Burning at both ends: Surviving a week in wildfire-ravaged Los Angeles
Businesses along Lake Avenue are destroyed by the Eaton Fire in Altadena, California, on January 9, 2025.by ZOE MEYERS/AFP/Getty Images.
It’s a lesson you gradually learn, a reality you adapt to – or perhaps, in the words of Jim Morrison, “learn to forget”. The occasional tremors remind you that the ground is unreliable: you compare earthquake information on social networks and continue your work or roll over in bed and go back to sleep. In our old wooden house, the vibrations travel straight to the roof where they have nowhere else to go: an earthquake is recorded as a loud bang, or sometimes a frantic shaking of the door frames, as if an intruder had entered the house and was trying to get into the living room. Sometimes, you think it’s a truck passing by, or even a gun. I dutifully restock my earthquake kit every five years while becoming adept at ignoring the underlying anxiety lurking inside my body.
It’s worth noting how little you think about earthquakes or wildfires, even though both happen frequently. It’s easy to see the vast archipelago of neighborhoods and microclimates we call LA as a treasure hunt, full of intriguing nooks and crannies and a sense of diversity. I spent my first years here exploring a new park, walking trail, or neighborhood every weekend. Veteran Angelenos took us to hidden spots and secret history; The influx of new people has infused the place with new energy and excitement. Living in LA means living under threat. It’s a bargain we make, like New York City residents agreeing to cram themselves into tiny apartments, endure lousy subway service, and ignore runaway rodents on their walks evening, because it’s fucking New York City, still the most dynamic place on Earth. We wear it like a badge of honor.
Leaving LA has become a favorite party theme for Hollywood in recent months, as the entertainment industry stagnates and shrinks. But by the third and fourth days of the fire, the idea of getting out became a clear reality. The friends temporarily flee the city, not knowing where they will return. Those of us who stayed behind watched the fire map obsessively, texting each other frantically as the orange blobs began moving in a new direction. Suddenly everyone was spouting fire jargon—prevent, ember casting, Phos-chek—as if it were our second language. “I just think it’s worse than what they’re telling us,” a friend texted, sending me a photo taken from social media of a giant red mushroom-shaped cloud of smoke rising in the sky. west of Los Angeles. The warnings about climate change causing mass disruption and displacement we’ve been hearing for years—is this what it looks like? Are we going to become the climate refugees we read about?
By Thursday, more than 100,000 Angelenos had evacuated their homes. We’re still on orange alert, with external hard drives and asthma medication stuffed in bags in the corner of the room, even though the Eaton fire is now largely contained. Today, for the first time, the sky is blue and the air smells noticeably less toxic. I try to go about my normal routine, grocery shopping and going to restaurants. Then I remember what’s happening and check the fire app to make sure nothing new has been destroyed.
Everyone has their own city map and we all grieve for different people and places. A friend mourns the Bunny Museum in Altadena, an archive of eccentricity; another was shocked by the loss of Reel Inn, a beachfront seafood joint in Malibu. I know that many of my favorite natural places, like Temescal Park and Topanga Canyon, will eventually recover, shake off ash, and grow new life, as they have done after previous wildfires.
One of my regular trails in Altadena actually leads to the ruins of a Victorian hotel that was demolished 125 years ago. All that remains of that inferno are the ruins of the Mount Lowe Railway, a scenic train that took pleasure seekers to the top of the mountain. It’s a stark reminder that we never know what Los Angeles will have left in a week, a month or a century. It is a city that is literally built on shaky foundations. We can only hope to rebuild and reinvent it again.
