Where Were You On Jan. 7?

I will never forget the moment on that day when I heard bulldozers were pushing cars off Pacific Coast Highway into the beach to create access for firefighting crews. That morning when I drove into work there were reports of fires, nothing too out of the ordinary in Southern California. But then later that afternoon at the LA Clean Technology Incubator our meeting was interrupted with fire news.

Thankfully, my family and I were staying in a rental house in Highland Park while remodeling our house but my parents and those of my wife live in the evacuation zone in La Crescenta. 

That night and the next day was a flurry of activity, both personally and professionally. One of my good friends from college lives on Eaton Canyon and, by a miracle, his house still stands.

Those hurricane force windstorms compounded extremely dry conditions. According to the New York Times report on Jan. 7: “The National Weather Service gauge in downtown Los Angeles, a good indicator for rainfall in Southern California, has recorded only 0.29 inches of rain since May 1, 2024. This is the second-least amount of rain ever measured in this roughly eight-month time period, with records going back to 1877.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/07/us/california-wildfires-dry-winter.html

The winds by themselves left quite the wreckage. I remember going over to Altadena with a colleague to volunteer to help clean up the streets. There were so many people volunteering that organizers ran out of hand tools. That didn’t deter the committed crowd, however, and we picked up fallen branches with our hands.

I found deep inspiration in that community resilience and the heroic response of so many. For example, a former boss went well above the call of duty for an executive manager and personally drove supplies in the middle of the night to provide much-needed mutual aid for local water agencies.

Edgar McGregor, an Altadena resident and trusted community meteorologist, provided an early evacuation warning that helped save hundreds of lives and earned him a congressional commendation. Sadly such civic-minded spirit was not universally forthcoming.

Growing up, I never would have imagined that political leaders of any persuasion would play the “blame game” while blazes still burned. Yes, serious work needs to be done to reform our tangled bureaucratic governmental systems that too often trip over each other. But talk about bad timing when firefighters’ lives were still in danger!

Jan. 7 should be a wake-up call. If an unfriendly foreign power had imposed that level of destruction on our neighbors we would rightly view that as an act of war. CV Town Council is hosting a Wildfire Emergency Preparedness Fair on Saturday, Sept. 27 from 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. at Two Strike Park, 5107 Rosemont Ave. I look forward to learning how to prepare for emergency wildfires and how the community can be ready for when, not if, the next fire comes. I understand from friends in Altadena that robust ember guards for the eaves of a house are absolutely critical. They also mentioned they wished they had a recent video walkthrough of their home for insurance purposes.

There are also important ongoing conversations on how the various public land management agencies, fire districts and utilities prepare for future events. Many reforms deserve increased urgency given the reality of increased fire risk in the coming years and decades. We need to operate on a wartime rather than peacetime footing.

These hills have burned for millennia and it’s a matter of when, not if, they will burn again. Too much red tape stands in the way of preventive burns. It’s common sense to let the hills burn intentionally before a major rain rather than react to a spark during a historic wind event.

I have a young toddler and sometimes meander around town driving while she naps in the car. Being a bit of a worry wort, I’ve taken to scouting the perimeter of where La Crescenta’s houses abut the sagebrush. It’s astounding how few houses have stayed up-to-date on best practices for brush clearance!

The example of Altadena shows how much we count on each other. When fire gets into one house, it can more easily leap to another. We as a community need to step up our game and treat Jan. 7 as a wake-up call. If not, the Eaton and Palisades fires will not for long continue to be the most devastating fires in LA County history.

Let’s have a strong turnout for the town council event on Sept. 27 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Two Strike Park.

Patrick’s a husband, father, son, brother, avid cyclist, fervent reader, enjoyer of adventures, lover of board games and the author of A New California Dream. He writes for CV Weekly in his personal capacity.