For Los Angeles

The wildfires in Southern California will go down as the most expensive natural disaster in the state’s history. Combined, the Palisades, Eaton, Hurst and Auto fires, have burned more than 40,000 acres, taking some 12,000 structures, including the home of Will Rogers and Palisades High School, which has served as the model for all-American high schools in films from Carrie to the Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell comedy, Old School.

Current estimates hold that the Palisades fire alone could cost $250 billion. That’s roughly equal to the GDP of New Zealand.

For anyone who has spent time on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, the idea that fire could sweep down out of the canyons and blow across PCH to raze a seemingly endless stream of architectural marvels is difficult to believe. Were it not for video and photographs, the concept would be as laughable as a flat earth. Except, this truly happened.

I lived in LA for 19 years, residing for most of that time in Redondo Beach, from which my friends and I would ride most Sundays to Malibu where we would attack each other up the canyon roads. I’ve ridden PCH more than 1,000 times, had entire stretches memorized down to the location of bots dots and storm drains. Watching video a friend shot driving west on PCH as fires continued to smolder, I recognized nothing.

And now the Hughes fire burns mere miles from my former home in Valencia. I used to do hill repeats on Lake Hughes Road, the road the fire surrounds.

Scores of friends have been forced to evacuate; several, including my friend and colleague Zap Espinoza, have lost their homes. One friend down there shared that 85 of his friends have lost their homes. This knowledge cuts me.

In 2017, the Tubbs and Nuns fires burned more than 90,000 acres across Sonoma, Napa, Lake and Mendocino Counties, destroying more than 6,000 structures and 5 percent of Santa Rosa’s residences. After the fires were extinguished, photographer Roman Cho and I interviewed a number of local cyclists, documenting their experiences in a feature for Bicycling Magazine titled “Ash Was Falling Like Snow.”

I was simultaneously collecting used cycling clothing from readers and distributing it to friends and friends of friends who had lost their homes. For many of us, bike rides provided the only relief from the tragedy unfolding around us.

What I can tell you about life following a disaster of the magnitude Los Angeles is experiencing is that life unfolds at half speed. Everything seems to take longer than it should, from driving across town to waiting for that call from the insurance adjuster. Coffee shops become overrun with lingering customers who need the wifi due to the lack of cell phone towers. People are both more and less patient. A simple act of generosity like holding the door for someone can bring tears—for both people—while a grocery store running out Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough can cause a meltdown.

I can tell you that survivor’s guilt is real. That I often felt like I didn’t deserve to grieve—all I’d lost was the food in my fridge. But grieve I did. It hurt to see so many others hurt.

As I distributed clothing to riders, they would tell me their story. The sound of the wind at bedtime. When they woke. The smell. The light flickering in their window. The frantic rush to evacuate, sometimes with prized possessions, sometimes barefoot. I recall the evening a friend of a friend came by. She was petite and I worried whether I’d have anything that would fit her. As she sifted through a bin, she discovered the exact Castelli winter jacket she’d lost in the fire—same model, size and color. She held it up, clasped it to her chest and burst into tears. I did, too.

In 2023 I read Stephen Markley’s novel “The Deluge.” It is a sweeping epic of a tale that unfolds over decades, spinning out a climate change scenario that neither undersells nor oversells our peril. The novel is notable also for achingly lyrical prose that at times stopped my breath. It’s the work of a writer freaking out that we are not freaking out about climate change. It’s one for the ages.

With a cinematic sweep he constructs a scene in which Los Angeles burns. He paints a disaster the likes of which Hollywood would struggle to depict. I did not hesitate to follow him on the odyssey in which palms burst into flames and propane tanks shoot across neighborhoods. No, it was all easy to believe. If he can be faulted for getting anything wrong, it’s that such a scene might not be as far in the future as he projects, but that’s not his doing; we’re learning that the accelerating pace of climate change is outstripping the estimates made by the best minds on our planet.

To my friends in LA: I’m sorry. I know your sense of loss, the fear, the unmoored sense of experiencing the impossible. I’m sorry to know you’ve felt so many of the things I experienced in 2017. I know how looking at an unrecognizable pile of ash can force you to weep.

I can offer no words of wisdom. I have no strength to share. You don’t need me to register that going for a ride is the best medicine possible. I will confirm that as a capable adult, it can be difficult to accept help, but for those of you who have suffered losses, we who reach out want to show our care, our love, want to demonstrate that we lived it even if we have not lost what you did. Say yes to help. It heals everyone involved.

Image: Ashok Boghani

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