Sick of Hearing About California? I Get It - But Hear Me Out.
A tragedy is a tragedy, no matter where it happens.
As you may have heard by now, seasonal wildfires have been ravaging Lost Angeles and its outlying suburbs for over a week. More than wildfires by now, though, these fires have ravaged more than 38,000 acres, including highly populated urban areas in Pacific Palisades (the Palisades fire) and Altadena alone (the Eaton fire) as of this writing. These fires have destroyed a combined 12,000 structures, and are respectively still only 19% and 45% contained.
There were also a number of smaller fires, like the Lidia Fire in the Antelope Valley north of Los Angeles; the Kenneth Fire and the Woodley Fire in the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area, both in Los Angeles' west San Fernando Valley; and the Sunset Fire near Runyon Canyon in the Hollywood Hills. Luckily, these fires have been fully contained or even stopped.
As of this writing, some 88,000 people are still under evacuation orders. Tens of thousands more are dealing with the other effects of the destructive Santa Ana winds, which drastically worsen fire conditions, and are living without power: Either infrastructure is physically knocked out or power is being shut off as a safety precaution. At least 25 people are known to have lost their lives, while dozens more are missing.
My town is overflowing with fire refugees.
“My town:" the place where I live, in California. It still sounds funny to me. It is funny! And it's one of the wildest, most unexpected ways my life has turned out.
You're sick of hearing about us? I don't blame you. I once got sick of hearing about California, too! In fact, I once resolved to never even travel here on vacation.
Growing up in Indiana, the biggest West Coast state did not play a very big role in my daily life. Except, of course, that it did: California churned out almost all of the media Americans consumed, and it also brought new and exciting technology into our homes, schools, and pockets. And despite the acres of corn all around me, California also grew more than 40% of the produce eaten in America.
But I didn't think about any of that. Spring breaks were taken in Florida. School trips were to Washington, D.C. and New York City. Chicago was the short-distance destination for world-class dining, shopping, and entertainment. And when I got older, vacation destinations were more likely to see us leave the country than travel to California or the West Coast. I even lived abroad - in Germany and Canada - almost 20 years before I found myself on the other side of my home country.
Sure, I had various cousins and friends from high school who had lived out there. And I had another friend - a former supervisor, actually - who had grown up in California, moved to Indiana from middle school through college, and then moved back to California again as an adult.
I remember seeing his Facebook posts and wondering how anyone could feel at home in a city like Los Angeles, which I had been led to believe was huge (true) and soulless (not true). Actually, everything I’d heard about California seemed awful: endless sunny days? But my favorite weather is rain! The traffic? No, thank you! The cost of living was exorbitant, wasn't it? And the fires: Who could live like that?! I wondered. I had no idea.
Then 2020 rolled around. It was a horrific year, as we all remember. On top of the pandemic and murder hornets and election hysteria and everything else going on, California experienced record-setting wildfires: During that one year, 8,648 individual fires burned 4,304,379 acres of California.
And my friend got some pictures.
No, he hadn't had to evacuate. But he was still able to take photos from his home that showed a sickly gray sky and a flaming red moon. Another shot showed terrifying red and black clouds.
Looking at those pictures on Facebook from the safety of 2,000 miles away, I still felt shivers dancing up and down my spine. Wasn't he terrified?!
I remember setting my phone down, looking over at my then-husband, and asking, “Do you have any interest in going to California?"
Taken aback, he raised his gaze from the dog in his lap to me. "Nooo …?” he said slowly, unsure what had prompted this question.
“Me either," I said, shivering at the prospect of being able to see the smoke of a deadly, out-of-control fire from the back porch. "It seems like … like a terrifying, gigantic pain in the ass. And these fires they keep having! Let's never go there.”
“Fine with me!" he declared with a smirk. The question having been definitively ruled on, he turned his attention back to the Shetland Sheepdog squirming across his lap. And that was that …
… I thought.
What's that old aphorism? "If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans!” Or as Allen Saunders framed it - and John Lennon popularized it - "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.”
Yes, that friend of mine was
. A mere year and a half after making this anti-California declaration, I'd find myself arriving in the Golden State with him, not just to visit, but to live.And … I love it.
I genuinely didn't expect to. I tried hard not to. But this state is a beautiful slice of heaven on Earth, and it's painful even to watch from two hours away as enormous swaths of it burn.
And in the three years that I’ve been blessed to enjoy living in this unique place, I've learned a thing or two about the dynamics here that I did not previously know.
First, love it or hate it, California history and culture is American history and culture. From the days of the Spanish missions to the Gold Rush, from the Transcontinental Railroad to the development of Hollywood and film culture; from the Bay Area bands of the 60s and 70s that so handily defined hippie culture to the rise of Silicon Valley and cutting-edge tech culture, California figures in the national story.
But it's OK! Every state does.
Second, not everyone here is rich. And for that matter, not everyone affected by these fires is or was rich! Part of the reason that astonishing statistic, “12,000 structures burned,” is so high is that the fires have burned regular houses that are very close together. These are not all gated estates with extensive grounds. They are the homes of middle-class residents.
Oh, you looked up the property values of some of the homes and found that they were worth $400,000, $500,000, or $750,000? Some were worth a million? Well, hey: Those are regular people's houses! The cost of living is higher out here, and salaries are commensurate with that.
Third, the environmental issues out here are seriously complex. In this case, the powerful Santa Ana winds - fierce, dry, warm winds that blow from the inland deserts of Southern California toward the coast - are a powerful harbinger of danger from fire.
As the air moves down the mountains, it compresses and heats up, growing both drier and faster. These winds are incredibly intense: the kind of wind that picks up your wrought-iron patio furniture and throws it on top of your neighbor’s car. So the dry quality of the air the winds bring, combined with their velocity, is tailor-made to spread fire.
And this year, the Santa Ana winds are interacting with unusually dry conditions. Northern California has gotten soaked, but at my house, for instance, two hours east of LA, no rain has accumulated since March of 2024. Los Angeles itself has only recorded 0.2 inches of rain since last July, which makes this the second-driest year over the past 150.
There are a lot of reasons for these disparities, as well as for the drought Southern California is experiencing. But it's easy to see how these winds can hit already-volatile conditions on the ground and make them exponentially worse.
And no, we cannot simply use the Pacific Ocean to put out all the fires. Salt water corrodes metal, and salt itself increases the temperature of the water. At or above 120°F, helicopters cannot fly. Helicopters are crucial for dropping water and fire retardant, so nothing can be done to make the air any hotter.
It’s a big state, and I still have a lot to learn about the dynamics at play in the different regions of California. And if you don't live here, you shouldn't feel any need to learn them, yourself! But you can trust me on a few things:
Anyone asking for help because they've been displaced by the ongoing fires really needs that help.
The victims are not all rich.
Even if you enjoy multiple forms of privilege in life, it is still sad and hard and excruciating to lose your home and see your entire community burn down.
Feeling sympathy for what is happening here does not detract from the separate sympathy you also feel for others who have lived through natural disasters, such as those in Florida and North Carolina, who are still recovering from hurricanes Helene and Milton.
If you think California has more resources to rebuild, well, you're probably right. But if you think money can obliterate sadness, grief, and profound loss, you're the one living in La-La Land.
That's a refreshing reminder of the life that, "goes on."