On the afternoon of 7 January, I notice fewer cars on the streets. The sky is grey, covering southern California’s golden sunset light, my favourite time to hike on trails that I have grown to love, but I stay indoors. Meteorologists have issued warnings about high Santa Ana winds that are already causing havoc in the Palisades, 20 miles from me.
By 7 pm, I start receiving alerts on my phone. A new fire has broken out in Altadena, a neighbourhood five miles away. I’m co-Poet Laureate of Altadena, along with Lester Graves Lennon, who has lived there for 20 years.
Altadena, at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains, has been a rare refuge for Black families since the 1960s, allowing them to purchase land, build homes, and create generational wealth against systemic oppression. Though the area has gentrified considerably, the small town continues to serve as home for the highest percentage of Black residents in San Gabriel Valley.
Palisades fire smoke spiral captured from Pasadena freeway bridge (Photo: Sehba Sarwar)
That night, smoke enters my house, and I spend the evening on my phone, monitoring the fires and responding to messages. I check on friends in different parts of Altadena, Pasadena, and the Sylmar Valley, many of whom receive evacuation notices. Through the course of the first night, the Eaton fire builds as the wind gusts at more than 90 miles per hour.
A large number of Altadena residents are barely able to drive away with the clothes on their backs, their houses burning behind them. On other Altadena streets, given the absence of firefighters and no water pressure, neighbours shovel dirt on flames in a valiant effort to extinguish the fire.
I receive messages from friends and family around the world asking if I’m okay. People are reaching out because social and mainstream media are reporting the LA fires worldwide, blow by blow. The media coverage of the wealthy Palisades is mainly making the news, compared to the Eaton fire in Altadena, Pasadena, and neighbouring cities.
Trees felled by the wind in Pasadena (Photo: Sehba Sarwar)
The next day, Pasadena has an apocalyptic aura. No one is on the streets. No airplanes, local trains, or traffic. I feel as if I’m in a disaster movie set except that the sky is smoke-filled; the air quality index exceeds 400 – like Delhi or Lahore in winter – and my eyes water.
Over the course of two weeks, the fires spread over 40,000 acres, more than 14,000 structures are destroyed, and at least 24 people are missing or have died.
A day or two after the fires erupt, life in most of LA goes back to normal, but schools and offices remain closed in Pasadena, while the National Guard restricts entrances to Altadena and in the Palisades. Life is not normal. And as recovery slowly begins, residents report being approached by buyers and there are fears of gentrification and of Altadena’s demography changing.
Altadena cemetery, where the prescient Black writer Octavia Butler is buried, suffered minimal damage. In her bestselling novel, Parable of the Sower (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1993), she predicts that 2024 would be the year when the world as we know it will collapse, that wildfires will scorch Southern California, and climate change will make many parts of the United States uninhabitable.
Ash on car windshield, in Pasadena, five miles from the Eaton fire (Photo: Sehba Sarwar)
“The fires consuming California are the result of decades of deliberate choices made by corporations and politicians who value profit over people, fossil fuels over sustainability, and exploitation over equity,” as human-rights lawyer and political activist Qasim Rashid comments. “These wildfires were predicted – and avoidable.”
Indigenous communities have called for using their methods to manage the ecosystem instead of increasing danger by relying on fossil fuel and cutting firefighting budgets as the LA mayor did last year. Simultaneously, LA increased the budget for the city’s police department that has a relationship with its Israeli counterparts.
Even as state and local funds are being cut, over the past 15 months, the Biden administration has sent over 17 billion dollars to fund the Israeli army, as writer Olga Garcia Echeverria reminds us. Meanwhile, “the government fails us again and again by centring profits over people and investing in militarisation, policing, destruction, and climate-change denial,” she comments on Instagram.
Five days after the fires break out, my daughter and I volunteer in the Santa Anita Park’s parking lot. Along with a row of people, young and old, we direct a steady stream of cars, SUVs, and trucks that roll up to donate bottled water, hot food, masks, and other necessities. Behind us, we see the San Gabriel Mountains and smoke spiralling.
Volunteers organise clothing at Santa Anita Racetrack parking lot, Arcadia (Photo: Sehba Sarwar)
Others park their cars so they can collect what they need. No one asks people to show addresses to prove their loss. Those who express needs return to their car with baskets of clothing, food, and more.
In Pasadena, where water has been declared unsafe, the city’s municipal team sets up a water distribution line, but water donation centres pop up at street corners. Many donation centres are turning volunteers away because there are so many.
Educators and students, as well as Altadena and Pasadena businesses and religious institutions, have set up GoFundMe campaigns. Financial support is pouring in. People want to help.
This kind of grassroots mutual aid is powerful, but many are also asking if insurance will compensate adequately. And will the federal, state, and local government cover the gap – especially now that a new American president has been inaugurated, one who has threatened to eliminate public health and social security.
As a transnational citizen, I have experienced floods, hurricanes, and now destructive fires in the cities I call home – Karachi, Houston, and Los Angeles. All these ‘natural disasters’ are connected to deforestation, water control, and climate change.
As we gather to deliver mutual aid – after witnessing the grief of those in Altadena and LA – we must also demand that the government invest in life-affirming infrastructure in our communities instead of funding violence and furthering climate change.
Sehba Sarwar is a novelist, poet, and essayist. While based in Houston, she founded and directed a social justice arts organization, Voices Breaking Boundaries, that tackled urgent issues through art. She is a recipient of multiple artist awards and her papers are archived at the University of Houston.
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