I was listening to Camilla Cabello’s “GODSPEED” when my best friend’s house burned down. The light coming through our French doors blazed orange, the sun a hot fluorescent pink. The hummingbirds, uncommon for winter, took quick refuge in our backyard. Fire moves fast, I imagined it creeping through the Bowden’s front door to first splash the Christmas tree, then exploding into thousands of fireworks.
The Pacific Palisades neighborhood is gone. It had happened in Malibu just a month prior with the Franklin Fire, which decimated 4,000 acres. But the fires had never reached so far south. The Santa Ana winds mixed with fire conditions caused one of the most devastating fires in California history. Currently, 23,000 acres have burned and 12 people have died. More than 6,000 structures down, at least 800 damaged, and those untouched are left in an apocalyptic hellscape. Scientists say it will be toxic for the next few years and to start wearing masks outside again. Vets are finding ash in dogs’ lungs, and friends have started to shop for hazmat masks. I’ll order a pink one.
I hiked the Will Rogers Loop with my mother on the morning of Jan. 7, not knowing that just a few hours later, it would be decimated. By 11:00 a.m., we saw point zero and walked right towards it. A half hour later we were running to the car, smoke billowing in the hills behind us. Pulling out of the park, past stationed and approaching firemen, we fled down Temescal Highway, where an hour later, members of the community trying to flee would leave their cars in gridlock traffic to be bulldozed and burned. The fire jumped Pacific Coast Highway, and as news crews relocated palm trees and lifeguard towers erupted in flames.
At 6:00 p.m. on Jan. 8, my brother Facetimed me from his West Hollywood apartment, flipping the camera to show the hills above him glowing red. Everyone thought the Hollywood sign would burn down, and I wondered who would get the first picture.
As fires blazed across the city, it felt like no area was safe. Friends frantically packed “go bags” and picked which items to save. As mothers searched for birth certificates and daughters for baby blankets and favorite photos, I began to assemble an end of the world outfit – my new Christmas jeans and a wifebeater maybe.
Forloveandlemons, Frankie’s Bikinis, Reformation, Alo, and Paige are just some of the brands that have been giving in the wake of such devastation. I helped a friend put together bags of Fabletics merchandise for fire victims as another sent care packages from her Kosas office.
On Jan. 9, the day they sent out the false evacuation order, I left for Palm Springs. It was a preplanned trip, and my room was needed for evacuees anyway. We got caught in a windstorm, windmills off, terrified the brake lights from the overpass were embers. In the illusion of the warped rest stop mirror it looked like I was surrounded by gas, imagining myself burning, flames reflected in my gold jewelry.
We had never seen so many people in Palm Springs. I wondered how many Los Angeles residents would come back from their perspective fire escapes tan, like the girl whose TikTok went viral when her house burned down while she was on vacation in Mexico.
From our phones we watched videos of the community burn. Friends and families’ homes; grain free bakeries and premium coffee shops, fathers smoked cigarettes while hosing down their homes, last moment Ring doorbell videos show a lick of fire before screens go blank. Deer scrambled down paved roads, unsure which direction to run, and men carried their disabled mothers down flights of apartment stairs. A horse stood alone beside his deceased and burning companion, hundreds of hospital and nursing home patients were wheeled through the smoke as embers blazed past them. Statues of Buddha the only thing left in plots of rubble.
Back in the city, I ran into a friend from high school at my local pharmacy. A woman overheard us talking about the Palisades and told us how it’s all gone, she lost everything. She broke into tears as she told us she wasn’t even wearing her own clothes.
In July 2024, thousands of Palisades residents in areas deemed high risk had their State Farm and Farmers fire insurance policies revoked. Homeowners who could not pay the 400% increase were left unprotected, or forced to try applying to California’s Fair Access to Insurance Requirements (FAIR) act, which is more than double the cost of normal fire insurance and requiring that homeowners spend exuberant amounts of money fireproofing their homes. This left homeowners in high risk areas to essentially fend for themselves.
Hundreds of families whose homes were bought decades ago are left homeless. As family photos and recipes rest charred in a neighbors ashtrays, mothers are forced to rebuild their nests and 90-year-old men in women who had lived in her rent-controlled homes for decades are forced to start all over.
When I get back to San Francisco, a letter from my insurance company is waiting for me. My earthquake policy is being revoked. I put on my calendar to pack an end of the world bag.
Editor-in-Chief: Jordan Premmer, Chief Copy Editor: Sophia McCrackin, Managing Editor: Jordan DelFiugo, Opinion Editor: Dakota Duran, Scene Editor: Elina Graham
