A Hurricane of Fire
When all else fails, we can still depend on each other
My mom texted me early in the morning. “Once you see this let me know how close the fires are to you!” The night before I’d posted a video where I could see one from my house. While I tried to sleep, that fire burned Altadena to the ground.
I never lost power, but my friends did, so they’d already gone further south. By the morning I couldn’t see the fire anymore. Instead it was just an endless, grayish fog of ash with a hint of orange as the sun tried to break through. The cremated dust of so many dreams.
My lungs and my eyes were revolting. It felt like I was the unlucky guy on the camping trip whom the smoke seemed to follow no matter where he sat around the pit. Eventually I had to evacuate, as my lungs rattled in a way that felt concerning. And now, as I sit in a coffee shop in San Diego while everyone around me goes on as normal, my thoughts are with everyone else who’s still in the thick of a natural disaster, one I’ll be returning to the day after tomorrow.
It would seem, for better or worse, that I am an old pro at this.
The alerts started up on Monday, before the winds came. I learned that there is a phenomenon around here called the Santa Anas, a seasonal blast of high, dry, hot winds that can threaten to start wildfires if the conditions are right. The ones coming this week were predicted to be worse than any that had come in the past 15 years, with gusts expected to crack 100mph in the hills north and west. I also learned that we hadn’t had proper rain in many months, and that’s unusual for this time of year.
Well, it used to be, at least.
It seemed at that time people were only worried about the wind. At the show I performed that night, a friend told me I needed to bring loose furniture inside and maybe think about tying up my trash bins. I also shouldn’t try driving on the freeway, as the gusts can force lane changes no matter how good of a driver you are. Some news outlets warned that wildfire chances were high, but nobody really knew how concerned we needed to be.
Wait and see before you panic. Take precautions but don’t worry about what you can’t control.
As my house shook all Tuesday, it occurred to me I’d felt like this before. 2001, 2005, 2008, 2015, 2017, 2019. I’m used to these winds coming with rain. I’m used to this violence washing everything away.
But this time there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. There wasn’t one coming, either. The 10-day forecast called for crystal clear skies. Bluebird skies, as my mom calls them. They happen so rarely back home that it’s something to celebrate.
The fires started up in the evening time. I tried going to sleep, but it didn’t really happen. I woke up on Wednesday to frantic reports. As social media started going off, I suddenly found myself in an extremely familiar cadence.
Check for updates. Turn on your alerts. Throw on the news. Pack a bag and make sure you’ve got your identity documents in it, just in case. See if you can track down a pack of bottled water, ‘cause the taps are no longer safe to drink.
As the day wore on, the similarities kept building. For all the talk about how much more progressive this state is, the officials sounded extremely Texan. They threatened looters that they imagined must exist, though what there is to loot is anyone’s guess. There were reports of insurance companies already rushing to avoid paying out, claiming out of date or too minimal or secretly-cancelled coverage. Then there are people on social media in other parts of the world saying “they get what they deserve for the beliefs they all hold over there,” or “it’s probably just entitled assholes who can afford to rebuild no problem.”
There are some who point out that the mayor took money out of the fire department budget so she could further militarize the police, and that a sizeable portion of first responders are prisoners being forced to work for $5 a day and who, despite receiving top-flight training, are barred from turning these skills into careers when they get out.
Suddenly it’s not a humanitarian crisis, but a referendum on the cruelty and excess of the People We Don’t Like. That is, if it’s worth talking about at all.
But then there are the best similarities. The similarities of people on the ground coming together. Every bar and restaurant feeding the displaced for free, and setting up centers for people to drop off supplies. People turning up at animal shelters overflowing with pets who couldn’t be evacuated, saying “put me in, coach.” Every home putting out buckets of water for coyotes and other wildlife fleeing the blazes. Today, as I write this, everyone who’s able is volunteering their time and effort to help each other make it through.
I’ve also learned about a whole new group of first responders, of firefighting crews that came from all corners of this continent to help contain the blazes. This morning I watched a video of a plane from Quebec, Canada that, with incredible precision, dipped into the Pacific Ocean, slurped up a tankful of water, and splashed it on the Palisades fire like a crop duster, only to double back and do it again. I’ve read all about how fire crews work, the techniques for establishing a perimeter around a blaze, how they dig and spray to direct the flames away from homes. I see in these people the same earnest need to be of service that I’ve seen every time a city floods and volunteer boats come out of nowhere to help conduct search and rescue.
I also learned about an app called Watch Duty, built and maintained by a nonprofit mutual aid organization, that provides real-time updates and maps of the fires, and tells you where to go to get help if you need it.
And then there is America’s largest insurance provider, GoFundMe. So many people whose lives burned away are asking for help, and help keeps coming. Friends from back home, who know all too well just what this feels like, are organizing and throwing fundraisers on the same day. People are cooking, people are collecting, people are sending supplies.
People are caring for one another. Love is staring destruction right in its eye and saying, “Not my friends. Not my people. Not a single soul.”
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For all the bad rap we get, the human race is a remarkable phenomenon. Equal to our capacity for vileness, selfishness, coldness, and cruelty, we possess within ourselves a deep well of love. And all it takes to activate that love is to see someone else as ourselves. To ask, “what would I need if I were in that situation?” and to be brave enough to answer that question with action.
Like all the other natural disasters I’ve been through, I know for a fact that this won’t be the end of the city I call home or the people in it who have lost so much. Humans are too tenacious for that. We have too many dreams. But things will be hard for a long, long time, and through it all we will resolve to give each other grace. It will take some folks years to come to grips with this tragedy; some may never fully get their arms around it. But everyone here understands what the other is going through, and can say that they aren’t alone.
Hollywood is burning
But wait, I just got here
You said I had to survive ’til ’25
So I was working on my scripts
Working under the table for petty cash and shoes
Now Hollywood is burning
What’s this mean for production?
Can I still audition for that improv troupe?
I haven’t even had In-N-Out yet
Though I already prefer Goldburger
I just found my barber
And my comic shop has a pinball arcade in it
They already know me by name
At the coffee shop in East Hollywood
And now Hollywood is burning??
What’s that supposed to mean?
Should I pivot to influencer instead of aiming for art?
Should I beg to return to Corporate America?
Live life like a whipped grizzly
Put to bed any dreams
And try my best to survive for the rest of my life
While Hollywood is burning????