No matter how scared, devastated, shocked, or hurt, I love and deeply adore our beautiful City of Los Angeles—our City of Light and Angels—and our special LA spirit. During this unprecedented and catastrophic time, my heart breaks for our city and all of the Angelenos who have lost homes, loved ones, businesses, schools, churches, and for those who have been displaced and still live in fear of what comes next. I find myself struggling to express the weight of it all, so, in this special edition, I share LA Life Contributor Lorraine Devon Wilke’s incredibly profound words in “Things We Felt In the Fire” as we all grapple to comprehend the incomprehensible.  Thank you, Lorraine.  And please check out my Wildfire Resource & Info Guide in this special edition of The Three Tomatoes LA Life.

Things We Felt in the Fire

Lorraine Devon Wilke

January 7th was a cool, sunny Tuesday in Los Angeles. The holidays were wrapped, people were back to work; projects of every kind had cranked up again. Despite looming inevitability of the incoming administration, I was reconciled with my plan to compartmentalize my attention and shift my focus, and was feelin’ good as I set out on my afternoon walk.

Then I looked over to the mountains from the Playa del Rey bluffs and this is what I saw:

Photo: Lorraine Devon Wilke

Not good. Not good at all.

 Note the distant mountains on the right-hand edge of the photo. Boiling down from that seemingly tiny epicenter was this billowing, burgeoning carpet of smoke, and because it was—at that moment—seemingly limited to the brush above any structures, and because I knew a significant wind event was predicted for that day, I thought to myself: “Holy hell, I hope they get that knocked down real fast.”

 It was already too late.

 That fire roared down those mountains to the beautiful town of Pacific Palisades and just kept going, wiping out everything on its way to the sea. Whipped and pitched by biblical winds that couldn’t decide which direction to fling themselves, the frenzied, tumbling embers set down here, there, and everywhere and before long thousands of acres were on fire, along with countless structures—schools, churches; businesses, family homes—and the nightmare was in progress.

 The media coverage has been nonstop, so by now everyone reading this knows those flying embers set off five huge fires that first night, wreaking unprecedented havoc. Since then, several more conflagrations have been sparked, at least one by human hands, as egregious a crime as I can imagine, especially during this fraught, dangerous moment. People have died; likely that number will go up. Entire neighborhoods have been decimated. The sky is heavy with smoke, the air dangerous, the fires continuing their deadly march. It’s been a hard week and the weekend will likely be more of the same, making 2025 already the longest year many have ever experienced.

 It’s not new—fires in California—but there’s something about the monstrosity of this many-tentacled beast, the fierceness, the whipping ferocity, that seems particularly angry and aggressive. Of course, the wind made it so, the unwelcomed, wild wind that swept flames into dervishes of destruction. As I write this on the fourth day of evacuation alerts and a growing number of casualties, I wonder when it will finally end. When there won’t be “another new fire” terse newscasters announce with dread, another area of the county that must activate the same frantic, life-preserving responses as all the others. I don’t know at this point. None of us do. With wind still a factor in coming days, it’s unprecedented and unknown. Which is terrifying.

Those of us who haven’t lost our homes, haven’t been rushed out of our neighborhoods for the sake of survival; haven’t watched the schools, churches, and businesses that make up the culture of our lives disappear into smolders, ache for those who have. We watch the news, check in with family and friends; donate, help, lend a hand when and where we can, feeling drained and devastated, with strains of survivor’s guilt under our fear that one of those embers might find its way to our neighborhoods.

Is there meaning in any of this?

No. No meaning other than the harsh reminder that life is unpredictable, possessions are impermanent, our many ways of living can be shaken and shattered in a moment, and there’s only so much we can do about it all. We prepare as best we can for natural disasters (we in Los Angeles are well-versed in earthquake preparedness). We embrace our faiths, our beliefs, to reconcile with the fleeting, ephemeral nature of life. We recognize hurt, loss, and rage as elements of our existence on this earth, but damn…

 Here’s the thing: Every person alive is consigned to experience both the good and bad of life. That we know. No one gets a free pass. Some suffer more than others; some seem to have more good fortune than others, but all of us are impacted by the inevitable vagaries of human life, right up to the moment we leave it. So it behooves us to think about, to decide; to have a plan, a philosophy, about how we will deal with that reality. Because we’re obligated to accept that things will happen that kick our feet out from under us. That shake us to our core. That shatter us. So how do we deal? Over these dreadful days I’ve seen ample evidence of how many people have dealt:

 I’ve watched a remarkable abundance of people who are experiencing absolute loss speak to reporters with teary smiles over a beloved item found in the rubble, a neighbor whose house has somehow been spared; a cat that was saved by a firefighter. I listened to the manager at a Pasadena animal shelter express gratitude for the volunteers who showed up to help with the influx of injured or abandoned pets. I’ve read stories of now-homeless families mourning their loss but so grateful to be alive and surrounded by those they love the most.

 “We will move forward.” “We’ll get back on our feet as soon as possible.” “Our neighbors are the best so we hope everyone rebuilds.” “God bless the firefighters.” These are all statements I’ve heard or read this week and I am humbled by the strength and resilience of those uttering them. It’s one thing to be jolly and optimistic when life is a carnival, another to face gutting loss and destruction and still be able to feel and articulate gratitude, love, and empathy.

Life is impermanent. Possessions can be replaced. Mementoes can burn but memories remain. Bad people can be arsonists; first responders, heroes. Chaos agents sow misinformation and denigrations; indefatigable reporters get the stories out. Some politicians scorn, some save. We’d die for our families, look out for friends and neighbors; hold our pets precious. Rage and loss can overwhelm, but gratitude can still be felt even in the worst of moments. All these things are true. No one needed a deadly, historic conflagration to be reminded. But this event happened … is still happening. So we will be reminded, every day that it lasts. Of what matters. Who matters. And we will continue to love, look out for, feel grace, and let go as needed.

The life that remains is worth it.

 Photo by Marek Piwnicki

WILDFIRE RESOURCE & INFO GUIDE…CLICK HERE.