California Today: The 24 Hours When L.A. Went Up in Flames

Today's top stories from California.

January 18, 2025, 9:30 a.m. Eastern time By Emily Baumgaertner At the very moment a fiery blaze tore over a ridge in Pacific Palisades, threatening houses, my husband and I were six miles southeast, wide-eyed in the entryway of a home we hoped would become our first. It was a Tuesday morning — a wholly inconvenient time to attend an open house — but my husband saw it enter the market and had a good feeling about this one. We had each been saving aggressively for over a decade for our starter condo and had become the kind of couple who bickered over whether to splurge on an heirloom tomato. The down payment for a fixer-upper was coming together, and this one was ours, we could feel it. I spent that evening and much of the next 10 days on assignment in the fire zone, whipped with ash by the Santa Ana winds as I spoke with families whose homes had burned. My husband packed a go bag for us as the evacuation order came within blocks of our apartment — all while quietly waiting to hear back on our offer. The guilt of pursuing a home weighed on us. That modest little condo is — for us, at least — gone, not because of the flames but because of 14 competing offers that had landed by the weekend in the wake of the disaster, an unprecedented new market, even for L.A. We have not yet given ourselves permission to feel disappointed; it seems absurd to desire a home when so many families have lost much more than just dreams of one. These fires will bring new consequences for our unaffordable city, for those whose homes were destroyed and for those, like us, trying to find a square foot to call our own. Still, I was struck by the words of a mother I met in the fire zone as she sifted through memories of her Palisades house. "After this experience," she told me, home was redefined. "You can build that little nest anywhere." Today's Top Story By The New York Times The 24 Hours When L.A. Went Up in Flames Poor planning, delayed evacuations, strained resources and treacherous conditions allowed firestorms to overrun a region that thought it knew how to fight wildfires. Read more More California News The Terrifying Ride of Copter 17 A former Army pilot. An aging helicopter. Furious winds. The race to put out the Eaton fire tested Los Angeles County's night-flying firefighters like never before. How Wildfires Came for City Streets Many Californians thought wildfires couldn't reach deep into their cities. But the Los Angeles fires showed how older homes became fuel that fed the fires. In a Fire's Ruins, Signs of a Previous Loss Leave a Family With Seeds of Hope The Carrs have made their life's work honoring the dreams of their precocious son, who died suddenly at 16. They rescued some mementos and others survived when their Altadena home burned to the ground. Former Oakland Mayor Is Indicted on Federal Corruption Charges Sheng Thao, who was recalled by voters in the California city in November, said last year that she had done nothing wrong. She pleaded not guilty to the charges on Friday. Fire Breaks Out at a Huge Battery Site in California The fire at the Moss Landing plant, which stores electricity for the power grid, was unrelated to wildfires in Los Angeles. 'La Migra!' A Glimpse of Trump's Promised Deportation Storm Sweeps by Border Patrol agents in California have stoked fears among undocumented migrant workers on the eve of Donald J. Trump's presidential inauguration. Los Angeles Fire Chief Faces Calls for Resignation As a disastrous fire continues to burn on the city's west side, some are calling Chief Kristin Crowley to account: Why wasn't the city better prepared? L.A. Fires Revive Calls for a 'Climate Superfund' Law in California New York and Vermont recently passed laws like these, which require energy companies to pay climate damages and will likely face fierce challenges. Local Conditions Look up the heat index in your area using The Times's heat tracker. See active fires using The Times's wildfire tracker. Today's Recipe Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Chana Masala  By Zainab Shah 40 minutes Makes 4 servings  Play a Game The Mini Crossword Solve this bite-sized puzzle in just a few minutes. Spelling Bee How many words can you make with 7 letters? Wordle Guess the 5-letter word with 6 chances. See all our games Sign up for Your Places: Extreme Weather. Get notified about extreme weather before it happens with custom alerts for places in the U.S. you choose. Get it in your inbox Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. 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