Look to the skies above Los Angeles on most days and you’re treated to a vista of brilliant blue. It’s a skyline that has long filled people with hope in a city of dreamers.
That all changed last week, when the heavens were daubed with angry purple and black clouds blocking out the sun, like a crude child’s drawing.
On Tuesday, January 7, the Palisades and Eaton fires erupted, changing the lives of Angelinos forever. Residents were being ordered to evacuate the upscale Pacific Palisades suburb and the middle-class enclave of Altadena near Pasadena. In all likelihood, lives were already being lost, although this would not come to light for several days.
In these two suburbs that have borne the brunt of the unfolding crisis, as well as in others that have burned in the Greater Los Angeles area, carpets of flames rolled and leapt through homes, schools, shops, restaurants, businesses – anything in their way.
Nobody still knows for sure what started these blazes. What we do know is that the initial sparks combined with dry brush that had not been rained on for months and the relentless Santa Ana winds that usually blow through in late autumn to consume communities that had thrived for decades.
Within hours, large swaths of Los Angeles were engulfed in a hellish landscape that was hard to comprehend. Firefighters ran towards nature’s ferocity as residents fled the other way. Bulldozers smashed through abandoned cars on gridlocked streets to make way for emergency services. People ran down Sunset Boulevard towards the Pacific Ocean, pets clutched to their chests. Structures groaned and collapsed.
By late last week, we were told that the rapidly spreading conflagrations were already among the worst in California’s history of wildfires, a dispiriting track record of environmental catastrophe Frankensteined in recent years by climate change.
On previous occasions, relatives in the UK would call, scared by news reports of fires in the vicinity when in fact they were dozens of miles away.
Not this time.
Last Wednesday evening, the Sunset Fire took hold in the Hollywood Hills. My colleague and Screen’s president of North America, Nigel Daly, lives there, and in those frantic minutes as he, his wife and two grown-up children evacuated their home, they barely had time to reflect on the quilt of a life patched together through treasured belongings both mundane and exotic. Folders of the family history in India, signed artworks from friends, rare books, children’s mementoes – all were bundled into the car as they drove down the hill to the safety of a friend’s house, beneath the sickening rictus of the orange glow from fires in the neighbouring canyon.
“As we went through our cupboards where things had been stored we discovered so much we forgot was there,” Nigel told me days later. “It brought me to tears as I realised had I lost my home, this history would have been lost too.”
Less than two miles south, I watched the Sunset Fire billow out near the Hollywood sign. Residents where I live in Mid-City stood in the street, murmuring anxiously. Some were already packing bags. I had packed my car with essentials the day before – clothes for a week, water bottles, important documents. Our apartment was not in an evacuation zone but on Thursday, as a steady drizzle of ash covered cars and authorities issued red flag warnings across the city, my partner was out of town and I drove the children to Palm Springs. My eldest has asthma and we needed to get to clean air for the weekend.
Tragedy and impact
The world’s press has written much about celebrities who have lost their homes and while that is tragic, the vast majority of those who live in the Greater Los Angeles area are not household names. Many work in the entertainment industry, and many more do not: they are our teachers, doctors and nurses, rideshare drivers, librarians, shop workers, hairdressers, small business owners… the list goes on.
Nigel and I and our families are the lucky ones. We have cars, escape options. We also now have dear friends who have lost homes. Nigel’s artist friends have lost lifetimes of work. My daughter’s school went up in flames and was severely damaged. Students across the region are being relocated to new schools.
We continued working as best we could. The fires had triggered contingency plans in Hollywood. Television productions and at least one studio film production – Disney’s The Hand That Rocks The Cradle – were halted.
The Academy and other awards organisers postponed nominations announcements, and studios, streamers and other entertainment organisations and individuals have donated tens of millions of dollars to relief and recovery efforts. Sales agents here say packaging has been slow as they focus on more pressing personal matters.
Reports estimate that more than 180,000 have fled their homes. Twenty-four people are believed to have lost their lives, with officials warning that the number will grow. People are missing. There is looting. Police have blocked off roads to afflicted areas and will only escort homeowners to their properties who can prove they live – or lived – there.
Inevitably, the tragedy has become a political football as the blame game and inquests into empty fire hydrants and slashed fire department budgets begin. President-elect Donald Trump has branded the region’s Democratic leaders incompetent. From afar. As of Tuesday, he did not appear to have accepted California Governor Gavin Newsom’s invitation to tour the devastation.
I drove back into Los Angeles on Monday and the air was eerily clear. The same on Tuesday, although by the afternoon high winds forecast for the previous night were expected to return. The National Weather Service warned that while the gusts would not be as ferocious as last week, the potential for rapid fire growth remains.
Nigel was back in his home the day after evacuating and spent much of Sunday trimming trees and overhanging branches, clearing footpaths in preparation for firefighters to gain access should the need arise.
Watch Duty is a name that was perhaps unfamiliar to many Angelinos before January 7. Now we all know it. The app created by a non-profit has become a vital resource, providing real-time updates on the fires and the progress of firefighters. We keep the app on our phones close to hand. Electronics need to be fully charged, cars filled with fuel, which sounds dangerous given the circumstances but is necessary in case we are told to evacuate.
By Tuesday evening, Cal Fire, the state’s department of forestry and fire protection, estimated that the Palisades Fire had claimed 23,713 acres and has been 18% contained. Eaton is burning up 14,117 acres and has been 35% contained. The other smaller fires are largely contained. More than 12,300 structures have been destroyed or damaged.
A city with a reputation for storytelling now has thousands of new tales of woe. The broader Los Angeles economy will be severely impacted. Dreams dashed; the soul-destroying prospect for many of insurance claims that will take months if not years; higher asking prices that border on price-gouging; developers and private equity waiting in the wings. For some, the monetary cost of returning to their old neighbourhoods will be too high.
The city is resilient and will build itself back up. But for now, the eyes of Angelinos are looking to the sky again, hoping the winds and the sickly daytime sun shrouded in smoke and bruised clouds stay away, willing these nightmare infernos to end.
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