By Wednesday morning, it appeared as if a bomb had gone off on Sunset Boulevard.
As the devastating Palisades Fire recedes away from the city’s iconic boulevards, smoke and ash have turned the once picturesque landscape into a strange, moon-like thing.
Some buildings were charred, some were slightly damaged, and some were completely destroyed. The shell station that burned down had its pumps intact, but the convenience store was gone. Bank of America is located in a historic building that was destroyed by fire. The metal framework of the ATM in front of me on the left was twisted in the intense heat.
As police cordoned off the area, Palisades residents begged LAPD officers to let them through to check on their homes and pick up needed medical supplies.
Glenn Watson, left, and his brother Wes returned to the Pacific Palisades area Wednesday to see the fire damage.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
The Palisades inferno broke out Tuesday morning near Piedra Morada Drive, where gusts of wind lashed the area relentlessly. By Wednesday afternoon, it had burned more than 11,802 acres, leaving widespread devastation as it snaked west toward Malibu and east toward Brentwood.
Tens of thousands of residents have been forced from their homes. Devastating fires broke out in other parts of the city at the same time, with authorities reporting an unspecified number of “significant” injuries. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has made two arrests on robbery charges after a group of thieves attempted to loot a vacated wealthy neighborhood.
“Despite the exceptional nature of what has happened and what is happening now, I fear that we are witnessing a new, frightening and tragic normal.”History said William Deverell, director of the University of Southern California’s California and Western Research Institute at Huntington.
On Wednesday, the Pacific Coast Highway and many of its homes and landmarks between Will Rogers State Beach just north of Santa Monica and Carbon Beach in eastern Malibu were in ruins. Large areas of coastal homes along the highway were reduced to smoldering rubble, collapsing into the sand and ocean.
Gone are the cozy homes and multi-million dollar beach palaces that once lined the coastline. Long-cherished symbols of business and local norms were also wiped out.
In Santa Monica, emergency department doctors at Providence St. John’s Health Center treated patients suffering from smoke inhalation, eye irritation and minor burns.
Dr. Ali Jamedour urged people with heart or respiratory problems to stay indoors and for everyone to be careful as strong winds sent debris flying into the air. The surgery at Santa Monica Hospital was postponed Tuesday night and was scheduled to resume Thursday.
A woman ran down Sunset Boulevard as the Palisades fire raged Tuesday.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
Much of what remained Wednesday on the Palisades’ “Alphabet Street” neighborhood, a mostly flat residential street in a U-shaped block just north of Sunset Boulevard, was blackened rubble and dust.
Much of the Palisades was cordoned off, but James Fiennes, 40, found a back stairway to get into the area. He had come to see his friend’s parents’ house, which he had spent three years building and moved into last year.
“This is insane,” he repeated as he walked down a street lined with charred cars and burnt-out houses. “I can’t believe there’s no water.”
Through every block that was incinerated, reminders of the wealth of the property owners remained. A home gym burned almost beyond recognition, then a blackened hot tub, then the shells of multiple cars parked in the garage.
In most blocks, only fireplaces remained. Power lines dangled over the abandoned streets. Some houses were still on fire.
For John Lightfoot, 56, each store that burned down held memories. The bank I had been doing business with for decades and the small cafe I used to frequent are both gone.
Michael Payton, director of the Erewhon store a few blocks away, came to assess the damage. The business survived, but much else was lost.
“The whole Palisades is finished. The whole town is finished,” he said. “This is complete devastation.”
With Palisades and other fires raging, winds howling, fear gripped Los Angeles, and no city seemed completely free from danger.
Some residents reported having to evacuate multiple times as fires moved toward the homes of friends and family in “safe” areas. Some people learned from afar that their homes were on fire through fire alarms or mobile phone alarms.
“Historically, in my experience, when we talk about disasters in Southern California and Los Angeles County, especially when we talk about fire disasters, there is a disconnect between those of us who live in apartments far from the foothills. “It seems like there is,” said historian DJ Waldy.
A home burned to the ground Tuesday along Bowdoin Street in Pacific Palisades.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
From his apartment, the high-altitude blaze could be far away and look like “someone else’s Los Angeles, with things burning down all the time,” Waldy said.
But that paradigm was upended Tuesday night when evacuation warnings were issued for large areas of low-lying Santa Monica.
By noon Wednesday, Santa Monica residents were evacuating the mandatory evacuation zone north of San Vicente, gasping in smoke and enduring wind gusts of 40 miles per hour, dragging pets and suitcases into cars. Still, two blocks away, on Margherita Avenue near Ocean Avenue, construction workers were quietly working on an apartment building.
“We have to survive. That’s why we’re still here,” said Josué Curiel, a native of Jalisco, Mexico, who lives in Inglewood. All of the roughly six crew members were also born south of the border.
“If you’re a worker, you’re hungry, so that’s how it is.”
They fixed ladders to the building to keep it stable in the face of howling winds and worked to repair the flooded balcony, regardless of the natural disaster raging around them.
“I was planning on taking today off,” Kriel said with a shrug as she watched the news last night, but when she woke up she was still at work. “Many people are still working.”
Mike Flanigan, a wildfire researcher at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia, says there’s a simple recipe that applies to California’s wildfires: vegetation, ignition, and typically hot and dry winds. He said the weather was warm.
“If all three come together, there will be wildfires,” he said.
These factors allowed the Palisades Fire to move quickly and destroy areas along valleys and hillsides.
Along the east-west corridor through downtown Los Angeles, the brown leaves of queen palms, fan palms and other types of palms littered the roads and sidewalks like carrion. No one could withstand the fierce wind.
Heading west from the Miracle Mile area, an eerie cloud of smoke wafted under the midnight sun, bathing the landscape in amber and ocher. The plume darkened the sky so much that street and house lights equipped with photovoltaic cells designed to turn on at dusk were turned on. Human technology has been fooled by hell.
Former Police Commissioner Steve Soboroff, who lives in West Los Angeles, said his five children, all of whom live in the Los Angeles area, have each been evacuated from their homes.
“This is more than just a fire,” Soboroff said. “Contain the fire, build a ring around the fire. It’s like a thousand fires. It’s impossible. It reminds me of the Great Chicago Fire. We’ve never seen anything like this here before because of the density. I don’t know anything that happened. That’s just the worst case scenario.”
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