California wildfires bring out best, worst of humanity
WEST HILLS, CALIFORNIA—Ping! Came that high-pitched homophonic alert that blared on millions of cell phones on Thursday afternoon, ordering us, city residents, to flee quickly to safety.
Aware of the apocalyptic wildfire that had destroyed much of nearby Pacific Palisades two days earlier, my wife Wilhma and I—together with our son Neale (our other son Iggy lives in New York) and our family dog Cosmo were all ready to evacuate.
Our car was packed. Cramming a lifetime worth of mementos and memories into an old car is an experience not worth remembering.
But there we were, overwhelmed at the thought of leaving behind this house on Farralone Street that had been our shelter and sanctuary for 22 years.
The air smelled of burnt wood. The dreaded Santa Ana winds with its eerie whistling noise hurtled small fiery embers around like fireflies. A thick canopy of black smoke billowed from faraway rooftops. Then came blaring sirens from firetrucks and the boom of DC-10s hovering above.
Another wildfire—this time dangerously close to us had started. It was time to flee.
Chaos, confusion
Then half an hour after the original distress signal was sent to at least nine million phones in California, the order to evacuate was called off.
Chaos and confusion ensued. A firestorm of accusations swirled on social media.
But our anger and frustration was at least tempered by the fact that our home, this treasure that we use to measure how we have made it in America, and this most precious abode of our lives, will survive, standing proudly intact under the California sun.
Last Saturday morning, I drove along the scenic Pacific Coast Highway to destress and clear my mind, thankful that my family had dodged a bullet of a major catastrophic disaster.
But what I saw before me that morning were haunting images reminiscent more of Hiroshima and Nagasaki of August 1945 than in this winter day of January 2025 when the gilded homes of America’s high and mighty were reduced to ashes.
The black and grayish hue of flattened houses, block after block after block, is something I will never forget in my lifetime.
Here in Pacific Palisades, in this fabled city by the sea, where Hollywood demigods and California’s elite are ensconced in their million-dollar homes, the wrath of Mother Nature came calling on Tuesday morning.
As a resident of this city since 1997, I had become wary of the destructive nature of wildfires since the small picturesque town called Paradise in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, some 743 kilometers north of Los Angeles, burned to the ground on Nov. 8, 2018, claiming 85 lives.
Toxic tirades
Bearing witness to this unprecedented disaster before me, I have again saw the worst and best of humanity up close in the four days last week since the fire started.
As Angelenos tried to flee from their homes, politicians—from incoming President Donald Trump to California Gov. Gavin Newsom—traded toxic tirades on social media, befouling a real air of opportunity for unity in a time of disaster.
Local leaders from Mayor Karen Bass to the LA board of supervisors evaded blame and accountability in competing press conferences, displaying their petty turf wars.
Corporate profiteering reared its ugly head when people who wanted to donate to fire victims were outraged to learn that GoFundMe, the popular donation platform, was deducting a big part of their donations in processing fees.
Billionaire Rick Caruso paid for private firemen to save his mega mansion, while California inmates were paid $5.80 (P342.24) a day to help put out the blaze elsewhere.
America’s disparate justice system laid bare in a time of disaster.
‘Angels’ needed
A man suspected of starting the Kenneth fire in this city was arrested by our neighborhood watch group, Crimebusters of West Hills, of which I am a member.
“The city of angels will need angels of all kinds,” wrote actress Gwyneth Paltrow in a Facebook post on Friday.
Paltrow’s wish for angels in our beloved city may have come in human form.
There is ChaCha Chatchaporn, the 54-year-old immigrant from Phuket, Thailand, who opened her restaurant Little Siam, just two blocks from our house, to feed at least 30 LA firefighters on Wednesday night.
Hot meals of spring rolls and chicken satay she offered to the exhausted firefighters who worked 12-hour shifts to fight the flames.
“They saved our homes. Small contribution from me,” Chatchaporn told this reporter, as she extended a city’s collective gratitude for these real heroes in uniform.
Volunteerism and donations surged. And Angelenos opened their homes to the fire refugees—both humans and animals.
“But we are not out of danger yet. We still need to be vigilant,” warned Maria Quiban, the popular Cebu-born meteorologist in her weather program on KTTLA–TV on Saturday.
As I write this, 11 residents have been killed, 13 are still missing, and more than 10,000 homes have been destroyed in what is being called the worst crisis in California history.
The fate of this city and its fire-weary residents will depend on which way the wind will blow next.
