A CLOSE CALL AND A SILVER LINING
One year ago today, owner and staff of wild animal park recall night of survival and tell how the park is stronger than ever
One year ago this week, the Wine Country Fires began burning a path of destruction and death. In the path of the Tubbs Fire was Safari West, 400 acres of hilly rangeland that is home to African native wild animals, including rhinos, giraffes, antelope, Cape buffalo, zebras and birds.
Largely through the efforts of the park’s founder and owner, Peter Lang, the core of the park — its 30 Botswana tent cabins and 1,000 animals — was spared. It was an oasis in a desolate landscape, losing only its supply and equipment yard, some vehicles and one cabin window.
Lang and his wife, Nancy, celebrated both the one-year anniversary of the miracle and the 25th birthday of the park with a huge party on Sunday. Nancy Lang and Aphrodite Caserta, longtime director of marketing and communications for Safari West, had planned something small, but Peter Lang said no. He wanted a celebration with a rock ’n’ roll band. He wanted to dance.
There are plenty of reasons to dance. The park had narrowly escaped destruction and was ready to resume hosting visitors less than four weeks after the fire. Road closures, however, delayed the reopening until Nov. 20, says executive director Keo Hornbostel.
It’s an uncomfortable truth that in some ways, the fire has helped business, he says. People who had never heard of Safari West learned of it through reports of Lang’s heroic efforts, and they’ve been coming to visit ever since. Fans of the park also have returned in waves, anxious to see for themselves that everything was fine.
Business is always slower in the winter, when the tent cabins are too cold to host overnight visitors, but last spring, Safari West found itself with a lot of bookings. That popularity continued through the summer and has remained steady, with up to 200 visitors taking the three-hour park tour on weekdays and as many as 600 on weekends.
Neither Safari West nor its staff survived the fire unscathed. Valuable equipment was destroyed, and the memories of that night and the days that followed are seared in the staffers’ minds. The Langs lost their home, which was just up the road from the park.
Brian Jellison, the ranch manager who has worked at Safari West for 17 years, remembers how warm it was that October day and how high the winds had been. The call came late that Sunday night, telling him of a fire on the mountain.
Within 45 minutes, it had spread and was headed straight for the park. Jellison sent his family to safety, then turned his attention to the Langs.
Wrested awake by Jellison, Peter Lang threw on some Levis and a hoodie, then he and his wife drove through flames, escaping to the uncertain safety of the park, where staff was in the midst of evacuating overnight guests.
Nikki Smith, animal collections administrator, had an inkling earlier in the day that something wasn’t quite right. The animals seemed to be acting oddly, and that evening when she tried to put the giraffes in their barn, they hadn’t wanted to go.
Hearing of the fire, she rushed back and began doing what she could, herding animals out of wooden structures, opening gates so they could escape the flames, and grabbing birds — the only creatures small enough to be easily evacuated — and putting them in carriers.
By 11 p.m., 45 minutes after the first warning of fire, police officials had arrived and ordered everyone to evacuate. Smith argued with officers. She didn’t want to leave the animals, but they gave her no choice. They put her into a vehicle and she drove away, crying uncontrollably.
“This place is my home,” Smith says. “I spend more time here than I do at the home I pay a mortgage on. Peter and Nancy are family to me. The animals are like my children. I thought this would be the last time I would see it.”
Lang, however, quietly hung back as everyone left. He had work to do.
The retired engineer and bridge builder is the son of movie and television director Otto Lang, best known for the Jimmy Stewart film “Call Northside 777,” and “Tora! Tora! Tora!” He was involved in “Daktari,” the 1960s TV series about a veterinarian running an animal study center in Africa.
The series was filmed in Palmdale, Peter Lang says, but he vividly recalls visiting the set and getting to know the trainers and vets.
“I did a lot of things in my life to make a living,” Lang says, “but I always knew I was going to do something like this.”
Safari West began as a private animal collection in Southern California. When Lang moved to Santa Rosa, he created a wildlife park and opened it to the public so that visitors could see these animals, some of which don’t exist in the wild anymore, and learn about conservation. The park’s breeding program provides animals to zoos, and Lang works with conservation groups to re-establish endangered animals in their native lands.
On the night of the fire, Lang says, “I knew I was going to stay.” Did he tell his wife about his plans? “I decided the less said, the better off I was.”
What followed was a Herculean effort that lasted through the night as Lang raced to the most threatened areas, putting out the fire as it charged forward. The hoodie, an item of clothing Lang says he never wears, was indispensable. He soaked the sweatshirt in water, and the hood protected his head and neck from the heat and embers. In 20 minutes, Lang says, it would be bone dry and he’d soak it again.
When staff was able to return the next morning, almost everyone expected to find the park in ruins, and no one wanted to think about what might have happened to their beloved boss. All around them were smoldering ruins, the remains of other people’s dreams and livelihoods.
But Lang’s dream — and the dreamer — had survived. The fire had burned right to the edge of the animal compounds, and although 250 of the 400 acres in the park had burned, the core of the property remained relatively unscathed.
Today, there are reminders — charred ridges and burned trees — of how close the fire came, but the spring brought an abundance of wildflowers, and the grasslands returned.
There is some survivor’s guilt, Caserta says. So many homes were destroyed and other businesses in the area have struggled while Safari West has thrived.
“People ask, ‘How are you? How are you doing?’ ” Caserta says, “and you feel uncomfortable, knowing that Safari West is fine, we still have our home, and others weren’t as lucky.”
The Langs are rebuilding their home on the original footprint of the house but with a different style of architecture. Peter Lang knows just how close he came to losing Safari West.
“I don’t reflect on what this place means to me,” he says. “I like to think about what it means to the community, to the employees and the guests. It’s all about them and the animals.”