Chris Smith: The Santa Rosa fire film is hard to watch, but healing

As I watched “Urban Inferno: The Night Santa Rosa Burned” someone behind me at the Roxy wept.

The 40-minute documentary, directed by physician Steve Seager, is not easy to watch.

But it compassionately captures the dawning of the disaster that visited us the night of last Oct. 8 and the initial bursting forth of valor and succor.

“Urban Inferno” has us accompany the likes of Santa Rosa Fire Chief Tony Gossner, Sheriff Rob Giordano and KSRO news anchor Pat Kerrigan as a gusty, foreboding night explodes into sheer horror and then yields to a morning that has survivors feeling gutted by the destruction, but also astounded that many more didn't perish.

The film is produced by Seager and his wife, fellow doc Mette Seager, together with Kerrigan and KSRO's Michael O'Shea. It is showing now, for $5, at Santa Rosa's 3rd Street Cinemas, with all proceeds going to fire relief by the Sonoma County Resilience Fund.

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HOW EMILY ACTS: A dozen years ago, Sebastopol high-schooler Emily Jeanne Brown took a deep breath and joined the older, more experienced actors auditioning for a Santa Rosa Junior College production of “West Side Story.”

“I was hoping just to get in,” Emily said at the time. “A chorus part would be nice.”

She won the role of Maria. And brought the house down.

Today Emily holds a masters of fine arts in acting from the American Conservatory Theater and she's temporarily left her home in New York City for a role back in the Bay Area.

The daughter of Sebastopol's Rick and Tracy Brown is delighting audiences and reviewers as a go-for-the-jugular venture capitalist in the Aurora Theatre of Berkeley's production of Sarah Burgess' dark comedy, “Dry Powder.”

Writes reviewer Emily Mendel in Berkeleyside, “All the performers are first-rate, although Emily Jeanne Brown as Jenny has the juiciest role and makes the most of it.”

The play's run was extended to at least July 29.

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THE PURPLE PICKUP that's headed this way on a cross-country tour is a technology wonder. And it's moving, as in profoundly inspiring.

The Ford F-150 was designed to be driven by a wounded veteran whose legs were lost or paralyzed.

The Purple Heart Truck has a driver's seat that lowers outside the cab, allowing the driver to scoot onto the seat from a wheelchair. A robotic arm in the truck's bed then lifts and stows the wheelchair.

The truck is scheduled to be at Hansel Ford in Santa Rosa from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Wednesday. We're invited to go and write a message to wounded warriors right on the truck.

Hansel will host a barbecue and classic car display from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The truck is stopping daily on a journey that began June 18 in Virginia and is set to conclude July 30 in Washington State.

The intention of the sponsoring Military Order of the Purple Heart and Wounded Warriors Family Support is to improve awareness of what veterans badly wounded in combat endure, and how grateful Americans can help them.

In Spokane, the truck will be given to a recipient of the Purple Heart award who is paralyzed or an amputee and right now has great trouble getting around.

Chris Smith is at 707 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.