Stand in the fire
By 
Emily Witt has a very compelling on-the-ground report from apocalyptic Los Angeles:
Early this week, the National Weather Service started sending out alerts in Los Angeles about a “life-threatening and destructive” windstorm set to begin on Tuesday afternoon. The threat of fires had been implicit—the conditions for them were good, as is often the case in the area. The Palisades Fire began as a brush fire on Tuesday morning; by the end of the day, it was rapidly approaching three thousand acres in size. Even if you were far from the flames, you couldn’t help but feel uneasy. The wind had been gusting violently all day. I kept plans to meet my dad for dinner. Driving over, I saw palm fronds sliding across the road, and lawn furniture tumbled about. We met at 6:30 at a German beer bar in Highland Park, and, before we had ordered drinks, he received an alert on his phone about the Eaton Fire, which broke out shortly after 6 p.m. in the San Gabriel Mountains above the city of Altadena, where my brother lives. My parents were staying with him. They decided to evacuate, and my dad booked a hotel room on his phone. Not long after, the electricity in the restaurant cut out. Back home in Mount Washington, I could see flames eating their way down the flanks of the San Gabriel Mountains. A strong wind blew, and then a tree in the yard fell down. Around ten thirty that night, another fire, the Hurst, picked up near Sylmar.
By the next morning, breathing was like trying to inhale a campfire. In downtown Los Angeles, which was veiled in smoke, local government officials convened for an update at the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration. The good news was that there had been no confirmed fire-related deaths in the Palisades. But there had been two related to the Eaton Fire. That number would later rise to five. And, as of eight o’clock on Wednesday morning, there were four fires, spanning more than seven thousand acres. A thousand structures had been destroyed in the Palisades on the previous night. The damage in Altadena was at a hundred structures and counting. (By the next morning, the official estimate rose to more than a thousand there, too.) More than seventy thousand residents of Los Angeles County were under orders to evacuate their homes, and tens of thousands more were warned to be ready to follow them. More than four hundred thousand people were without electricity.
The ability of the firefighters to respond was limited by the number, size, and location of the fires, and by the unusual intensity of the Santa Ana winds, which the previous night had reached seventy miles an hour in some places. “There are not enough firefighters in L.A. County to address four separate fires of this magnitude,” Anthony Marrone, the chief of the L.A. County Fire Department, said. “The L.A. County Fire Department was prepared for one or two major brush fires, but not four, especially given the sustained winds and low humidities.” The fire department, which also handles emergency services in the county, was at “draw down”—everyone who could be called into work had been. The wind had grounded firefighting aircraft for much of the night. In the Palisades, water pressure had been lost by three in the morning, as the extra strain on the system temporarily ran three crucial storage tanks dry. Firefighters from other California counties and other states were meeting to offer aid. The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, was still en route back to California from a diplomatic trip to Ghana. Many schools were closed. Employees with respiratory issues were encouraged to stay home, and officials suggested that the West Side should be avoided altogether. Also closed: Griffith Park (and access to the Hollywood sign), Runyon Canyon, and the L.A. Zoo.
Our thoughts are with everyone in the LA area and hope you will be able to remain safe.