I am writing this without a draft. I had another post planned for this coming week, but I can't include that here in good conscience until next week.
The wildfires in Los Angeles began on the day NLS and I arrived in Burbank. We were there the day before she was to fly back to Tokyo for her study abroad program and noticed the large plume of smoke coming from the coast as we flew in. The landing was rough because the high winds nearly knocked us over as we stepped off the plane.
Later, we went to dinner at one of our favorite Little Tokyo restaurants and didn't give the fire too much thought. Naturally, we hoped it would be contained quickly.
It wasn't. The Palisade fire grew to unimaginable proportions and was joined by the Eaton fire and several others, fueled by Santa Ana winds at hurricane force, something longtime residents had never experienced before. The next day, after I dropped off NLS at the airport, I tried to visit a few museums for some writing work, but nearly everything was closed. Driving around, I noticed that the city wasn't as crowded and was almost eerie.
Collectively, the fires have scorched almost 24,000 acres, with more than 5,000 homes and structures gone, at the time of this writing. That's about the size of Manhattan. The entirety of a New York borough was destroyed in debris and ash. Sixteen people have died, and those are just the ones confirmed. Firefighters have contained most of them, but the Palisades fire is only at 11%, and the Eaton fire just a little more.
For ten years, I lived in the L.A. area, first for college in Claremont and then the San Fernando Valley. I saw wildfires come and go, which would burn some brush and buildings. In 1993, the year before I moved to Arizona for grad school, there was a massive fire in Laguna Beach that decimated over 700 homes.
I was also in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, where part of the Santa Monica freeway collapsed and several buildings pancaked. Nearly 60 people perished, and many more were injured. It caused billions of dollars in damage and economic loss.
As tragic as these disasters were, I don't know how these fires will compare. The impact seems even further reaching than either.
Los Angeles is a big, beautiful mess of a city. The traffic jams are as bad as everyone imagines they are. The air quality sometimes takes on a pallid hue that makes you wonder, "Should I be outside?" It's too expensive, and you have to wait in lines everywhere for everything. It has that allure of being "Hollywood," with grandiose mansions and outrageously priced cars that cost as much as some homes in other parts of the country.
Even though I haven't lived there in over thirty years, I still have a place in my heart for L.A. It's where I became an adult and started my life. As I now visit at least once a year, I still love its diversity, the fantastic food I can enjoy from all over the world, the sunshine (even through the frequent haze), the hills and of course, the Pacific Ocean. One of my peak experiences is running on the beachside pathways and feeling that sea breeze on my face.
People often satirize L.A., and inexcusably, some people on social media are now outright cruel and say things like, "It deserves to burn to the ground."
All I can say to those subhumans is, F-you.
Maybe this is how you feel because your soul is black and irreparable, and you're just hiding behind the semi-anonymity of a public platform, knowing others will parrot your sentiments. Or, maybe you are envious of people living in an area that's the desire of those who aren't there. Maybe it's a little of both.
That is why, even three decades after my time there, I feel protective, sad, and angry that this happened. Even though I "hate" L.A. for its successful sports teams over my not-so-successful Bay Area teams, it's just a veneer. I love L.A. almost as much as the Randy Newman song proclaims.
I do know this. Despite the seemingly insurmountable road ahead for many Los Angeles residents, the city will come back better than before. And it's not because it's Hollywood, and they can invent an expected happy ending. That's not the true heart and soul of the city. It's the regular people who make the city run, who will rebuild and bring it back to life. It will seemingly take an interminable time, but I can't wait to see what it will become.
