Apocalyptic Now

The view from my balcony late yesterday afternoon. I'm about 9-10 miles south of the Pacific Palisades fire, where this smoke is coming from:

 

 This morning:

About what I was expecting. Our air is brown. If I have to go out, I'll be digging out a mask from the COVID days. Also, the wind is kicking up again, which is bad.

I'm fortunate to not be in any of the fire areas, but it was terrifying and depressing to watch one fire after another crop up and explode yesterday and into the evening. One started in Eaton Canyon above Arcadia and wreaked havoc on Pasadena and surrounding areas. The Palisades fire has wiped out almost the entire town then headed into Malibu and apparently has destroyed blocks of homes on Pacific Coast Highway right on the beach as well as a number of venerable businesses including the Reel Inn and Malibu Feed Bin. It's also caused evacuations in north Santa Monica.

I've also heard there have been two fatalities, but considering how fast these fires spread, I won't be surprised if there are many more.

There's already been discussions online about how our state and local governments have handled water resources, forestry management, and budget cuts to local fire departments, but there will be plenty of time to examine that later. I'm sure there's plenty of blame to go around, and even with the catastrophic winds, I'm guessing that better management and funding of resources may not have prevented the fires themselves from spreading, but I'm thinking it didn't have to be this absolute carnage. I can't even bring myself to pull pictures and video for this post. When all is said and done, this is going to be destruction of historic proportions, and I feel so awful when I think of the thousands of people who have lost their homes and businesses. I don't know how much more people can take.

 

Updated 1/10/25: Just found out a friend lost her house in Altadena because of the Eaton Fire. This is just so brutal and awful.