The Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) is hosting a screening of a locally produced, feature-length documentary, FireStorm ’77, on Friday, March 11, at 2:20 p.m., at the Metro 4 Theatre in Santa Barbara.
The award-winning documentary examines the history of the Honda Canyon Fire and was shot, directed, and co-edited by Christopher Hite, a longtime film instructor at Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria. Hite will join producer Joseph N. Valencia and executive producer Dennis R. Ford for a special Q-and-A in conjunction with the screening.
Both Valencia and Ford are Lompoc locals and were part of the teams (made up of more than a thousand firefighters and augmentees) assigned to fight the Honda Canyon Fire in 1977. Both men share their respective accounts of the event during the documentary, which is currently available for purchase through iTunes, YouTube, and other services.
Visit sbiff.org for more info on the SBIFF’s FireStorm ’77 screening and other programming.
This article appears in Mar 10-17, 2022.
