The Los Angeles wildfires — social, urban, environmental catastrophes — mark a bitter, ash-tinged end of the Western imaginary. In the Pacific Palisades and in Altadena, the American dream of a domestic pastoral has gone up in smoke, a burnt offering to the gods of 20th-century real estate development.
Its acrid stench reached me on January 7, a Tuesday night whipped by howling winds. Earlier in the day, while driving the 134 Freeway from Pasadena to Silver Lake, I had seen a plume rising over the Westside: the Palisades Fire. I found it concerning, but distant, like a black and white photograph of an atomic bomb. By evening, Altadena was aflame. The community tucked into the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains is just a few miles from my apartment, its closeness driven home as evacuation orders and red flag warnings lit up my phone. Propelled by Santa Ana winds, ash travelled that distance quickly.