On Tuesday, my niece and I strolled to the tip of the Venice Pier to witness the glowing orange blaze climbing the Santa Monica Mountains in Pacific Palisades. Smoke billowed like thunderclouds over the ocean, driven offshore by fierce winds that tossed sand into our faces.
By Thursday, I ventured into the Palisades with my friend Chris Coté, who has a modest residence near the oceanfront bluffs. His children grew up there, and now he rents it out to a couple with three young daughters.
As we approached checkpoints along Sunset Boulevard, police were restricting access to the now-devastated area. Only those with media credentials, emergency responders, and work vehicles were allowed to cross. Chris managed to navigate through two police lines, but a stern officer at Allenford Avenue stopped him.
I dropped Chris off near Paul Revere Charter Middle School and continued driving along Sunset into the Village, the commercial core of Pacific Palisades. Sections of the iconic boulevard, as you might have seen in the news, looked as if they had been firebombed.
Aside from some official vehicles, the streets were eerily quiet. Fallen utility wires and trees littered the roadways. A few residents were surveying the damage, and teenage boys cruised the streets on mini-bikes.
The contrast was striking between the fiery destruction just days before and the heavy silence left behind. Where a wildfire is all chaos and intensity, the aftermath is calm and desolate. The rush of adrenaline has given way to profound grief, loss, and despair.
Fueled by winds hitting up to 100 mph, the fire seemed indiscriminate in its path, choosing seemingly at random which structures to destroy and which to spare. Some buildings emerged untouched, almost as if protected by a guardian angel. Others were consumed entirely by the flames.
What was once a vibrant, green oasis in the Palisades now appeared colorless, like a scene from “The Wizard of Oz” in reverse. Brick chimneys stand among the ruins, reminders of the homes that once populated this suburban paradise, now turned to ruins.
Driving down Via De La Paz, past various businesses—some reduced to rubble, others like the sturdy brick veterinary clinic still standing—I parked on North Beirut Avenue. This three-block street ends at Via De Las Olas, a winding road overlooking the bluffs above Pacific Coast Highway. On any usual day, the view of Santa Monica Bay from there is postcard-perfect. But that day, with fires still smoldering in the city, a heavy haze shrouded the horizon in gray.
As I exited my car, the sharp, acrid smell hit me, reminiscent of a campfire’s smoke blowing straight into your face. Ash swirled in the air like sinister snowflakes, and smoke wisps rose from mounds of charred debris. It was total destruction.
As I pen this on Friday morning, four major fires continue to rage around Los Angeles. At least ten lives have been taken, an estimated 10,000 structures have been obliterated, and damages run into the billions. The National Guard has been deployed to safeguard evacuated areas from looters.
Thousands have been displaced, each with their own heartrending tale. Schools remain closed. My friend, Jean De Longe, who teaches first graders at a now-destroyed school in the Palisades, mentioned a student fiercely upset about losing his stuffed animals after their home was lost.
This trauma will linger with us for a long time.
This tragedy will spark much-needed civic introspection, a process already in motion. Fires aren’t confined to any season now; they happen year-round. Whether blamed on climate change or dismissed as something else, our world is undoubtedly warming. Weather events are more extreme, spelling bad news for California, which swings between wet and dry spells.
Prolonged drought conditions, coupled with some of the harshest Santa Ana winds on record, led to this devastation. Water hydrants ran dry as overburdened firefighters struggled to combat the flames.
Of course, the political blame game has picked up right on schedule. Does it really make a difference that Mayor Karen Bass was out of Los Angeles the day the fires began? She stayed in constant touch with her team and fire officials, an entirely normal practice in our digital age. And let’s not forget, despite the noise, Bass didn’t cut the Fire Department’s funding; its budget actually increased last year.
President-elect Donald Trump wasted no time in criticizing his Democratic rival, Governor Gavin Newsom, for not diverting enough water from Northern California to the south—a misunderstanding of the state’s water system that’s laughable at best.
On conservative cable networks, pundits have been quick to blame city DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives. Meanwhile, the Fire Department, known for its high-paying jobs and generous retirement plans, has faced pressure to diversify its workforce—predominantly white and male—for decades. It’s about time for change.
For the first time, the city’s fire chief is a woman—and a gay woman at that—a fact that has left some MAGA enthusiasts incensed. I’ve run out of words for Elon Musk, who carelessly tweeted on Wednesday that “DEI means people DIE.”
In Pacific Palisades, it finally dawned on me which property belonged to Chris. Only the chimney and an iron porch railing were left standing.
Driving back to Venice via Chautauqua Boulevard, I noticed a young man ambling towards the beach, clutching a deflated football salvaged from the ashes. I could only imagine what else he had lost.
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