While nature often provides a valuable asset to filmmakers in the form of dramatic landscapes like Monument Valley or Vasquez Rocks, it can just as easily take back what it has given in the form of naturally occurring disasters. Such was the case on the final week of October 2003 when wildfires ravaged Southern California causing mass evacuations and devoured man-made structures by the hundreds.
Some film production facilities in the area became casualties including those at Big Sky Movie Ranch located just north of Simi Valley. The Ranch was home to production dating from Gunsmoke and The Miracle Worker, to Little House on the Prairie and Quantum Leap. DGA Lifetime Achievement Award winner Martin Scorsese's production of the Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator, was forced to relocate shooting to Long Beach after exterior sets were damaged. Other nearby facilities such as Santa Clarita Studios — located only two miles from one of the edges of the fire — were able to continue work on productions like Carnivale and CSI, but were on full alert due to its proximity.
With the exception of an NFL Monday Night Football game, which was forced to relocate its production team to Tempe, Ariz., instead of the planned San Diego venue, The Aviator was the only production directly affected.
A Warner Bros. statement called the disruption a "minor inconvenience" in light of those families who had lost everything to the flames.
At the time of this article's printing, the fires continued to burn, with the region designated a major disaster area and the projected costs to be in the billions.
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