Dramatic wildfires are a staple of Southern California, but until this year few had caused significant damage in heavily urbanized areas.

So when January’s massive fires erupted in Altadena and Pacific Palisades, a complacency bred from that familiarity proved fatal.

“We had a false sense of confidence,” said John Dale, whose family rented a home on Via de la Paz in the heart of Pacific Palisades.

Dale recalled initially dismissing the Palisades Fire threat like everyone else.

“We’d seen fires before,” he noted. “Just weeks earlier at Pepperdine, people were watching from the library as flames came close, but firefighters stopped it.

“Every time, it seemed like they had it under control. Even a friend of mine who’s a firefighter showed me his app with live data, and it looked manageable.”

The wildfire was reported at 10:30 a.m. Jan. 7 along Temescal Ridge in the hills above the Palisades, and by noon, smoke was visible from Dale’s house.

That confidence, he added, was widely shared.

“Every single one of my friends reassured their kids, saying that the fire would have to go through 2,000 homes before reaching ours,” he said. “Everybody had that same sentiment.”

When the evacuation order came at around 3 p.m., the mood shifted instantly.

“We were shocked,” Dale recalled. “People started getting out of there quickly, but until that moment, none of us thought it would come to this.”

Even then, many underestimated what they were leaving behind.

“We packed memory boxes, thinking it would be enough, not realizing we should have taken much more,” Dale said. “I left my truck behind, and it burned.”

That same sense of disbelief carried over to the Ammer family, who had lived in the Palisades since 2015.

Annie Ammer, a high school senior, was home alone and woke up to dozens of missed calls from her mother, urging her to evacuate.

“I could hear everyone outside — the horns honking and the fire trucks blaring past,” she remembered. “And it was honestly just terrifying.

“But part of me still thought, ‘This isn’t the first time. A ton of fires would happen near the Highlands.’”

Like many, Ammer struggled to decide what to take. Amid the chaos and her mother’s instructions over the phone, she grabbed only the basics: documents from the family safe and a few personal items.

“I honestly left with just what I was wearing,” she said. “I didn’t take clothes, medicine, or even know if I’d packed our passports.”

The weight of the loss really hit when she learned that their house had burned down.

“I kept thinking, could I have grabbed more?” she said. “Could I have saved more of our things? But there just wasn’t time.”

Her brother, Geoff, agreed.

“You get used to it,” he said. “You think, ‘They’ll get it under control,’ until they don’t.”

Julie Florentin, eight months pregnant at the time, remembered watching the fire from her backyard before evacuating.

“It looked far away,” she said. “I thought we had time. We always think we have time.”

However, the fire spread faster than anyone expected, driven by extreme santa ana winds.

“People were trying to drive out, but the roads were jammed,” Dale said. “We saw footage of the Highlands — cars being bulldozed because they were abandoned.”

For 16-year-old Noa Ephraim, the fire felt nothing like what she expected.

“I grew up hearing about fire drills, watching coverage on TV,” she explained. “You think you know what to do — until you actually have to do it. Then everything collapses.”

Florentin shared the same sense of disbelief, saying, “I saw the smoke from my window, and then suddenly my neighborhood was gone. You don’t realize how fast it moves until you’ve lived it.”

The illusion of preparedness can be a dangerous misconception. Every Californian grows up watching wildfires on TV, participating in fire drills and receiving emergency alerts.

Dale admitted that he watched water-dropping aircraft that morning and thought, “They’ve got it.”

“We were confident,” he said. “Every other time, they’d put it out.”

But they didn’t. Twelve people were killed and more than 6,800 structures — including residences and businesses — were destroyed in the 23,400-acre fire.

A 29-year-old Florida man and former Palisades resident has been charged with starting a New Year’s Day fire that became the deadly Palisades Fire Jan. 7.

A 29-year-old Florida man and former Pacific Palisades resident has been charged with intentionally starting a Jan. 1 fire in Topanga State Park. Authorities say that fire smoldered for days in dense root structure before it was fanned to life by the Jan. 7 windstorm.

This story is a warning about how familiarity can lead to avoidable dangers.

“You can’t fight a 100-mph wind,” Geoff Ammer said. “But you can prepare better than we did.”

His words echo for anyone living in the coastal hills of Santa Barbara County, where the chaparral burns fast.

After the 2017 Thomas Fire, officials urged residents to “harden” their homes by clearing nearby vegetation, using flame-resistant materials and planning evacuation routes.

Yet years later, many families admit they would still hesitate to leave until they “see the flames.”

Ephraim put it best: “You don’t think it’ll happen to you, until it does. And by then, you’ve already lost too much.”

As Santa Barbara County’s wildfire threats continue, it’s worth remembering that comfort can be combustible.

The next blaze won’t wait for us to believe it’s real.