The Day L.A. Burned

Aerial view of a neighborhood being rebuilt after a fire.

Photograph by Stuart Palley

I’m writing on the eve of the anniversary of the fires that flattened my Pacific Palisades neighborhood, all but erased the community of Altadena, and left unhealed scars across Los Angeles. Last January 7th, over breakfast, I cautioned my children about the wind and told them—for the first time—about an emergency meeting spot I’d designated, outside the neighborhood, in case our local one, the firehouse, became unsafe. (The repeated Red Flag Warnings had finally gotten to me.) When their frantic calls started coming in a few hours later, informing me that the Palisades was on fire—they could see the smoke from school—I told them to stay put. They’d never go home again.

Months later, I saw a photograph that showed what I couldn’t see from my vantage point at the time: the fire leaping east across the mountain range. Those mountains loomed behind the town, obscured by tiers of houses, some of which had been there for a century. Then the wind shifted, and the homes were gone.

A year later, there are four hundred and seventeen houses in framing in the Palisades—wooden framing, replacement being the efficient option for financially strained people battling insurance companies and desperate to go home. On the cleared lots and abandoned parkways, invasive mustard plants wreak cheerful havoc, supercharged by heavy December rains. The mountains look glorious, green, and bizarrely in-your-face. Around unexpected corners, the ocean gazes at you, a bold stranger.

My friends wondered what to do, how to mark the day, if at all. Anniversaries imply closure, but most of us, in ongoing limbo, have none. How are we supposed to feel? Certainly not satisfied with official explanations of how this came to pass. The arrest of a suspect charged with lighting a fire on New Year’s Day is a barely-mentioned afterthought, hardly the point. The point is that the earlier fire was not put out and the reservoir had been drained. When the fire reignited a week later, there was neither enough water in the hydrants nor enough firefighters on hand.

What rituals are appropriate to mark a tragedy of errors? The American Legion is holding a white-glove ceremony to honor the twelve people who died in the Palisades Fire. Thousands are expected at a rally demanding accountability from the governor, the mayor, fire officials, the water utility, the city, the state, and California State Parks, in whose jurisdiction the fire began. When the sun goes down, three beams of light will illuminate the sky over the town that was, piercing the darkness that this time last year was lit with the unholy glow of a fire raging, with no end in sight.

For more: read Goodyear’s story on losing her home in the fires, and what followed in the aftermath. And, from this week’s issue, Nicola Twilley’s reporting on another lingering effect of the wildfires—smoke taint that is ruining grapes and threatening California’s wine industry.

What Just Happened?

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, announced new dietary guidelines today. The updated recommendations emphasize greater consumption of protein and full-fat dairy, while avoiding highly processed foods and refined carbohydrates. “My message is clear,” Kennedy said during the press conference, “eat real food.”

What does all this mean for American diets?

“These guidelines are meant to help Americans make healthy choices about what they eat. While some of the changes are sensible enough—we really should be eating fewer ultra-processed foods, for example—others conflict with decades of nutrition research. The recommendations now promote red meat, which used to be considered a nutritional villain for its deleterious effects for cardiovascular health. There is even a steak near the top of the Department of Agriculture’s new upside-down food pyramid. The guidance could affect the meals available in schools and through food-assistance programs, but it’s not clear how much they’ll change what most people eat. If Americans consulted dietary guidelines every time they put something in their mouth, we’d already be in a very different place with the nation’s health.”

—Dhruv Khullar, a practicing physician and contributing writer to The New Yorker who has reported on the effects of highly-processed foods.

Editor’s Pick

A group of figures stand and hold signs.

Photograph by Ariana Cubillos / AP

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Our Culture Picks

Read: Why are we so afraid of the reanimated dead, in the form of zombies, vampires, and other horrific creatures? One professor emeritus of medieval history and archeology has a theory.
Watch: If you start watching an episode per night of “Bridgerton,” it’ll tide you over until Season 4 is released. Will the show continue in its mission of counter-historical world-building?
Listen: Here’s hoping it feels like “June in January” to you.

Daily Cartoon

“O.K., I’ll put that on my calendar and we’ll just keep an eye on the weather and the fall of democracy.”

Cartoon by Teresa Burns Parkhurst

Puzzles & Games

Today’s Crossword Puzzle: martial-arts icon who starred in “Enter the Dragon”—eight letters.
Shuffalo: Can you make a longer word with each new letter?
Laugh Lines: Test your knowledge of classic New Yorker cartoons.

P.S. Black holes—the existence of which was first announced on this day in 1972—are even weirder than we could have imagined. 🌌

Hannah Jocelyn contributed to today’s edition.

RETRUI