I awoke at 5 a.m. on Jan. 8 from the stench of smoke in my room. I looked around at my small apartment and realized 10 minutes was all I needed to grab everything important: my laptop, passport, notebooks, favorite artwork and hard drives holding footage from films I’ve made. I stuffed it into paper Trader Joe’s bags, loaded my car and was on my way.
Although I wasn’t in an evacuation zone, I do live in the foothills of Elysian Park. My family’s near-miss experience evacuating from the Creek fire in 2020, in the Sierra, taught me not to take my chances. My white car was coated in a layer of black soot, and white ash fell onto my windshield as I pulled out of my driveway.
For several days I stayed with friends, a couple from a mandatory evacuation zone, and their two dogs, in a pet-friendly hotel 90 minutes south. I sat in the lobby working each morning, watching family after family arrive with their dogs and cats, and — just like me — paper bags full of items.
The hotel staff was extremely kind to the evacuees. One afternoon, two little girls swam in the small pool while their dad sat at a metal picnic table nearby, alternating calls between friends and insurance. A hotel employee told them they might want to get out of the pool — ash had been falling even there: black snowflakes floating on a surface of chlorinated blue. The reflection of a palm tree wavered in the water. Above us all, almost shockingly, the sky was brilliant and clear. Very SoCal.
It has been unbearably frustrating to watch the response to these fires. Not from the firefighters, who are heroically conquering the impossible, nor from L.A.’s (currently heavily criticized) government, but from friends and acquaintances who seem unable to see the full picture.
Part of being a Californian — whether you were born here or are a transplant — should be taking the time to understand fire. The number of Instagram stories oversimplifying the recipe to this disaster — blaming only the mayor, or only climate change — makes my head spin.
I want Angelenos to understand that this is just the latest of many, many fires. Through my own research since the Creek fire, and from talking with firefighters and cultural-fire practitioners, I’ve learned that California’s century-long practice of fire suppression has contributed to these catastrophes. Climate change exacerbates fire, local unpreparedness doesn’t help, but I want Angelenos to understand that it’s not as simple as pointing fingers.
We are simply not taking care of our land correctly.
As I checked out of the hotel, two evacuee families were in line in front of me. One carried a meowing cat in a crate. The other held two designer dogs tightly on leash. Neither had many belongings. Our priorities are so close to being right — we don’t prioritize possessions, we prioritize lives.
If we could only expand that focus to the land that holds us, our home, California.
Abby Royce Neuschatz, a former Netflix executive, is at work on a documentary about an Indigenous woman who works as a cultural fire practitioner with Cal Fire and for her tribe.
