Inventor, performer and composer William Close plays the Earth Harp, an instrument he created more than a decade ago, using just basic gloves and a little rosin.

The Earth Harp’s strings are brass and sometimes up to 100 feet long, and Close has strung them across skyscrapers and canyons all across the globe.

His main studio is in Los Angeles, where his dog often roams free and sometimes his family comes to visit. It's an easy commute, since they’re living in the apartment upstairs. Thankfully, that’s where they were when the wildfire in Malibu surrounded their home earlier this year.

Believe it or not, it’s the second time this has happened.

“When I heard it had happened again I couldn’t believe it. I was like, really, this is part of my story?” said Close.

In 2007, his home burned to the ground. He lost all his instruments and pretty much everything but the people he loves.

He’s handy, so he could rebuild many of his musical pieces himself. While rebuilding his house, he worked closely with professionals keeping one thing in mind: This time he planned the home assuming another fire would roll through. They intentionally used things like glass, stucco, and steel and installed more than 40 sprinklers inside.

When it was finished, his son Phoenix was born. Because of the fire, he was named after the mythological bird born out of the ashes.

The main structure survived the fire, but some things were lost: a motor home, a shed, and several vehicles. It’s still pretty miraculous to Close who - tragedy or not -has not stopped making music.