DIARY: The LA Fires
David Butow, an LA-based photojournalist and long-time contributor to AI-AP and DART, has been covering the fires that are destroying large sections of his hometown. Following are some of his images and thoughts from the past week.
I first became aware of the fires from the news a few hours after they broke out on the west side of Los Angeles. The winds that day were as strong as I've ever experienced here. I drove to where Sunset Boulevard meets the Pacific Coast Highway. Some structures were on fire and people were driving through the smoke on Sunset west to escape the encroaching fire. The fire's progress stopped only because it reached the ocean. With the short days and smoky air dusk came early, my cameras ran out of battery power and so I went home.
The next morning, I returned to the same area an hour or two before dawn and, although this description is such a cliche, the scene was apocalyptic. Whole neighborhoods had been wiped out and many houses were still burning or smoldering and there were few fire crews in sight, they were stretched very thin.
It was very eerie, there were virtually no residents around, just some media people and an occasional emergency crew. In contrast to covering the aftermath of the fires in Lahaina, Hawaii a year and a half ago where I had to sneak in, the police in LA allow credentialed media basically full access when even residents of those neighborhoods are not allowed in. I spent the rest of the second day in residential neighborhoods and businesses in the Pacific Palisades that had been wiped out beyond my ability to process or fully capture with my camera.
That was also the day that things exploded on the other side of town in Altadena, so the following day I went there. Although the topography is much flatter than in the Palisades, the scene was much the same. The scale of the destruction was hard to believe. I began working on an assignment with a feature writer from CNN and we spent time with people who had lost their homes. In some ways, that was the most challenging thing emotionally because we were with them when they returned to see their destroyed homes. It's hard to wrap your head around the immensity of the damage but one person's pain can be quite tangible and I felt so bad for all of them.
I've lived in Los Angeles since the late 1980's and I put this event in the top three most significant ones I've experienced here. The others are the LA Riots in 1992 and the earthquake in 1994. The destruction this time is probably even more extensive than those other two events and the city will never quite be the same again.
Altadena resident Oren Waters and firefighter Shaun Walker [above] from Contra Costa Co. in northern California sift through the rubble of Waters’ home. After putting out the last remnants of the fire, Walker and his crew took time to help Waters get his bearings and help him look for anything of value. Waters, who is from a family singing group that has performed with major stars, had lived in the house since 1979. His spirit remained upbeat and strong as he thanked the crew and said goodbye.
Earlier this week I visited the remains of the Altadena homes of Heidi Luest, Chrystal and Virginia Dedeaux and Rene Amy with @elizabeth_hope_wolfefor @cnn They all knew their homes had been lost but Heidi and the Dedeaux’s had not yet seen things first-hand since they had to flee the Eaton Fire last Wednesday. They gamely sifted through the rubble looking for anything of value, like a spoon from her grandfather that Heidi had kept. She also left food and water in the hopes that some of the neighborhood cats she fed might have survived. Above: For the first time since the fire, Crystal Dedeaux sees the remains of the home where she grew up. David Butow/Redux for CNN
Extracts from Elizabeth’s wonderfully-written story at @cnn [with Butow’s photos] follow: “Wreckage stretches for miles in every direction in this part of middle-class Altadena at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, where the deadly Eaton Fire ignited January 7 and quickly grew into one of California’s most destructive ever….
"Rounding the corner onto their street, it briefly appears as if the homes there may have been spared. Squat blue and white houses sit serenely on either side of the Dedeaux property, windswept but relatively untouched as the evening light washes over them. ‘But the space in between looks as if a bomb was dropped from the sky. The one-story home’s canary yellow walls have collapsed inward and blackened. Only the chimney and a patch of the back wall stand, scaffolded by a leaning tower of the washer and dryer.
“‘That was our house,’ Crystal says, her voice trembling as she rushes to unbuckle her seatbelt. …. Crystal treads up the driveway, tears welling in her eyes as they pass over the dusty mound of rubble. Chunks of debris cover the bedroom where her mother slept for the past 55 years. Since Virginia and her then-husband bought the home in 1969, three generations of Dedeauxs have called this place home.” More here
A bad four days in Los Angeles. Thank you all for your kind words of support and sorry I have not had a chance to respond to everyone. I’ve been on auto-pilot and the scale of this not yet sunk in. My heart goes out to everyone who has suffered a loss. Huge praise to my colleagues who have made some amazing pictures. @reduxpicturesPhotographs taken with Leica M11-P and SL3 Above: A neighborhood in Altadena is destroyed by the Eaton Fire. David Butow/Redux for CNN