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The LA Fires
I was not ready for this.
When I moved to Los Angeles five years ago, I was instantly smitten with the desert landscape of southern California. The arc of the swaying palm trees. The slow-rolling surf off Malibu’s coastline. The nighttime sparkle of Sunset Boulevard and Hollywood’s glitterati.
But all that beauty comes with a price. A devastating price.
As a native Bostonian, I am well-acquainted with punishing weather. I was in high school when the Blizzard of ’78 stranded cars up and down Route 128. In the early 1990’s, I remember staking our delicate dogwood trees before Hurricane Bob roared into town. But nothing prepared me for the LA fires.
Propelled by wind gusts of nearly 100 mph, the first flames ignited on Tuesday morning in the tony enclave of the Pacific Palisades. Within hours, a landscape once known for its broad avenues and million-dollar homes looked apocalyptic. From my home in North Hollywood, the fires were located twenty miles to the south. I watched the flash of flame and smoke on my television screen, still safely in the distance.
Four hours later another fire appeared ten miles north, this time in the horse country of the San Fernando Valley. By nightfall, a third burst of flames quickly engulfed the towns of Altadena and Pasadena. Clouds of black soot and ash began to softly swirl in the air…
