EATON, KENNETH, HURST, LIDIA, AND THE PALISADES: I LOVE YOU LA AND I'M SORRY
- Dollie Swaim
- Jan 11
- 5 min read
Updated: Aug 16
I left the book I've been reading on my desk before I drove out. This shouldn't be important to me, and it's not really, but it's something I can focus on.
The book is a collection of folklore distilled into short stories by contemporary Indigenous writers. There are twenty-six stories in total; when I left it, I was in the middle of one that referred to the first human life in what is now Western America as The People, and the colonizers who destroyed their homes and killed a great deal of them as The Other People. The Other People destroyed what was not ever theirs to begin with. I think about this as Los Angeles goes up in flames, about the all-American infrastructure and environmental ignorance that has led us to this point. It is something that I am ill-equipped to unpack.
As a journalist who is just barely starting out, I am most accustomed to writing summaries of things. Something happened and this is how we (or I) feel about it. These are the dates; this is when such and such started or ended, was demolished or established. And while I can and will offer you the statistics that I'm able to gather, I don't have a way to package this story with a beginning, middle, and end because unfortunately I have not even a slight idea of what is going to happen next. It's eating me up inside; this is what spurs most people to write most things, I think.
Here's what I know: This is the most destructive natural disaster in LA history. As of today, January 10, 2024, more than 10,000 structures have been destroyed. 153,000 people have been evacuated and many more are zoned for evacuation warnings. 10 deaths have been reported.
There are currently five main blazes: Kenneth, Eaton, the Palisades, Hurst, and Lidia. Several smaller fires have since been contained, one of which was a mile north of Hollywood Blv. The Getty Villa has narrowly escaped destruction, flames reaching the hill at the edge of the structure. The dry conditions and Santa Ana winds affecting much of Southern California are large contributors. One man has been behind bars since Thursday after reportedly attempting to start a brush fire of his own with a blowtorch, but this information has not been substantiated.
To make matters worse, according to California Department of Insurance Spokesman Michael Soller in an email to CBS, roughly 1,600 home insurance policies in the Pacific Palisades were dropped by Farmers Insurance in June. Although the affected areas don't span more than 21,000 acres, because of the insurance crisis and structural/population density, this could become the most financially devastating wildfire in California's history.
Although most media outlets have stated that the direct cause of the fires is under investigation, the conditions under which the blazes began and a great majority of the contributing factors can be directly traced to the effects of global warming. The rising temperatures associated with the on-and-off drought (most recently spanning from 2020 to 2022) have dwindled the Southern California water supply. Since the end of the most recent drought period, the extreme wet and dry yo-yo-ing in Los Angeles has created a monumental supply of flammable brush.
This is unsurprising, as America is in the top three greenhouse gas emitters (along with China and India). While the extreme effects of climate change have been undeniably prevalent so far in the areas that Americans deem their dumping grounds, the LA fires seem to be a sign that even the country's elite can no longer escape the consequences of environmental negligence.
A quote has been circulating amidst the collective distress that I found prevalent. It reads, "Climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you're the one filming it," and was originally shared by Twitter user @PerthshireMags.
Up until now, America's wealthy have been predominantly safe from the more extreme effects of climate change, leaving those in the lower-middle to lower-class brackets without the resources to handle the brunt of changing weather, droughts, and global warming's contribution to the rise in infectious diseases. Thus, those with the economic power to affect change have been widely complacent.
Fire knows no economic status nor neighborhood and my heart goes out to anyone and everyone in the throws of loss, but it is my hope that because the destruction is quite literally at our doorstep, those in power will open their eyes to the fact that we are in the final days. It hurts me that it had to reach this point.
I and many of my friends and neighbors have temporarily evacuated, but for those who are unable or unsure, here are a few resources that could be valuable.
Some hotels are also offering free temporary shelter. This is a list of them.
This is a list of evacuation shelters in the LA area. It also includes a list of animal shelters.
Planet Fitness is offering free access to Wi-fi, showers, and available lockers to those affected by the fires. You can click the link to find the one closest to you.
Pasadena City College is offering snacks, water, and essential supplies like hygiene kits and pet food (as of Jan 10)
Lyft is offering free rides up to $50 to those in need of transportation. You can enter the code: CAFIRERELIEF25 until Jan 15 at 11:59 PM.
This is a more extensive list of resources organized by area and the type of aid offered.
For anyone looking to help, here is a list of relief organizations compiled by the amazing Los Angeles Times.
I left the book I've been reading on my desk before I drove out, as well as a box of my family's photos and the majority of the clothing I own. If this were a perfectly packaged article, I would have something to say here like we will rebuild or some other shallow anecdote about community in trying times, but all I can say is that I left the book I've been reading on my desk and I hope I am able to come back to it. I hope that, eventually, everyone here will be able to return to their lives.
Though I can't think of many things that scare me more than the city I love so much in flames, I hope that at least this tangible evidence of how our actions affect the natural world shifts us closer to a globalist perspective.
To Los Angeles and everyone who lives here, I love you and I am so sorry. Because I am in desperate need of some kind of solace, I look to the fact that we are all here for each other in this time of distress.
If anyone would like to read the book I left on my desk, it's called Never Whistle At Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology.
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