I flew into Los Angeles the night after much of Pacific Palisades was leveled. Having lived in L.A., in Laurel Canyon for three years, I was aware of the L.A. Fire Department’s yearly concerns that a small brushfire — fueled by tinder dry brush as accelerant and whipped up by wind — could sweep flames through the steep Hollywood Hills through Coldwater and Topanga Canyons, even down to Brentwood and Beverly Hills. It of course never happened… until the perfect storm at an unlikely time swept in from the north.
Freakish, because this is January. Extremely alarming, because (according to locals) the Santa Ana winds have never been so ferocious. Infuriating, because the city and county were off guard and overwhelmed.
It was awful. A Dresden-like landscape in Pacific Palisades. Other lovely neighborhoods torched in Altadena, not far from the Rose Bowl. Thousands of people in Pacific Palisades 30 miles to the east, grabbing pets and a few valuables, scrambling to get away from the wind driven flames. Fire crews answered the mutual aid call from CalFire, arriving like a military force from Washington State, Oregon, Colorado, Texas, Mexico, and Canada.
Firefighter Jim Bansbach brought his team in from Snohomish County Washington, arriving when the winds were peaking. “We had hundred mile an hour winds here. Winds that could bend those trees all the way over. The helicopters couldn’t fly. The big tankers were grounded… You can’t do anything. It’s too dangerous… You gotta just step back.”
A view of the Eaton fire from Koreatown, Los Angeles. Photo by Jessica Christian, via Unsplash.
By the time the out of state crews arrived, the fire lines had broken, and the inexorable march of the fires was impossible to stop. The crews did 48-hour shifts making sure that when the Santa Ana’s reared up again, they didn’t devour any more of the vast and vulnerable county. Hundreds of exhausted firefighters set up camp and were fed by local restaurants and aid organizations on picturesque Zuma Beach, several miles up the coast from Malibu, which was torched when embers thrown west by hurricane force winds blew across Pacific Coast Highway. Dozens of beach houses and several legendary beachfront restaurants, including Gladstones and Moonshadows, were reduced to ash.
At Zuma Beach, coming off a grueling shift, Battalion Chief Jesse Torres talked about the unfolding tragedy and the personal struggles some of the teams were having. “On this incident alone, we’ve had firefighters who lost their homes. In the last five years we’ve had fighters lose their homes — Sonoma, Paradise. Just imagine that struggle: your family is displaced. You gotta deal with that and come back to work and be in the firefight and have your head straight for all that.”
Steve Field, a veteran L.A. news photojournalist, witnessed the demonic nature of the fires in Pacific Palisades. “The wind would change and you’d feel this blast of heat and you’d go, Where the hell did that come from? It kind of just hit you and it has its own sort of life. Like a living creature. A predator.”
There were stories of courage and sacrifice everywhere. Cynthia Harris, a physical trainer, saw an 84-year-old neighbor struggling to leave her house. “This was 10:30 at night. The danger was five blocks away. There were massive pine trees. There were flying embers, and the wind was howling. Just the sound of howling as I went in and out of her house to get her suitcase. The wind was so strong I wanted to cover my ears. The 60 foot trees over us, their angry arms, branches breaking off. I’m saying, ‘Get in the car, you gotta go now, you gotta go now.’ She had a two-month-old puppy we had to wrestle into the car. I got them out of there.”
Tim Malloy talks to a weary Texas firefighter on Zuma Beach.
The stress is shared, the rescued and the rescuer. Gary Green is Chief of an engine company that raced to L.A. from Marble Pass, Texas. “There’s huge mental stress. I think first responders have an 80% divorce rate. Mental health is a huge aspect of the forest service now. Almost every fire department has mental health services. You see a lot of bad things. The stress of being away from your family. Then you add the stress of the job.”
Never had I seen L.A. so quiet. “The isolation was like Covid,” said an old friend who lives in Hermosa Beach. “We closed the windows and didn’t move for three days…and we wore masks.”
The traffic was reduced by 40%. People skipped work. The 405 was for once an easy drive. The political repercussions will likely be severe. The Governor and the Mayor of Los Angeles are being heavily criticized for not anticipating a months long drought that had set the stage for something cataclysmic. Los Angeles County is huge but somehow it felt that everyone, even those who saw the towering plumes of smoke from many miles away was affected.
As I flew out, the skies were cobalt clear, though high wind warnings had gone back up. When we banked to the east out of LAX I could see some people coming back to Santa Monica’s beaches. But the vibrant and magical City of Angels has taken a staggering financial and emotional body blow that may worsen as “fire season” — that normally runs from June to October — lingers, makes a deadly appearance in the new year.