Watching Disaster From Afar.

I left LA. Then it burned down. I've been transfixed and worried.

The home I grew up in on Lost Arrow Road, had large oak trees looming over it. After we moved out, they fell (by some miracle not onto the house).

I grew up in an area where there were a ton of natural disasters. The house I grew up in at 9015 Lost Arrow Road, Yosemite National Park, California 95389, sat near the base of Yosemite Falls, in a deep valley surrounded by granite cliffs. At the base of these granite cliffs, which were about 2,425 feet tall, was an area the kids called “the boulders” (as in “we’re going to go play in the boulders after school!”). There were piles and piles of rocks, about fifty yards from my house, that had fallen 2,425 feet at some point or another. And there was always the sense that, given how close our house was to those boulders, more shards of the granite cliffs could break free, smashing our house to the ground.

When you grow up in an area like that, fire is often on your mind. Wildfires happen frequently in Yosemite, though the park is so large (1,187 square miles) that the fires were often nowhere near our home on Lost Arrow Road. In addition to fires, there was snow, which would weigh down the enormous oaks that leaned precariously over our home, directly over my bedroom (which was on the right side of the house, with views of Yosemite Falls out the window). And once, an enormous flood threatened the entire valley floor. That was the same flood that washed the road to my high school into the river.

Yosemite is an iconic place, so disasters there usually end up on the news. And about 175 miles away in Salinas, California, my grandmother Delia sat transfixed in front of her television, worried we were in danger. Grandma Delia would call our landline and my dad would answer. And usually he’d have to assure her that the fire or flood or rockslide was hundreds of miles away from us and that we were okay.

Luckily, in the thirty-plus years my family lived on Lost Arrow Road, there were few disasters that actually affected us. We had no plumbing for months after the flood of 1997 and I had to move into a depressing run down government owned house in town to continue high school for the remainder of my freshman year (the flood happened in January), but for the most part the disasters provided inconvenience more than tragedy.

Grandma Delia was bedridden my whole life and a lot of her world filtered in through her television. So what she saw was often sensationalized or not fully relevant to the part of the park we lived in. Watching her and how she processed news gave me an understanding of just how hard it is to share information about disaster in real time and taught me I needed to take news about disaster with a grain of salt.

I left LA, in a frantic, viscerally painful and extremely overwhelming manner, on January third. Five days later, the city became engulfed on all sides in terrifying, unrelenting winds that led to fires all over town. First the Palisades Fire on the Westside. Then the Eaton Fire on the Eastside. Then the Sunset Fire, not far from the Fairfax District home I’d just scrambled to move out of with the help of my parents (that move and everything around it was epic, definitely a story for another day).

It has been very hard to get a grasp from afar of what is actually going on. My instinct is always to imagine that whatever is happening isn’t as scary and dramatic as the news is making it out to seem. I remembered my Grandma Delia and how she’d be a nervous wreck thinking about our family being in danger of a fire that was a hundred miles from our house.

Then I looked at the New York Times. The images were absolutely stunning, shocking, and sad. I first heard about the Palisades in college, when one of my dorm mates explained that it was a neighborhood right on the water in LA. It sounded like a fantasy. I have filmed multiple episodes of the various TV shows I’ve been on in the Altadena/La Cañada area. I know many families there. And the Sunset area, where the most recent fire broke out, was the first place I lived in town. I’ve born witness to fires in Yosemite, Sonoma County where my family all live, and in the areas surrounding LA. But I know these spaces more intimately than any other place I’ve ever seen burn down. These spaces have lived in my imagination and in my practical life since I was a teenager.

In 2017, about three years after my parents had moved to Santa Rosa, the Tubbs Fire burned down Fountain Grove, the neighborhood adjacent to theirs. That fire also burned a community called Coffey Park, smack dab in the middle of the city. Fountain Grove was a wealthier area and Coffey Park a bit more middle/working class. So that fire had the same sense as the current LA fires - no one was spared based on their status. Money can’t buy you out of fire.

The more I looked at the images on the New York Times, the more worried I became. So I began texting my friends to ask if they were okay. Every one of them knows multiple people who have lost their homes. Sara, the photographer who shot my kitchen and who I work with frequently, was evacuated and was notified her neighbor’s house burned down. She doesn’t know the status of her own home but is safe at her parents’ house with her husband and baby.

Most of my friends have left town by now. Because they were in evacuation zones. Because they were choked out by the smoke. Because the city has become hell, an apocalyptic narrative sequence of “the Palisades burned down, the Eastside is on fire, and now Runyon is burning???”

Based on comments I saw online, at first there was some shadenfreude watching the homes of the rich and famous burn. But most locals know what that actually means. The rich will still be fine, they have insurance and can rebuild. But the industries they oversee may not be. And in a town already struggling (most of my creative friends and friends in the entertainment industry have been struggling since the pandemic began), this feels like it could make the upcoming years much, much worse. For the hair and makeup artists, writers, set designers, grips, PA’s, for all the people who actually make Hollywood run. These people are working class, scrape from gig to gig sometimes, oftentimes barely getting by. The Palisades burning down will affect their financial lives much more than any of those who lost homes in LA’s wealthiest neighborhoods.

So don’t clap for that. Don’t be gross. Loss is loss and people deserve empathy, even if they happen to live in homes that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. My hope is that this awful tragedy, this enormous challenge to our city, will be more of an inspiration to get back to work. To rebuild our city not only physically but also spiritually. We’ve watched as productions have moved to New York and Georgia. My plea for the executives whose homes have burned would be don’t go, don’t just move to New York and wash your hands of this disaster. Stay here and rebuild and while you do it, support the industry up and down the line. From the people who work craft services to the on camera talent - we need you here and LA’s future, “Hollywood’s” future depends on it.

I don’t think I can express enough the sorrow I feel for those who have lost their homes. I can’t even fathom words to express my condolences for those who have lost family and friends. As someone who cares deeply about homes and space I can only imagine what that feels like. And as someone who has lost friends over the past few years, I know that pain all too well.

But once the smoke has cleared, I hope we can use this as an opportunity to change our national perspective on LA. Maybe it’s time everyone stopped shitting on the city that makes a lot of the content and art they enjoy. In the years I’ve been there, LA has matured quite a bit. New museums, a thriving art scene, the feeling of being a true international city. I think this is a good opportunity for people who don’t live there to finally recognize that. And it’s time for everyone to start rooting for LA and “Hollywood.” The entertainment industry employs a lot of people. Pop culture is one of America’s most important and profitable exports. And it’s the people at the bottom of the food chain who are going to need this rebuild to happen as quickly and equitably as possible.

Please consider donating to the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation which provides emergency fire shelters, hydration backpacks, and woodland brush tools to the frontline workers battling to keep Angelenos safe and the city standing.