6 killed, Palisades Fire grows as Sunset Fire spreads through Hollywood Hills, 360,000 people evacuated

Even after this week’s fires finally subside, life will never be the same for many Angelenos. They have lost their homes, their businesses, their neighborhoods. At least five families – a tragic number at that is likely to grow in the coming days – have lost loved ones.

Some of these residents and neighbors are my friends. Too many. My heart breaks for them.

For the rest of us – the lucky ones – life has been more surreal these past few days than anything else.

Here in Silver Lake, the northeast LA neighborhood where I live with my wife and two young children, we watched anxiously from our windows Tuesday night as the Eaton Fire spread like a blazing scar up the foothills of Pasadena, California , 24 km away.

We feared most for my seven-year-old parents. They live just 2.5 miles from Eaton Canyon, on the edge of the mandatory evacuation zone. We finally convinced them to come and spend the night with us. My wife’s colleague also brought her cockapoo after her power outage in Pasadena. I slept on the sofa with our cat.

I held my breath overnight as the Santa Anas hit a cracked old window that I had patched with duct tape. I could see the glass bending with every big gust of wind.

The next morning there was no sunrise – only a cloud of black smoke covered the horizon. I dropped the kids off at school and told them to get masks from the office. An hour later the principal emailed; school had been cancelled. I picked up the kids and turned on the TV. My wife and I tried to work.

Around that time, a friend who had fled the Eaton fire said his daughter’s school was gone — burned to the ground. My brother-in-law drove to Encinitas, California, near San Diego, to keep the smoke from triggering his boys’ asthma. My parents returned home and hoped for the best.

So far they are safe. There is also no immediate danger in Silver Lake. But the intersection is blocked off, clogging up the adjacent blocks with detours. There are downed wires, downed trees, damaged transformers and crews at work.

As of Thursday afternoon, power is still out for nearly 200,000 LA County residents. Last night another family of four – another one of my wife’s colleagues – came to shelter with us because our power was still on.

They are here now. The children are building a fort below. My wife and her colleague are leading a Zoom meeting in the living room. The husbands type on laptops with AirPods in them.

“What’s for lunch?” the children ask.

Outside, the sky is a color I can’t describe: pale gray with a faint pink tinge. Ashes fall like snow.