The drive along the coast from Point Mugu to Santa Monica is one of the most scenic and relaxing drives you can make anywhere in Southern California. It’s one I do as often as possible.

I’m heading down with a sense of dread, the product both of what I’ve witnessed on YouTube and what I’ll find once I reach the Pacific Palisades.

The Palisades Fire is just a day old and already has become one of the most costly and destructive fires in Los Angeles history. Later, firefighters would discover it is also one of the deadliest.

Just before I reach Pepperdine University and the turnoff to Malibu Canyon, the blackened hills begin. Continuing past the school and heading toward Topanga Canyon, I’m following fire scars — these from the Franklin Fire in December 2024.

Scorching just over 4,000 acres and burning 20 or so structures a month ago, it was a reasonably large and destructive fire. A month later the Palisades Fire would make the Franklin blaze seem modest by comparison.

Reflections on the Road

On the way down I have plenty of time to reflect on a number of things. 

As always at the top of the list is wondering what might have been done to avoid this fire, at this time, in the midst of one of the longest dry spells I can remember, and with little loss of homes and possibly lives.

Eight months with barely a drop of rain, temperatures that are a bit above normal and fuel moisture levels that are rapidly heading toward zero, the reality is that all that is needed is a Santa Ana wind and a spark.

I’m worried a bit that it will end up being viewed as a fire problem — one that will be solved by developing more water resources, adding personnel and equipment to put them out — rather than learning to live with it.

Though many will disagree, the Palisades Fire seems to confirm my feeling that no amount of water, fire crews or engine companies can put out a big wind-driven firestorm like this until the wind stops blowing.

Having seen the number of resources needed to put down a house fire in the Santa Barbara area, on big wind-driven fires like this one, I’m trying to work out in my mind the logistics of getting enough water to save even a few of the houses, especially when there may be 2,000 or more on fire, wires and telephone poles down and no way to provide air support.

Simply put, it will be retrofitting neighborhoods like those in the Palisades to survive through the worst of things until the winds die down.

I’m also starting to think in terms of healthy and unhealthy in “fire safe” terms — healthy being fire-hardened homes built to survive wildfire. Built a half century ago when the concept of a wildland urban interface (WUI) wasn’t a part of the vocabulary, most homes in the Pacific Palisades were built with materials inappropriate for a fire-prone environment.

I’m guessing this to be true, but given the number of houses I’m wondering how many became both the torch that set others on fire or the accelerant that burned hundreds more.

Another sad thought drifts in and out of my mind. Once this and other of the fires are out, will we be talking about how to rebuild them to be fire-resistant homes, neighborhoods and communities?

A Changing Climate?

One of the climatologists I like listening to is Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.

“We’re in the middle of what should be rainy season,” he says. “But instead the land is bone dry, likening the impact to taking an atmospheric blow dryer to vegetation when it should be replenishing itself through the wet season.”

In Santa Barbara things are no different: virtually no rain for the last seven to eight months, warmer-than-average temperatures and vegetation that’s becoming more and more capable of burning. Last summer the Lake Fire provided a graphic example of what conditions like this might look like.

We dodged a bullet then when the anticipated winds weren’t as strong as they might have been and there was plenty of open space between the oncoming fire and homes in the Santa Ynez Valley to allow for firing operations.

Had the winds been of the magnitude of those in the Pacific Palisades, the result might have been much different.

Incremental Impacts of Climate

In the big scale of things, as Swain noted in a talk with Neil deGrasse Tyson on Tyson’s StarTalk podcast titled “Why Are the LA Wildfires So Extreme?” Swain suggests that our basic understanding of how climate in a Mediterranean type environment may need to be rethought and how we respond to it.

From Swain’s point of view the issue is not exactly climate change (which everyone on the right considers nonsense) but climate shift — meaning incremental changes in temperatures that may be the cause of the extended droughts we are now experiencing. 

What I interpret this to mean is we may be looking at conditions that could severely test us including: longer periods of drought; lower fuel moisture levels; higher levels of wildfire probability stretched over more and more months of the year; and a shift in the capability of fire to burn further and further into the winter months.

And by extension, into times of the year when there may be more opportunities for extreme wind conditions to impact fire behavior and the rate of spread.

The worst of these wicked winds are the “Santa Anas” — devil winds that can reach hurricane-force levels ranging northward to Ventura and south into Orange County. A close cousin are those we have in Santa Barbara, the more localized Sundowner winds that race over the Santa Ynez Mountain crest and down through the front country canyons.

Both can turn a fire that would otherwise be easy to contain to one that is a monstrous beast. All that is needed at this point is a spark. As Swain has noted, “There is no shortage of potential sparks in an area with millions of people living in it.”

Twisted Metal and Near Total Devastation

As I get closer to the Pacific Palisades I’m also thinking back to another fire that I covered a few years ago, the 2018 Woolsey Fire. Burning through nearly 100,000 acres of the coastline, destroying 1,600 homes and killing three people, it’s a reminder that the Malibu coast is a dangerous place to live.

It’s been six years, but the memories are still fresh. Sitting on a berm between Malibu High School and an equestrian area, I watched as the fire burst out of Malibu Canyon and headed directly toward me, a thousand-foot wall of smoke and flame.

I’ve never witnessed anything so powerful or frightening. I haven’t had time to check, but I’m wondering if the community here has done what is necessary to minimize the damage and heartbreak when the next wildfire comes.

Understanding the Scale of this One

Heading south past Malibu Canyon on my way to the Palisades all seems relatively normal other than the fire trucks and other equipment streaming by. A few miles further I reach the Malibu Pier and fond memories of the days surfing at the points, battling the local surfers who had no use for us outsiders.

It’s at this point things change.

A week ago the drive on Highway 1 from the Pier to Sunset would follow a long row of beachfront homes for miles, built decades ago on the cliff’s edge. There’s barely a glimpse of the ocean, the views mostly closed off by the beachfront properties. 

Just ahead, I spot firefighters dousing the remaining handful of houses that hadn’t burned completely last night — most of them charred timbers, collapsing roofs and barely standing walls that will need to be rebuilt.

Then came the horrible sight of the worst of the damage: iron silhouettes of massive i-beams; metal staircases; and the skeletons of dozens and dozens of destroyed beachside homes.

Along with the sheer amount of destruction, it’s almost impossible to understand the forces at play during the first night of the Palisades Fire or the sheer terror it created.

If the type of climate shift Swain describes is at play here and not just a one-year anomaly, how we deal with fire in a Southern California environment will need to be re-thought.

The New Normal?

It will also be interesting to see how a shifting climate might alter how chaparral responds to it. When the lack of rain stretches into late November, December or January, I’m told the chaparral undergoes serious stress. Prolong that stress and the plants may go into a type of hibernation of sorts or die off.

The question I’m asking myself is whether the type of sustained drought we’ve seen this year is an anomaly or the beginning of the type of shift Swain is describing.

Could the new normal be as simple as a weather regime that favors longer periods of drought like we are experiencing now? An extension of the dry season longer into the winter as is the case this year? A shift to periods of wet weather that causes a buildup of fuel and extended drought that turns it into ready-made fuel?

I’m wondering if the December 2017 Thomas Fire was a signal of that or worse — destructive fires followed by more intensely destructive rain events like that which killed 23 in the 2018 Montecito Debris Flow.

We’ve now had three major wildfire events over the past three months. The Mountain Fire in early November 2024, which destroyed 243 structures in hurricane-like fire conditions; and the Palisades and Eaton Canyon fires just over two months later with losses of homes in the 10,000-15,000 thousands and several dozen killed.

Something seems to be changing.

Neighborhoods Not Homes 

An hour later, after a long walk along the burnt-out beachside to absorb the impact of what I’m seeing, I head on down to Sunset Boulevard and turn left onto it. On a normal day the winding roadway is like a corridor of rich vegetation and expansive tree canopy that leads directly up to Palisades Village.

Nothing can prepare me for what’s ahead. The immediate view is of dozens of burnt-out hulks of cars abandoned on the side of the road when blocked by fire activity below them.

As I continue up Sunset I’m blown away. Huge mansions are on fire; others are smoldering, a few are still intact. Others are in various stages of destruction. A mile further up the road, the Village area is like a war zone. 

Beyond here are the neighborhoods, constructed on a mesa top-like flatlands. A half-mile or so wide and perhaps a mile long south to the point where the homes overlook the Pacific. I follow Via de la Paz south into the neighborhoods, along a number of side streets, and then head back to the Village. Dozens of TV reporters, camera crews and others are gathered around the burnt-out remains of Casa Nostra Trattoria.

The entire block appears to have been destroyed by the fire.

Nothing could have prepared me for the drive through the neighborhoods. Home after home gone, power lines twisting in the wind, an eerie silence broken here and there by the sounds of metal and wood settling.

A little more exploring led me into other parts of the Palisades, the North and surrounding villages — hundreds and hundreds more. Later I learned that as many as 15,000 structures had been lost. I am finally beginning to comprehend how difficult it is to understand the scale of destruction or the elemental forces that are at play unless you witness it firsthand.

With the Palisades Fire we are talking not just about homes lost but entire neighborhood blocks and the vibrant communities who inhabited them. Rebuilding homes is easy. Rebuilding a community that hopefully will be able to survive the next one, not so easy.

Assigning Blame

There’s this fascination with assigning blame: first figuring out where the fire started, getting an almost immediate impression about what went wrong and then assigning the blame.

I’ve come to the conclusion that this masks other things far more important to discuss. One of these things I think is that many don’t really understand what living in an intrinsically flammable Mediterranean climate really involves or what is needed to protect themselves from it.

It’s much easier to assign blame than to acknowledge that communities like those in the Pacific Palisades are intrinsically incompatible with living in an environment designed to burn unless there is a serious commitment to retrofitting them to survive a fire.

Hillsides Burning

On my way down the hill I stop by one last part of the Palisades community that is still on fire. Haverford Avenue is located along the east side of Temescal Canyon and immediately below the homes that have burned in the upper Village area. The flames are intense, and over the next half hour I watch as the balconies, the chimneys and homes turn into a charred wasteland.

Across Temescal high up on the west side of the canyon is Erskine Drive, a short three-block street sitting near the edge of the canyon. Judging by the burn scars and what looks like a long row of burned homes on the top of the cliffs, it appears this part of the Village is gone as well.

From my own experiences and talking with others who’ve been covering fires over the years, the consensus is that this was a fire well beyond the scope or capacity of the fire resources on the ground.

The question then is not how we rebuild but in how we do it in a way that future homeowners don’t experience a fire like this a generation or two in the future.

Born to Burn

Just off the edge of Erskine Drive is the home Bryan Conant, executive director of the Los Padres Forest Association, grew up in.

Bryan’s asked me to check on the home to see what is left or hopefully learn that it has survived. The route up to his house is up Temescal to Sunset, making a left on it, then another left onto El Medio Avenue past the charter high school, which is a smoldering mess to Erskine.

There is tape across the three access points down to Erskine, which tells me I’m going to find a lot of burned homes. I get out of the van and work my way down to Erskine and then following the street markers up to 547. There’s a chimney left and not much more.

I email Bryan. “The only good news I could come up with,” I say, “is that you no longer live in the house at 547 Erskine that burned.” Then I share the photos. Looking on Google Maps I find an image of the house before it burned. 

The current owners must be heartbroken.

Thinking Outside the Box

The house at 547 Erskine is like thousands of others in the Palisades and neighborhoods like yours or mine. It’s a good 2 air miles from it to the edge of the chaparral and foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains down to it.

Enough distance to be considered well outside what we call the wildland-urban interface. Enough distance not to worry about hardening it against a wildfire. It’s the kind of location that never in your mind you would worry about the likelihood your house would burn in a wildfire.

But like hundreds of others in the Palisades, it’s a house that is born to burn.

The carport is wide open and the veranda the perfect place for an evening hangout — both extremely susceptible to fire and embers. The eves overhang, and I suspect the vents are totally exposed to an ember storm. The roof appears to be wood shingle and the outside walls of the house shiplap type siding.

It’s a neighborhood with the houses close enough together to create what looks like a well-knitted fabric, with a tapestry of canopy and shrubbery suggestive of the developments that sprouted up in the 60s, 70s and 80s with little thought to building either the neighborhood or homes to be fire resilient.

There are dozens of homes like this throughout the Palisades — or were — many with similar type construction, what one might describe as being “fire ready.” When the firestorm reaches them, the houses begin to burn and quickly they become the torch that burns the next and the next.

From the top of the Summit to the cliffs overlooking the Pacific. There is no engine company, no number of engines or crews or water supplies at hand that will save them.

Rebuilding here won’t just be about the homes but making the neighborhood blocks fire safe as well.

Homeward Bound

On the way down Sunset to the coast, I turn off on Marquez Avenue and follow it for one last glimpse of the area. A few blocks up I drive by a school whose playground looks untouched, but the school is in ruins. At the upper end is the entry way in to Marquez Charter School.

The front has a beautifully designed mural that has survived intact. I share that picture with Bryan. He tells me it was his class that built the mural, with each of the students being given a single tile to glue onto the wall.

It’s something to hold onto and a touching way to leave the Palisades and head home. Along the coast the sun is setting, the twisted metal structures along the ocean’s edge like sculptures designed to make a statement.

One thing I’m left with is the thought that we’re going to have to come to a better understanding of how we in Southern California can adapt to life in a changing climate, a warming world and fire-adapted vegetation.

Or the next and the next and the next wildfire may be even worse.