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

Today's top stories from California.

January 19, 2025, 9:30 a.m. Eastern time By Somini Sengupta Often when you're visiting Los Angeles, you walk up the 282 steps to the Baldwin Hills scenic overlook. You pass the sagebrush and the primrose. The high rises of downtown come into view. Then, as you stand under a live oak and take a swig of water, you notice the oil wells, those nodding donkeys pumping grease out of the ground, symbols of the oil-hungry economy that birthed this sprawling city and now makes it more flammable. You don't dwell on the oil wells. You know they're there. They've always been there. You focus your gaze elsewhere. The Santa Monica mountains reveal their crowns as the marine layer lifts. You see a flash of the Pacific. You are distracted by a monarch butterfly. This seeing and not seeing — this knowing and not knowing — for me, is the essence of inhabiting Los Angeles. You believe in its golden story, or else how could you possibly live here? Perhaps this is also key to rebounding from this latest calamity. I am a child of Los Angeles. I've run away from it. I've come running back to it. My family refuses to leave Los Angeles, which makes it forever a part of me. It's not like we don't know the hazards. The road rage, the heat rising from the pavement, the insane housing prices, the strung-out kids on the Metro, the tents of misery that you drive past when you drop your kid at school. It's not like we don't understand that if a hillside is on fire, there's only one skinny, winding road that leads to safety. My friend bought a house on one of these hillsides, in Hollywood, in 2022. Last week, she evacuated. She is well aware of how climate change is supersizing fires. She didn't think it would be so fierce, so fast. "This is happening a lot sooner than I ever thought," she texted. "tho I know you had an inkling." I didn't really. I had been afraid for her. Los Angeles is no stranger to ash and wind. The fires of 1961 destroyed Bel Air; Zsa Zsa Gabor surveyed the ruins of her home in a fur coat. Watts burned in 1965. More of Los Angeles burned in 1992, after the televised beating of Rodney King. The Santa Ana winds fanned the Woolsey fire in 2018, which torched a swath of Ventura. In its wake, the "Ventura strong" yard signs went up, as though any of us have dominion over fire, particularly those living in a dry woodland. You'll hear a lot of bromides about resilience in the coming days. Every great city prides its ability to rebound after ruin. Mumbai after the 2006 terror attacks. New York after Sandy. Paris after the fire at Notre Dame. And every great city dips into its own story in order to rebound. In the case of Los Angeles that includes a considerable amount of scenic overlooking. The fire this time, though, is likely to force a reckoning over what lessons we should learn from the past about living in a hotter, drier, more incendiary city. Even if the homeowners of Pacific Palisades want to rebuild, should they, so close to the fire-prone wildlands? Should you build homes with only a single solitary road to access them? What should we do about trees that shade homes in hot summers but become tinder in fire season? Scientists who study resilience in nature say the memory of one trauma helps build fortitude against the next trauma. Certain species of corals are able to withstand bleaching after they've experienced one or two bleaching events in their lifetime, a recent study found. Maize that suffered drought in early life is better equipped to handle it later. Living creatures carry memory. What matters is what we do with it. Psychologists say humans who rebound after catastrophes share certain habits of mind. One of them is optimism. Not a delusional optimism, but an ability to focus on problems that can be solved. Los Angeles will have to focus on the problems it can solve in order to save itself. The scenic overlook has its limits. We who carry Los Angeles inside us know that our survival on a hotter planet requires overlooking the hazards sometimes and staring hard at the delights. This is how Los Angeles beguiles us and sustains us. The delights. The cherimoyas in December. The tube-light taco stands along Centinela. The yucca blossoms that will shoot up on the Santa Monica mountains in April, as though to say, "Look at me, look at me." And you will turn your gaze away from the burn scars on the hills. 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 Armando Rafael for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Cyd Raftus McDowell. Cantonese-Style Steamed Fish By J. 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