Jan. 31, 2025 – three weeks and four days after the Palisades and Eaton Canyon fires started.
As I sit on the couch, watching tennis from Australia, my mind keeps wandering back to what happened around three weeks ago. We’re starting to feel normal now but images on Facebook, Instagram and other social media surface; new videos, testimonials, eyewitness day-of accounts as well as unbelievable drone footage of the utter devastation that took place beginning January 7. Here’s my account of what happened to us:
Monday Jan 6
Make plans with friend Maggie to take the dogs to the beach the next morning in Malibu.
Tuesday Jan 7
A neighborhood chat on Whatsapp catches my eye about a vegetation fire picked up on Pulsepoint (app). I look on Pulsepoint. There’s a fire icon somewhere around where Topanga Canyon Blvd. meets PCH but also in the northwest corner of Pacific Palisades, near a border of dry, open parkland, an area where in the early hours of January 1, partiers set off firecrackers, igniting an eight-acre blaze the fire department quickly put out. There was no wind that morning.
This new fire, no one was chatting about it, yet. Then, sirens. I text Maggie. “Maybe not a good day to go to the beach.” (Route to beach is just north of the Palisades. When a wildfire breaks out, roads close, almost immediately. Police and FD are quick to shut things down).
We make a plan to hike in Topanga at Summit to Summit. On the trail, which is on a ridgeline between Topanga Canyon and Calabasas, we see a giant smoke cloud and windblown smoke to the East. The fire is moving towards the ocean, as it usually does. As long as I’ve lived in Southern California, we’ve watched fires, either from afar or on TV, start and blow south/southwest, always towards the ocean. Woolsey fire (2018); same thing. Started in Simi Valley. Winds blew it west, marching through Agoura, down into Malibu and out through Pt. Dume. Old Canyon Fire (1993) ; started in Old Topanga Canyon; winds blew it over the ridge, marching to the ocean, devouring Las Flores Canyon enroute. The Santa Ana winds are always from the north/northeast. I thought this fire would be the same; move down through the Palisades until it hit the Pacific. End of story.
Finish our hike. Maggie says “I thought I’d run some errands but maybe it’s not a good day to leave the canyon”. I say “definitely not”; especially with a dog left at home and a partner with Alzheimers. The smoke cloud has now grown substantially on our hours-long hike. It seems to be moving north as well as south.
Go home. Turn on TV. Lots of footage of scared people spilling out onto Pacific Coast Highway from Sunset and Temescal Cyn. boulevards, carrying pets, looking disheveled, massive smoke and flame plumes behind them. The biggest story at the moment is that people have abandoned their cars in bumper to bumper traffic on Palisades drive, fleeing on foot. Us on the outside don’t realize yet the immensity of what’s going on, that the fire is ripping through neighborhoods, unstoppable, blown by almost hurricane force winds. This fire can’t be fought from the air. Too windy. Crews try to fight it on the ground with hoses but it’s everywhere, hopscotching from house to house. The fire is wildly out of control.
Pass the day doing stuff around the house but mostly watching the local TV news. At this point, there is an “evacuation warning for Topanga Canyon.” Friend Maggie decides to leave; “better now than at 3AM” and heads up the coast to Ventura. By now, everyone in Topanga is on pins and needles; looking, watching, waiting, wondering; most getting in their cars and leaving for hotels in the Valley. A post on Nextdoor around 4PM comes in. The Feed Bin. The Reel Inn. Cholada Thai. Wiley’s Bait shop. Rosenthal winery tasting room and yes, the historic and about to be revitalized, Topanga Ranch Motel cabins (built for beachgoers in 1929), all gone. At first, no one can believe it. The fire can’t be moving up the coast, can it? But yeah, it was, as well as south through not one but two quaint, mobile home villages, home to many, many people living for years, affordably, practically right on the ocean’s edge. Friend Meg, her Mom, and cat. They left, and a good thing too as both parks were incinerated.
Another fire report; this time in Altadena. Eaton Canyon. Same situation except now night has fallen. The TV news stations move to covering the Eaton Canyon fire. Images of fire trucks racing around, people walking horses on halters, two and three to a person, down smoked out city streets. An old folk’s home is evacuated; many residents lying on rollaway beds or sitting in wheelchairs, waiting to be loaded into vans, their faces covered in N95 masks. I see one old lady with very little hair being blown around in the fierce winds, and think of Mom. How terrifying to be that old and deal with running from an out of control fire. From Topanga, in the distance, the sky to the south is an orange/red ugly glow accompanied by voluminous smoke clouds.
I’m not sure when the mandatory evac was ordered for Topanga but the fire has begun a slow march, against the wind, into Topanga Canyon, burning up the steep hillsides along the lower part of Topanga Canyon Boulevard, and trying to summit the ridge that separates Las Flores Canyon and Tuna Canyon, an area I know well from hiking with Ophelia. We pack bags to evacuate. Around 8PM, I’m sitting in my car looking down the drive at the fire as it tries to make its way over Tuna Canyon ridge but is repeatedly pushed back by the still incredible winds. The flames look molten, like lava and reach far into the night sky. People on the ocean side of the ridge say they were 80 – 100’ high. Big Rock was on fire, as well as Las Flores Canyon, two steep hillside communities in Malibu. What we didn’t yet know was that the fire had destroyed countless homes along the ocean side as well.
The fire has had a weird effect on me. Either I was completely tranquil, doing stuff around the house, or, on the frequent trips down or up to neighbor’s empty homes for a better look at things, feeling like I was going to throw up, the hair on my arms standing on end. I’ve never felt fear like that before.
For me, the lava flames were the last straw. Jacques and I agree to meet at a friend’s house in Agoura. Topanga is full of dry brush fuel but luckily the wind kept pushing the fire back. (As it was, the Palisades fire did summit the ridge and burn some homes on Saddle Peak and Tuna Canyon including the home of one of the ladies in my book club). At this point our immediate neighborhood was mostly 100% evacuated. I still had friends (mostly female) who wanted to leave but whose husbands/partners said no. Eventually everyone ended up leaving except for a few holdouts on nearby Cheney Drive, people who have in-place fire fighting apparatus (massive sprinklers, auxiliary firefighters, even an airconditioned bunker). The homes of one of these friends would be our “bug out” shelter if we needed to run for it.
In Agoura, Aaron and I sit up till 3AM watching the news coverage of the fires. Jacques said he would join us but does not. I decide to return home. Back in Topanga, driving along a ridge called Alta Drive, I can see the fire is clearly in the Canyon, perhaps burning near town center. The air is not smoky. The prevailing winds still blow out of the north yet somehow the fire has made its way into Topanga. It’s a freaking beast that won’t be stopped.
Wednesday Jan 8
Manage to sleep from 4 till 7AM. I’m hearing a strange flapping and thudding coming from the roof. Turns out the wind was so strong it blew back the roofing material on the flat part of the roof. The wind during the night was fierce. How did I manage sleep? A mystery.
We have no power. Start the water on the gas stove for coffee – out the kitchen window, I see a neighbor’s tall pine has been snapped in half, two giant limbs lying upended in the gully between our homes. I don’t recall if there were any water or phos-chek drops yet. Still too windy to fly. The fire is moving north and is coming up directly East of our neighborhood, burning up Topanga State Park. I go over to Calli’s to charge my phone (the home which would be our safe haven if needed). Her home is still powered thanks to solar powered generators.
Around 2pm or so, I decide to leave again for Agoura. On the way, radio station KFI has a report that “in an hour, the fire will be in Old (Topanga) canyon.” Luckily that proves not to be true. In Agoura, the power has been cut there too. Ophelia and I take a leashed walk to find some lunch. Meet some people my age whose Altadena home has burned. They’re in Agoura staying with friends and show me a picture of what once was their house.
Around 6, Ophelia and I return to Topanga. Travelling south on the 101, I see spot fires to my right igniting Liberty Canyon and hear on the radio that the fire has moved west into the hills off Mulholland Drive and is threatening Monte Nido, a very cool neighborhood full of old growth oaks, beautiful ranch style homes, horses, and a classic restaurant, “The Saddle Peak Lodge.” Those folks are now under mandatory evac. It’s incredible to think the fire has moved this far, this fast.
Jacques has spent the day laying out our neighborhood’s community-bought fire hoses with one remaining neighbor, and helping a friend who returned home to trim tree branches overhanging the roof of his house. Dinner is leftovers cooked on the gas stove with food kept cold in our camping cooler. Sitting around the glow of a flashlight, the evening passes listening to our battery operated AM/FM radio on the front patio. The neighborhood is dark except for the flames in the distance which we sporadically and independently go to a neighbor’s property to view as if wishing that on each repeat visit, they would disappear. Helicopters and airplanes now pass constantly overhead, ferrying water and fire retardant to drop on the fire. They’re working hard to keep the fire from moving any further into Topanga. I hear we make the national news. “Anderson Cooper’s in Topanga!” For us, it’s gone from being an event on TV to something happening outside our windows. Friends and family reach out in concern.
Thursday Jan 9
The firefighters are doing an amazing job of keeping the fire from spreading past our southernmost business, Topanga Lumber. The news that our post office had burned down proves false. We relax a bit. The winds are better. Once again, the evening is spent listening to reports on the radio of massive devastation in the Palisades and Altadena. Choppers fly overhead, back and forth, back and forth. It’s like being in a war zone. The National Guard keeps people from re-entering Topanga from the valley side. Now, once you leave, you can’t return. People on the neighborhood Whatsapp flood the chats with lots of questions about what’s going on, what they’re doing, where they’ve been evacuated to. What’s interesting to me is the number of people posting who are still in Topanga, driving around turning off neighbors’ propane tanks, providing meals and shelter for firefighters, posting updates from the inside. The cops seem to look the other way on these holdouts. Up on Iowa trail, we’re hunkered down as it were; watching, waiting. Will this thing turn and come over the ridge into nearby Cheney Canyon?
Friday Jan 10
More of the same. We think we’ve been through the worst of it even though the fire is still 100% uncontained. Firefighting and mitigation continues around us. Sometime toward the end of the day, a massive smoke cloud erupts just to our east. This freaking fire refuses to lay down. A hideous, scary red cloud blooms as the sun sets. Jacques and I take photos of it. The fire is now moving East, trying to jump Dirt Mulholland into the San Fernando valley. Evacuation orders are issued for Encino, Tarzana. Who would’ve thought this fire would make it this far? It threatens Mandeville Canyon and burns some homes in far away Brentwood, near the 405 freeway.
Saturday Jan 11
While the fire was kept at bay from burning homes in Mandeville Canyon, it now looks like it’s doubled back towards us. More ominous smoke clouds appear on the horizon. People say that the fire is always further from you than you think it is but I don’t know, this looked pretty close, Topanga Canyon State Park providing yet more fuel. I find a spot near the neighbor’s fence where I can get a reliable cell signal. I’ve been able to send/receive texts, but intermittently. The conversations are scary; many friends and family members saying they’re “concerned” about me. One family member reads me the riot act.
After four days of sheltering in place, I give into the fear and decide to leave again. Jacques is still not so sure, knowing that if push comes to shove, we can shelter in place at Calli’s, who by now has shipped her kids off to neighbor’s home closer to the Valley. I think what finally turned the corner in Jacques’ mind was me saying “what if a fire started on the Valley side, cutting us off completely from leaving?” As it was, the last four days, multiple other fires started: The Kenneth fire in West Hills, the Sunset fire in Hollywood. A post that was repeated over and over on Whatsapp was of a weird, loner guy roaming around in places he shouldn’t have been in Topanga. Was he an arsonist? Phone videos of Jim questioning him make their way onto TMZ.
I pack my bag for the third time, this time also taking some artwork, jewelry, and my travel journals. I shoot videos of my house, inside and out, for insurance purposes. Jacques asks “did you get the surfboards?” A neighbor manages a phone call to ask me to retrieve a painting out of his house.It takes about two hours to pack up. Jacques is locking down the property, shutting off gas, water and electric, closing windows, packing up his truck with “can’t lose” stuff including our camping gear just in case. We leave again for Agoura but not before taking one last look around. Flames are now just one ridge away. We can see them clearly despite the daylight. For the first time, losing my house seems real. We head North to Ventura and the Pierpont Inn. At last a TV to catch up on the news. The hotel is full of dogs and evacuees from all over—Calabasas, Pasadena, Monte Nido. We stay six nights.
Back in Topanga, the winds have died down. The firefighters get a handle on the fire and push it back from eating us alive. A couple of sunny, calm days ensue as the fire containment area widens. It’s incredible. On Friday Jan 17, we’re allowed to return home. I’m so thankful I have a home to return, our hearts bleeding for all of those who lost so much. Friend Dan’s son Eric—two homes lost. Lori, book club friend whose home was just on the cusp of the fire as it came up from the south part of the boulevard; friend Meg – who lost her home as well as her Mom’s; tennis friend Teri who lost her mobile park home and Palisades house; favorite vet Dr. Dean whose Pacific Palisades clinic burned; friend and neighbor Kristina Levy whose family restaurant “Rocco’s” was destroyed, Nephew CJ whose in-laws house narrowly escaped destruction. You’d be hard pressed to talk to anyone who either hasn’t suffered mightily from this fire or knows someone who has.
I don’t know what to say in retrospect. Increase my homeowners insurance (yes). Install sprinklers – expensive. Trim (or worse) cut down our beautiful trees (mostly pines, eucalyptus and peppers)—TBD. Just today a guy was here walking my neighbor’s property with them, pen and paper in hand, tabulating what it’d cost for them to cut down their many old growth pines, a couple of which overlap onto our property. It’s hard to know what to do, especially given this new player – the hurricane force winds described as “PDS” – potentially dangerous situation. To date, current fire fighting equipment has been successful at keeping fires out of Topanga and away from its many homes scattered here and there on the steep hillsides. Yes, the wind on Jan. 7 was an anomaly but that doesn’t mean it can’t, or won’t, happen again.
By Mary Dippel
