres and was zero percent contained. Further east, the Eaton fire had devoured more than 10,000 acres in an area including Altadena and Sierra Madre and also was zero percent contained.
While stars and executives like Billy Crystal, Tom Hanks and Ann Sarnoff have long been known to reside in the Palisades, Merrick points out that many people in the entertainment business also live in Altadena. “We have a whole Altadena film community with our own Facebook group, and it’s this amazing, beautiful little enclave with 1870s, 1920s, 1950s homes. It’s like this architectural gem covered in trees, hidden off the beaten path,” he says. On Wednesday, This Is Us star Mandy Moore posted on social media that she had fled and lost her Altadena home.
Diego Mariscal, a dolly grip who is also the administator of the popular Facebook and Instagram account Crew Stories, says that four close friends lost their homes as a result of the wildfires. One of those homes, in Altadena, was being used as an exterior location for a series he is working on now, Apple’s Shrinking. “It’s surreal,” he says. “This really puts everyone on a level playing field. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich, you’re poor or anything. It’s not taking any sides. It just takes everything.”
As the fires raged on Wednesday, the grip and craft services union IATSE Local 80 opened up its Burbank sound stage to members of the community as an emergency shelter. The international union, meanwhile, on Tuesday night activated its disaster response committee, which approves emergency financial assistance for members who are deeply impacted by these situations.
But even crew members who are not being evacuated from their homes are likely to feel the effects of the wildfires over the next few days. On Wednesday the L.A. County Fire Department called for all permits for film and television production in Altadena, La Crescenta, La Canada/Flintridge and unincorporated Pasadena to be withdrawn. Entertainment companies moved quickly to suspend ongoing work in the county on series like ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy and Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Max’s Hacks and NBC’s Suits: L.A.
While it’s unclear how long these production suspensions will continue, they come on the heels of major production slowdowns that have slashed work opportunities for local crew members. Shoot days in the L.A. area for films were down 48 percent compared to the five-year average in the third quarter of 2024, while for television they fell more than 53 percent. Some entertainment workers have, as a result, fled the industry for stabler occupations or left L.A. altogether.
In an effort to bring entertainment work back to California, Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed supercharging the state’s film and television tax credit program. His recommended budget for 2025 — which has not yet been approved — would more than double the amount earmarked for film and television production incentives from $330 million to $750 million a year.
Even with that potential sweetener on the horizon, Mariscal, the administrator of Crew Stories, imagines that the wildfires may be the final straw for some workers who have remained and been struggling to make ends’ meet. “I think they’re just going to say, f*ck it. If you were barely making your mortgage payments and now your house is gone, and that was kind of like the golden egg you had for your financial future… it’s devastating,” he says. Others, however, will “pick up and set up shop again and they’ll rebuild,” he says. “That’s what people do.”
IATSE leader Miller argues that crew members are no stranger to hardship and that many will ultimately choose the latter option, just more bruised and battered. “Our members are resilient,” he says. “We’re going to be there to support them and I’m confident that we’ll be able to come through this. But it is absolutely going to add additional burden to many people in our industry that are already struggling.”
English (US) ·