On January 7, I heard on the evening news that a wildfire had broken out in the Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, and was dangerously close to residential areas. At 4am, I woke up to reports that the fire was now spiraling out of control, burning hundreds (and now thousands) of homes. By 6am, I was standing with my cameras on 1 Aloha Drive, a street I once regarded as paradise, now reduced to ashes. Not a single house remained.
A disaster movie had landed right in La La Land. The scene resembled something straight out of a nuclear apocalypse film. The sky was blacked out by smoke, ash, and toxic fumes, with fires still raging around me. Winds crashed into me, debris was flying everywhere. It felt as if I were in a hurricane—but without the rain. The fire was doubling, then trebling and quadrupling in size. At this point it all became too much for me. I was struggling to breathe.
