A View From Hollywood

I'm home. I'm safe. I'm one of the lucky ones.

On Monday night, I sat on the rooftop of my Hollywood apartment building with a visiting friend, watching the sun set over a cotton candy sky.

Playing it cool as she marveled at the stunning view, I quipped, “It’s nice, right?” hiding my actual feelings: “I can’t fucking believe I live here.”

Less than 24 hours, the same beautiful panoramic view of Los Angeles would be blanketed by black smoke in every foreseeable direction -- each wisp carrying with it one of the unique tragedies of the city’s 10 million residents.

Entire neighborhoods, home to tens of thousands of people -- affluent, working-class and in-between -- had been reduced to ash. There was no end in sight to the fires. But my neighborhood was safe.

Until it wasn’t.

Ironically, shit hit the fan for me while I was on the phone with my mom in Des Moines. She’d been hammering at me the past 24 hours to evacuate, just in case. And I’d been casually explaining that she was overreacting, reminding her that Los Angeles is over 500 square miles and the majority of its residents weren’t directly affected by the fires.

Then my phone started blowing up with texts.

“Oh shit, Fire in Runyon”

“Are you still in Hollywood??”

“Do you need a place to stay?”

When an ex reached out, I knew this was serious.

A massive fire had broken out at Runyon Canyon, just minutes from our apartment.

The pings from incoming texts were drowned out by the sounds of sirens and choppers right outside my window. “I gotta run,” I was telling my mom. “It turns out there IS actually a raging inferno five minutes from my house that’s getting exponentially more powerful by the second. Love you, bye.”

In hindsight, less information would have been better, but I thought she might want her “I told you so” moment. I was, uh, mistaken.

I grabbed my friend/roommate Nihal -- the responsible one -- who had been vacuuming in the other room, away from his phone and blissfully unaware of what was going down. Checking the fire-tracking app, we agreed to be packed and in the car in 10 minutes tops.

I’d spent the past 24 hours telling myself that I should have a “to-go bag” ready just in case. But logic be damned, my mind hadn’t allowed me to believe this would ever be a real possibility.

Trembling as I threw a pile of clothes into a suitcase, I frantically emptied the contents of my desk drawer onto the bedroom floor in search of my passport, social security card, and a few other irreplaceable documents, along with meds, contact lenses, chargers, and anything I could think of. I met Nihal and his dog Hima at the front door. The dog, already allergic to the sight of suitcases, could sense our panic. Then, just before walking out, I stopped to ask myself if there were any items I absolutely couldn’t stand to lose, God forbid there was nothing to come back to. I ran to the bookshelf and grabbed my signed copy of “So, I’m Talkin’ to This Guy…” by Rob Borsellino.

Pulling out of our parking garage towards Sunset Boulevard was a scene ripped straight out of, well, Hollywood: People with suitcases sprinting down the sidewalks. Bumper to bumper traffic on our narrow street. Red lights. Horns. Yelling and swearing -- though, in fairness, this might describe LA traffic on any given day. And the car behind us finally giving up and swerving into the wrong lane for a quick escape.

If you’ve seen the beginning of HBO’s The Last of Us, you know the scene -- sans the mushroom-ass Zombies and Pedro Pascal’s chiseled jaw.

On a local radio station, we heard trained media professionals sounding as panicked as we were. “I’m sorry, I actually need to step away from the microphone,” one field reporter announced. “I live in Hollywood and have to go check on my dog.”

Thanks to some aggressive driving by Nihal, we were out of Hollywood surprisingly quickly.

We made it an hour Southeast to my cousin’s place in Orange County. He was out of town but had given me disturbingly accurate instructions on how to break into an apartment – his own, in this case.

After settling in and drinking a bit more than we should have, I began responding to an outpouring from worried friends and family checking in. Finally, I fell asleep, awakening to the news that the evacuation order had been lifted, and we headed back home.

View from my rooftop the morning after the evacuation order was lifted. White smoke remains.

To be honest, accepting well-wishes from friends has felt like stolen valor. Ultimately, I spent a single night an hour away from home. So many don’t have a home to come back to at all.

If there’s a bright side hidden somewhere behind the black smoke, it’s the extent to which this tragedy has shown the absolute best of human nature, something that many of us have been questioning the existence of over the past few months (yes, this a reference to election. I can say this because Zuckerberg or Musk do not own Substack, at least at the time of publication).

LA residents aren’t just donating money. They’re pouring every minute of their free time into helping people. I’ve seen friends lending suits to displaced folks who have a job interview this week. And doing laundry for those whose clothes are covered in ash. I’ve personally been flooded with messages from people from every point in my life. A high school classmate who I haven’t talked to since graduation (don't even think about asking how long ago that was) venmo-ed me $20 with the note, “This may seem dumb, but trying to send a little something to those dealing with the fires. Stay safe.”

And, notably, my mom hasn’t once said “I told you so”...yet.

This ordeal is far from over. But some takeaways so far include: trusting your instincts. If you have even an inkling that you should take a precautionary measure, do it. Don’t wait until thousands of others are doing it at the same time.

And I’m reminded not to take things for granted.

Last week, I took the dog on a hike of Runyon Canyon. The proximity to one of LA’s most famous scenic outdoor areas was a major selling point in moving to my current place. “It’s malpractice to not hike Runyon Canyon at least twice a week” I told Nihal as soon as I got back home from the hike. One of my New Year’s resolutions was making sure that I held to that. And now Runyon as we know it is gone -- for the foreseeable future, if not for an entire generation.

The stunning view from Runyon Canyon, just days before it caught fire. It may never be the same.

On Friday, after a day in the house, I needed to get some fresh air…which turned out to not be so fresh. The low Air Quality Index more or less requires wearing a mask. The mask also hides the inescapable smell of the smoke, which has left every corner of LA smelling like a campfire.

I walked down the very street we’d fled the previous day. But now, not a car or person was in sight. I took a right onto Hollywood Boulevard, typically one of the most bustling streets in the world. But at 9pm on a Friday night, it was a ghost town.

My eyes started to well up. Until I reminded myself that I was one of the lucky ones. It must have just been the smoke.

Hollywood Blvd at 9pm on Friday. A ghost town.

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