How The LA Fires Continue to Shape Me

One year later, the LA fires have shaped the landscape and its people forever

The forecasted wind advisories in Southern California for January 7, 2025 made mention of wind gusts between 50mph and 80mph, which would put it somewhere between a strong tropical storm and a small category one hurricane.

Weather, for me, inevitably returns to hurricanes. Growing up in South Florida means you become acutely aware of the weather between June 1 and November 30. Even as a kid, I remember hanging onto every word our local meteorologist would say in the lead up to a storm. Speculation with talk of water temperature, air pressure, I even remember having a favorite forecast model in middle school.

Those squiggly lines on a map of the Atlantic could see the future. They were never totally accurate, of course, but we had nothing but time. Time to wait and watch as the storm would approach at a glacial ten to fifteen miles and hour. Days to anticipate, plan, prepare for a storm we couldn’t see.

I moved to Los Angeles in 2016, and I was grateful to trade my life of hurricane dread for the casual awareness of earthquakes. In my years in the city, I had experienced little in the way of significant weather events.

There was the time I was in a crowded movie theater and the ceiling tiles began to shake. A local, too calm for my liking, quietly proclaimed ‘earthquake’ before walking out of the cavernous room. Knowing what I did not know, I trusted the local’s experience and quickly followed him out the door to a safer area.

There were storms, heat waves, mudslides. But, most weather in Los Angeles followed a stereotypical pattern. Seasons were mild, and there were few surprises.

Until January 7, 2025, when the high winds descended on the city, sparked fires and changed the landscape forever.

I remember, like most others in the city, refreshing the Watch Duty app every ten minutes. It didn’t do me a lot of good, but it gave me small comfort to have a visual sense of what was going on. Forecasting was all that knew how to do, and forecasting was an impossibility with wind and fire.

We were all at the mercy of wind patterns and chance.

Into the evening of January 7, our friends evacuated their home just outside of Altadena to stay with us in the valley.

I vividly remember fragments of that week. I remember the puzzle we were diligently working on to keep from checking the Watch Duty app. The zoom calls into work where my distracted gaze met several coworkers all equally overwhelmed and unable to pretend to focus. I remember the home cooked meal our friends made for us as we saw the Pacific Palisades fire slowly creep up and over the hill toward the valley.

By 5pm on the Friday of that week, out of an abundance of caution, we made the decision to evacuate to stay with friends down south in Long Beach.

Thankfully, we suffered no damage and we were safely back in our home within a few days. But one year later, I think about the folks who lost everything. The families who had to dig out of the rubble and start over.

It all happened so fast.

We were some of the lucky ones. We had a home to return to.

But, loading your car in just a few, short minutes and leaving all that you know behind takes a profound psychological toll. As we drove away from our home, the ominous glow of the fire along the mountain ridge line, I became acutely aware of what was most important in my life, and it wasn’t the stuff in our house.

I used to dread the wait of a hurricane. Now I know the fear of the sudden, shifting change of the wind.

Hurricanes offer you time, time to plan, time to prepare, or if ultimately necessary, time to leave.

In fires, time is a luxury only afforded by the random whims of the wind. You don’t have time to ponder or consider the possibilities or weigh all available options.

In the absence of time, comes the succinct clarity of knowing that it’s not what you have, but who you love, that matters most.