Sunset Boulevard in ruins: The massive Palisades fire is coming into focus
On Wednesday morning, it looked like a bomb had gone off on Sunset Boulevard.
As the devastating Palisades fire recedes from some of the city's iconic streets, smoke and ash turn the once-beautiful landscape into a strange sight of the month.
There were buildings that were burnt, some slightly damaged, some completely destroyed. Burnt Shell station, pumps intact but grocery store gone; Bank of America in historic building gutted by fire, metal skeletons of ATMs in foreground left scorched by heat.
When police were blocked, Palisades residents begged LAPD officers to let them through to check their homes and take essential medications.
The Palisades inferno broke out Tuesday morning near Piedra Morada Drive and was whipped up by storms. It burned more than 11,802 acres Wednesday afternoon, crept west into Malibu and east toward Brentwood and left widespread devastation in its wake.
Tens of thousands of residents have been forced to leave their homes. Authorities reported an unspecified number of “serious” injuries as catastrophic fires broke out in other parts of the city. The LA County Sheriff's Department has arrested two people for robbery as the thieves tried to rob the wealthy who had fled.
“Despite the extraordinary nature of what happened and is happening, I'm afraid we're about to get a new, ugly and sad look at the normal,” said William Deverell, historian and director of the Huntington-USC Institute for California and the West.
Much of the Pacific Coast Highway with its homes and landmarks between Will Rogers State Beach north of Santa Monica and Carbon Beach east of Malibu was in ruins Wednesday. The large coastal houses that stood along the main road were reduced to smoldering rubble, collapsing onto the beach and into the sea.
The luxury homes and multi-million dollar beach palaces that once hugged the shore – all gone. Long-time favorite businesses and local listings – also eliminated.
In Santa Monica, emergency department doctors at Providence Saint John's Health Center are treating patients with smoke inhalation, eye irritation and minor burns.
Dr. Ali Jamehdor urged people with heart or respiratory problems to stay indoors and everyone to be careful during strong winds that send debris flying into the air. The operation at Santa Monica Hospital was postponed Tuesday night and was expected to resume Thursday.
Much of what remained Wednesday of the Palisades' “Alphabet Streets,” a flat residential grid in a U-shaped pocket north of Sunset Boulevard, was black debris and dust.
Although much of the Palisades was fenced off, James Fynes, 40, found a stairway leading back into the area. He was coming to look at the home of his friend's parents, who had arrived last year after three years of construction.
“This is crazy,” he repeated as he walked down the street with burnt cars and abandoned houses. “I can't believe there is no water.”
Throughout the burned-out blocks, reminders of the property owners' wealth persisted: a home gym burned almost beyond recognition, then a blackened hot tub, next to the husks of dozens of cars parked in the garage.
For many blocks, the only thing left standing was the fireplace. Power lines are down on damaged roads. Some homes were still new.
For John Lightfoot, 56, each new business had memories attached: the bank where he banked for decades, the small cafe he used to visit, both gone.
A few blocks away, Michael Payton, the manager of the nearby Erewhon store, came to survey the damage. Business had stopped, but much else had.
“The entire Palisades is done. The whole city is finished,” he said. “This is total destruction.”
Fear had enveloped Los Angeles as the Palisades and other fires raged and the winds howled, it seemed that no corner of the city was without danger.
Some residents reported that they had to leave more than once, as the fire followed them to the homes of friends or family in “safer” areas. Others found their homes burned far away, due to fire or security alarms alerting their phones.
“Historically, in my experience, when we talk about disasters in Southern California, in LA County, and especially when we talk about fire disasters, there seems to be a divide between us who live in apartments, away from low-rises,” said historian DJ Waldie.
From apartments, the flames in high-rises can be seen far away and “like someone else's Los Angeles, where things are burning all the time,” Waldie said.
But that paradigm was upended Tuesday night, as a wide swath of the Santa Monica Heights was placed under an evacuation alert.
At noon Wednesday, distressed Santa Monica residents breathed in smoke and braved 40 mph wind gusts, dragging pets and suitcases from their cars to escape the mandatory evacuation zone north of San Vicente. However, two kilometers away, on Marguerita Avenue near Ocean Avenue, a construction team quietly worked on an apartment building.
“We have to survive, that's why we're here,” said Josue Curiel, who lives in Inglewood but is originally from Jalisco, Mexico. About half a dozen people in his group were also born south of the border.
“If you're a worker, you're hungry, so it is.”
With their ladder fixed to the building to brace it against the gusty winds, they labored to repair the water-damaged balcony – unrelated to the natural disaster around them.
“I was planning to have a day off,” while watching the news last night, Curiel said with a shrug, only to wake up to find that work was still going on. “Many people are still working.”
Mike Flannigan, a professor at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia who studies wildfires, said there's a simple recipe that works in California's heat: vegetation, ignition and favorable weather, which is often hot and dry.
“If you find all three, then you have found wildfire,” he said.
Those elements helped the Palisades fire move quickly and tear through areas that live near ravines and hills.
In the east-west corridors of central LA, brown fronds of palm trees – queen, fan and other varieties – were strewn across the streets and sidewalks like dead flesh. No one stood a chance against the strong wind.
Heading west from the Miracle Mile area, the smoldering smoke under the morning sun gave way to pitch and ocher. The thickness darkened the sky so much that streetlights and residential buildings with photocells designed to turn on at dusk were lit – human technology was fooled by the inferno.
Former Police Commission President Steve Soboroff, a West LA resident, said each of his five children, all of whom live in the Los Angeles area, have moved out of their homes.
“This is not just a fire,” Soboroff said. “You fire, build a ring in the fire. This is like a thousand fires. It's just not possible. I think back to the Great Chicago Fire. I don't know of anything here that has ever been like this, due to overcrowding. It's just a very bad situation.”
Source link