I was born in LA in the 1960’s. I spent half of my life based in L.A. before moving to Australia in 1997 and felt confident that L.A. threw its worst at me for that first half, and I survived! But nothing I went through compared to what L.A.’s been through in 2025.
“Brushfires” were an annual event when and where I grew up. My childhood home in Porter Ranch, which is at the very far North of L.A. County in “The Valley,” backed up to The Santa Susana Mountains. It was not uncommon to see fires somewhere on the crest of the mountains. If we were in drought over the Spring and Summer, it wasn’t uncommon in Winter to see fires spreading by the Santa Ana winds on the ridge lines in the distance from my back window. Like Australians who can predict cyclonic weather based on the behaviour on the mango crop, Los Angelenos know when a fire is due.
To a certain degree, Southern Californians and Australians have a lot in common. LA, like my new home in Queensland, can be beautiful one day, and a bloody disaster the next. And like many Aussies in their 60’s who have experienced drought, fire, flood, cyclones, and magpie attacks, I had more than my share of disaster.
My hometown was the epicentre of the 6.7 magnitude 1994 Northridge quake, and we felt the 1971 Sylmar Quake, the 1987 Whittier Quake, and the 1991 Sierra Madre Quake My family was evacuated and nearly lost our family home in the 1988 Sesnon fire and again in the 2019 Saddleridge fire. Throw in the 2015 Aliso Canyon Gas Leak and 1992 Rodney King Riots, and Australia, I’ll see your floods, cyclones, and bush fires, and raise you with some civil unrest. But nothing could prepare me for what I saw early this month.
The expensive homes in L.A. are in the most disaster prone places, the hills, the canyons, and the coast. When Angelenos watch shows like “Bosch” or “The Rookie” and cops have homes in the Hollywood Hills overlooking the city, we think, there’s no way a cop could afford a property like that. My brother lives in Palisades, wedged on a bluff between Sunset Boulevard, Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) and Temescal Canyon Road. Although most are familiar with Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard, few have followed the sunset on the boulevard to the Pacific Ocean where it gets its name from. Celebrities and the wealthy are attracted to Palisades as it’s the closest beach to Hollywood and The Financial District, offers a village like atmosphere and is the gateway to the Santa Monica Mountains, where the young and beautiful (and me) hike, run, mountain bike, and walk their dogs.
Fires aren’t uncommon. Even when Southern California had six active fires at the same time, that’s not unprecedented. But what was unusual is normally a fire in Palisades would stay in the Santa Monica Mountains, but never in a million years did anyone expect the fires to cross Sunset, burn through Palisades Village, burn Pali High School, and burn all the way to PCH. This would be akin, financially and logistically, to a fire starting in Sydney’s Lane Cove and burning down Luna Park. At the time I’m writing this, the numbers are overwhelming. 24 lives have been lost; 40,300 acres have been burned; 12,300 homes have been burned; 100,000 people have been evacuated, and cost estimates of the damage are as high as US$150 Billion (A$244 Billion).
Fortunately, my brother, his family and his house are safe. The fire perimeter was two blocks to his North, a block and a half to his West, two blocks to his South, but the three houses directly behind his, to his West, unfortunately burned down. The big issue with Southern California fires, with the Santa Ana winds, is just because a house isn’t in a fire’s perimeter, doesn’t mean it’s not in danger. Burning embers can travel hundreds of metres away from the main fire, and there’s a lot of cases of either one home surviving when every home around it had burned, or the opposite, where an entire block can be unscathed, except for one home in the middle. But even though my brother’s house survived, there’s still a lot of threats, challenges and waiting ahead, and some of these will be distinctly L.A.
The finger pointing has already begun, as has the looting. With L.A. having very liberal laws, coupled with the amount of existing homeless and the new homeless, squatting is going be a really big issue. And then, if the rains do come in March and April, the next disaster could very well be mudslides. As a lot of the fire damaged areas are on hillsides, and all of the vegetation has been burned off, even though some houses survived the fires, they could very well be lost when the hills and valleys collapse around them. Lack of accommodation is going to be an issue for the immediate future. But rest assured, my 85 year mother who still lives independently in a part of L.A. that wasn’t impacted has taken in my brother and his wife and their four dogs. Mothers never stop being mums.
This has effectively become the world’s fire. Because of the celebrities who have been personally impacted by the fire, world news is all over this story. And to a certain extent, our tv and movie selves grew up in L.A. “Saved By The Bell’s ‘Bayside High’” was meant to be based on Palisades High and “Baywatch” took place on the beaches of Malibu, Palisades and Santa Monica. And there’s even a connection with the amazing first responders in L.A., From “Dragnet” to “Adam 12” to “Emergency,” and “CHiP’s.” Fortunately, the Brady Bunch house, in Woodland Hills, was not impacted.
The recovery in the impacted parts of L.A. is going to take a while. Those who have insurance will join a massive queue in getting a rebuild, with the cashed up residents pushing to get to the front of the queue. Unfortunately, there will be a lot who weren’t insured, or will no longer be able to afford insurance in the area any more after the rates go up. l remember watching an interview with someone who lost their house in Innisfail after 2006’s Cyclone Larry. The interviewer was trying to get a reaction from the man, and asked him, “What are you going to do now that you lost your house?” As quick as a whip, the bloke responded, “ I reckon I’m going to rebuild my house.” It was the most Australian answer ever, but I think things will be a lot more complicated in Los Angeles.