Erika's Fire Story

Today marks the six month anniversary of Palisades and Eaton fires. I feel behooved to mark it here on Girl of the Burning West, a Subsck I started in April and have barely posted on since. I apologize to my subscribers. The fact is… you see…it turns out that it hurts to think and write about the fire. Every time I try to touch that topic, it feels too hot, too big, too complicated, too scary.

There is a rich vein of story inside of those two fires that my writing brain thinks is fascinating. But it lies beneath a crust of PTSD and sadness that I dare not pierce.Mostly, my brain is more interested in dopamine than it is in the hard work of powerful storytelling. I don’t want to write about the fire that stole my home and my community — I want to smoke weed and watch TikToks. I want to go to the thrift. I want to sleep.

I think I speak for most Altadenans when I say that six months after the fire I AM NOT DOING WELL. I am heartbroken, terrified of my own vulnerability, seething with anger, uprooted, afraid of the future, haunted by the past and fairly dazed and confused most of the time.

But, it’s the six month anniversary and so I have gotten my chicken butt in gear to post something because I want to keep this ‘stack going, I want my version of this awful story on the internet so it can be part of the permanent record of what happened that night in Altadena, in the neighborhood west of Lake.

Mostly I am telling this story because it’s the one everyone keeps asking to hear.

It happens that my fire story is extra-weird, layered with cosmic coincidence, bad decisions, and moments of sheer absurdity. But telling it in one go would take thousands of words and that’s too much for me and probably you, too. So I’m going to chunk the story into little pieces and time stamp them. It may take a few days for me to unspool the whole thing, so I hope you will be patient and follow along.

I am awakened by the rattle of something against my windows. It’s that shrieking, itchy bitch Santa Ana, back in town and clawing at the glass, screaming to get in.

We had been dreading her arrival for days.

On January 6th I received an email from my water/climate/gardening pal Emily Green, who had left Altadena for Baltimore a few years ago, but still kept a close eye on us.

This storm is next level and the winds not only ferocious but wildly erratic. Utilities will probably do rolling blackouts to manage fire risk. Stay away from windows — if there’s one thing that flies like a kite in windstorms, it’s plastic garden furniture.

Emily had been living in Altadena during the Great Windstorm of 2011. She described it as:

The most terrifying 24 hours I’ve ever spent, outside of a turbulent airplane, was on Fair Oaks during that 2011 windstorm, when the equivalent of a Christmas tree lot came down on the house from the surrounding Deodar [pines]. We didn’t get power back for a week.

I was living in the flatlands of mid-west LA ion 2011 when that wind swept in on November 30th and raged across L.A. for a hair-raising 24 hours. It knocked down power lines, tore the roofs off of houses and yanked trees out of the ground. I didn’t see any flying garden furniture, but it did pick up a neighbor’s patio umbrella and neatly delivered it to our back yard.

I wrote Emily back:

Thanks for the warning. I remember that insane windstorm. It was scary even in mid-city. I will follow your advice.
I'm more stressed out by the lack of precipitation. So tell me "Chance of Rain", is there ANY chance of rain??

2024 had started off wet, but then the taps turned off at the end of April. It had been a long hot summer, fall and winter. My garden and everything around it was dry as a fart.

Not soon. Emily wrote back. But also heavily water your garden. This is going to be an extremely desiccating event. Very very serious. Lock in that beautiful cat too. xxxxxE

When the former LA Times garden reporter tells you to water your garden, you get your dessicated ass outside and water your garden. I spent close to two hours that Monday hand-watering our 1/4 acre lot. I watered the natives I had planted that fall and the tiny Sedum I had tucked into my borders with a child’s trowel. I watered the mulch that we had spread all over our entire lot. I watered and watered until the wind began blowing the spray back into my face.

A tsunami of wind passed over the dark house, making it shudder. A pot blew over and shattered on the patio outside my bedroom window, and I sat up in bed, my heart flopping with fear. Could our house actually blow away? No, of course not.

I calmed myself by reviewing all we had done to prepare for this event: We had put away our garden furniture. We had filled our ice chests and charged up our Jackery. We had gassed up both of our cars and we had enough water, and earthquake food to feed us through Easter.

We were going to be just fine. This was actually kind of exciting! Maybe the big windstorm of 2025 would end up being a good story to tell.

I flipped my pillow over to the cool side and went back to sleep.