Watching the devastating firestorms recently, ominous clouds rising over the hills, dense smoke from the Simi fire choking the highway, I was reminded of Malibu’s disastrous blaze just 10 years ago. Covering the fire as a news reporter, I was deeply affected by the strength and resilience of those whose homes were lost and how the community pulled together to support them. The following is a column written after 10 days on the story.
I awoke from the first deep night’s sleep in more than a week to the flapping of the patio umbrella. Bolt upright in a second; wind was the enemy. I shoved the window open, sniffed the air. It was cool, damp. The wind came from the sea, pushing away the remnants of a storm that had gently rinsed the ash from trees and pavement. God, it smelled good.
Overnight, nature’s palette had cooled; hot brown and orange had given way to slate and pewter. Soothing to the eye, healing to the spirit. A young hawk was perched in a tree just a few yards from my window, staring intently at a narrow band of lush green vinca and ivy separating my building from the street. Breakfast was hiding under the leaves, flushed from its blackened hillside burrows.
I went across the street for coffee and watched as people resumed their normal routines – drop off the cleaning, pick up some groceries, stop to admire the flowers. So normal, it seemed. But children were strangely quiet, holding tightly to mothers’ hands, their eyes had a haunted look.
Over and over the same scene was repeated: “Were you OK?” “Yes. It was a miracle. How about you?” “No, it’s all gone.” “Oh, God, I’m so sorry. How can I help?”
And hugs. Everywhere, lots of hugs.
Later, I walked over the hills at Bluffs Park. The view to the east and north was incredible. The Colony, Serra, the Knolls, Hughes, Pepperdine, clusters of gleaming white walls and bright red tiles. At every edge the trees were singed, slopes charred. I wished the thousands of heroic men and women who held back the flames could see the battlefield from that point, so they could see how many people were OK because they were brave and very good at what they do. Down in the Civic Center, where fire engines of every hue from towns we’d never heard of had mobilized, two green-and-white striped tents offered help and hope for those who were not OK – blueprints to reassemble the fragments of their lives. They were already talking of rebuilding at Big Rock, Las Flores, La Costa, where for the past week I had watched them sifting through the ashes of their dreams, searching and sometimes finding a sooty treasure, a wedding ring, a rosary.
“Life goes on,” they say. “We’ll put it back good as new, better even, fireproof. We wouldn’t live anywhere else.”
I marvel at their spirit, their strength.
“There’s always been fires and floods,” they say. “That’s Malibu. It’ll be just the same.”
When I was 18, we lost our family home in the only fire ever to consume a house in Beverly Hills. It was sheer irony that my parents moved to Malibu where we narrowly survived four wildfires. We mourned for the things we could not replace, but we healed and were stronger, I think. Scar tissue is tough.
The fire this time was surely the most devastating of all. Hundreds of chimneys stand like tombstones over the irreplaceable remains of people’s lives.
This time I was OK. But I’ll never be the same.