Fire!
"I see your hair is burnin', Hills are filled with fire, If they say I never loved you, You know they are a liar" - LA Woman, The Doors
My town is on fire…
Yesterday, as a windstorm that the National Weather Service deemed “life threatening” began, multiple fires broke out in LA County. The two most severe, the “Palisades” fire (named for the Pacific Palisades neighborhood where it began) and the “Eaton” fire (named for nearby Eaton Canyon in Pasadena), rapidly grew, fanned by hurricane-force winds.
The Palisades fire has destroyed at least 1,000 structures (as of 5 p.m. as I write this), and that number will surely grow. Entire blocks of very pricey homes were wiped out, including a large swath along Pacific Coast Highway leading from Santa Monica to Malibu.
Closer to home, the Eaton fire spread westward, engulfing large swaths of Altadena. Homes of friends and clients were consumed in the firestorm. Five, as of now, are confirmed dead. That number will almost certainly rise. It isn’t clear if Altadena will ever recover.
Amidst that tragedy, some people simply cannot resist trying to make cheap, political points off of the misery of others. It isn’t the fault of the local government that hydrants ran dry: the huge area of land affected - 15,000+ acres for Palisades and 10,600+ for Eaton - would defy any system to keep up. Nor is it true that there wasn’t adequate water available - local reservoirs are at or above normal capacity for this time of year.
The truth is that we got hit by a “perfect storm” of conditions: no appreciable rain for the past 8 months; a nearly unprecedented windstorm (far eclipsing the devastating windstorm of 2011 which flattened more than 1,000 trees in Pasadena) with sustained winds above 50 mph; and “breaking mountain waves” where wind coming over the mountains accelerates as it hits relatively flat land, resulting in gusts approaching 100 mph. All of this happened overnight, leaving fire crews with no air support, and limited visibility into the fires’ spread. Their efforts, though heroic, were mostly futile.
The larger reality is this is how Climate Change plays out - extended periods without rain, more dramatic atmospheric events, and then, just a spark to devastate entire neighborhoods in the blink of an eye. This is “the new normal” and we need to adapt. Sadly, the incoming Administration believes this is all a hoax; perhaps it will take a tsunami flooding Mar-a-Lago to convince the incoming President otherwise. Like most on the right, he has no empathy for anything that he hasn’t personally experienced.
Buckle up folks, it is going to be a long four years.
In community, forward!