MALIBU, CALIFORNIA (2025)

When the fires came through Monte Nido, Molly was there for her hometown.

With exclusive access behind the firelines in Malibu's Santa Monica Mountains, she documented what the official narrative of disaster rarely captures: the ecological intelligence already present in the land, the Chumash knowledge of fire as a tool rather than an enemy, and the quiet, unrecorded ways that communities and ecosystems begin to find their way back.

She interviewed local firefighters, Chumash tribal members, ecologists, and residents. She gathered footage and testimony about the land's own resilience, the hidden history of indigenous stewardship in the Santa Monica Mountains, and the science of how chaparral ecosystems are adapted to burn and return.

The work is also personal. Ecopsychology asks what it costs us emotionally and psychologically when the places we belong to are destroyed. Molly was reporting that question from inside it.