As Arlynn Page walked me into her smoke-clogged living room in Altadena, she tried to answer the question people always ask after wildfires: Why would anyone risk living there? I’ve asked myself that question again and again in the six years since I moved into a house on an old mining claim in the fire-prone … Read more
Early on the evening of Jan. 7, a resident of a neighborhood of homes backed up against the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California saw what he described as a bright white light, and then a small fire at the base of an electrical tower up in Eaton Canyon. Another neighbor reported that his lights … Read more
For two weeks, Leslie Miller was desperate to recover only one thing: the urn that held the ashes of her daughter who died in early adulthood. She wondered for days if it had survived the blaze that destroyed much of Altadena, Calif. What if, she feared, she couldn’t get back into her home before the … Read more
As the first embers of the Eaton fire began showering homes in Pasadena and Altadena, Calif., this month, evacuation orders went out within minutes. But one neighborhood did not get the order to leave for hours, well after some homes there had already caught fire. The consequences appear to have been fatal. Of the 17 … Read more
Dozens of vehicles sit abandoned, covered in ash, along a stretch of Palisades Drive near Sunset Boulevard in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. There’s a pair of black boots beside a gray Subaru Crosstrek. Down the street, a pink backpack with the name Sonya on it has been left in a Tesla Model … Read more
The Push and Pull of Los Angeles: Beauty and Danger By Somini Sengupta Somini Sengupta is a climate reporter who has lived across Los Angeles. Often when you’re visiting Los Angeles, you walk up the 282 steps to the Baldwin Hills scenic overlook. You pass the sagebrush and the primrose. The high rises of downtown … Read more
Donna and Bob Williamson call the strange souvenirs pulled from the ashes of their home their Museum of Misery. There is the green wine bottle that melted, its glass neck drooping, that looks like it was pulled from a Salvador Dalí painting. Silver forks that fused into a thick, lumpy utensil, its prongs fanning out … Read more