Andrew Grinsfelder yanked on the pump to get it started. A hose snaked out from one end, a tube fed into the pool on the other. Demonstrating how to use the pump in the backyard of his family home in the Pacific Palisades on Thursday, March 6, the sky above Grinsfelder was clear.

Two months earlier, as Grinsfelder stood in his backyard, starting up the same pump, his surroundings were very different. Above, the sky was filled with smoke. The condominium complex that sat on the hill over the Grinsfelder home, where Andrew’s parents Dean and Vicky have lived for nearly 30 years and raised three sons in, was on fire.

Grinsfelder and his mother took turns taking shifts on their roof, spraying it down with the hose, with buckets of water at the ready, in case an ember blew onto their home.

Grinsfelder, who is an 18-year-old student studying math and computer science at UCLA wanted to go to the house, to defend the “only true home” he and his siblings have ever known.

The family purchased the pump a few years back and tested it a few times, but never had to use it in an emergency, until the Palisades fire encroached on their neighborhood, starting on Jan. 7.

‘Be Prepared’

Grinsfelder, an Eagle Scout, is preparedness-minded from his years scouting. Vicky was raised by a mother who lived in Germany during World War II, who taught her the importance of readiness and adaptability.

“Boy Scouts, the motto is be prepared. So we’ve just always talked about it and we even talked about if we needed to, we have mountain bikes, and so we could get out,” Vicky said.

With only one exit in their neighborhood, they thought of bikes as an exit strategy, if needed, and they kept the pump and a container of fresh water on the side of their home– never thinking a fire like this, one that burned not only in the hills but also the flats of the Palisades, would come, but being prepared for an emergency nevertheless.

Andrew Grinsfelder, left, with his father, Dean Grinsfelder, and Vicky Grinsfelder at their Palisades Highlands home on Thursday, March 6, 2025. Andrew helped to save their home during the Palisades fire by using a water pump to keep the house wet during the fire. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Dean and Vicky had initially evacuated the area. Grinsfelder was at UCLA, where he watched the smoke grow thicker, eventually seeing flames spread across a ridge in the distance from his dorm window. Worrying about their home and feeling as if they could do something, the Grinsfelders picked up Andrew and made their way back to the Palisades.

“I was in class when I saw on the news that it had expanded to well over a thousand acres,” Grinsfelder said. “My mom’s mentality was ‘OK, we left, but what am I doing here, I want to go defend my home.’”

Finding the area blocked off, they got out of the car.

“We ran into somebody who said ‘I’m going to run up the beach.’ I said, ‘that’s a good idea.’ So we ran up the beach,” Vicky said.

Once they got into the Palisades on foot, they hitched a ride and began checking on family friends’ homes, finding that some of them had been destroyed. When they arrived at their home in the Palisades Highlands area, the condominium complex on the hill had just caught fire. It was still light out, the sky tinged orange from the flames, Grinsfelder said.

He began setting up the pump, fueling it up and putting one end into the pool to collect water, climbing onto the roof to hose it down and keep watch for stray embers. As it got darker, the duo equipped themselves with flashlights and headlamps and continued working.

“Your adrenaline is just pumping like crazy,” Vicky said. “You’re trying to do this whole thing in the dark, while the fire is burning.”

As the night wore on, the entire condo complex burned, the mother and son watching from below.

“We each had our mission. His (Andrew’s) mission was to get the little generator going and get water out on the roof,” Vicky said. “I worked to get more stuff out of the house that we wanted, because we didn’t know– we were like, our house might be gone tomorrow, so let’s continue to get stuff out of the house that we need.”

Uncertainty abounded as the second day of the Palisades fire came to a close. They took turns defending the roof all night and taking breaks to sleep, wanting someone to be on watch at all times.

“I told my mom if while I’m asleep you see the embers start to turn and start to land over down this way, come wake me up and we should get ready to leave,” Grinsfelder said. “Luckily, they didn’t and our house was OK, and so the next morning, sunlight came and the neighborhood was still here.”

The whole ordeal felt “surreal” to Grinsfelder.

“We didn’t really know what to expect when we got up here. We didn’t know if the (Palisades) Highlands was still going to be intact or if the entire Highlands had burned,” he said. “My initial instinct was to go and grab the pump. When we were running up here, if our house was still here, we thought that would be our best option, to defend our house.”

Their home survived the Palisades fire.

Andrew Grinsfelder demonstrates how he used a pump to save his home on Thursday, March 6, 2025. Grinsfelder used the pump during the Palisades fire to keep the roof wet and put out any embers. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Time to return

Grinsfelder was honored by MagLite with the company’s MagLite Tough Civilian-Hero Award for his work and bravery in defending his home.

The Grinsfelder parents have been residing in Manhattan Beach, waiting to be able to take the steps needed to return their home to a livable condition. The first step they were waiting for was usable water to return to the area, which Mayor Karen Bass announced will happen on March 7.

Next, the home will need to undergo smoke remediation. When they return to the area, the lack of open businesses is a worry. The only market nearby does not have fresh produce. The line to get into the Palisades is long, with residents and contractors alike queuing up to get their passes checked and gain entry to the largely burned area.

“We want to come back because our house is standing and we love it here. But also, as an encouragement to other people, like come back, this is your town,” Vicky said.

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