Over the past ten days, horribly destructive fires in Southern California have been in all the headlines, and friends and family from around the country have contacted me, wanting to know if we are okay. Many of them have only a rudimentary idea of where we live or how these fires have affected us, and it’s been hard for me to give a very good answer to their questions.

The Palisades fire roared though the hills above Pacific Coast Highway. Photo by @timhortonphotomalibu
On one level, we have fared very well. No one in our immediate family has lost property or been forced to leave our homes because of the fires from the past two weeks. In fact, we were able to host friends who were evacuated from their homes overnight. We have not lost power although many friends and neighbors have spent multiple days without electricity and/or natural gas and/or water.
But we have spent days monitoring weather forecasts and plotting evacuation boundaries and listening to news coverage of what has already happened and what might happen in the next few hours, days, weeks. A planned visit from my sisters was postponed, then canceled. My husband’s university classes were moved to Zoom for the week. We acquired the Watch Duty app that supplied a wealth of real-time information—and also sent us multiple alerts that caused our heartrates to spike.

We live in Thousand Oaks area, roughly 50 miles from the Pacific Palisades and Altadena. The circle in the middle of the page marks area near Pepperdine University, and son lives in neighborhood marked by circle on the right.
We know people who lost homes. Restaurants where we have eaten and places where we have visited have been destroyed. Roads we travel regularly are closed indefinitely. Our son spent multiple days away from his apartment, which was on the edge of an evacuation zone. Every day we hear new stories of sorrow and loss.
It’s easy to look at the damage and destruction and know something went terribly wrong. It’s easy to start looking for someone to blame. Who messed up? It’s especially easy to think there must be a simple explanation if you do not know the area or understand its geography or topography or weather patterns or history of disaster or its preparedness plans. I knew none of those things when we first arrived in Southern California in 1993, and I was shocked to discover that so much I assumed about “normal” weather and seasons did not apply here.
I spent the first half of my life in West and Central Texas and have now lived almost the exact same amount of time in Southern California. After years of experience with tornadoes, dust storms, thunderstorms, hailstorms, flash floods, drought, and hurricanes, I arrived in a place with Santa Ana windstorms, wildfires, drought, flooding, mudslides, and earthquakes. (Without a doubt, the 6.7 Northridge earthquake in 1994 was the most frightening of any natural phenomenon I’ve experienced.)
Although I do not have an expert’s knowledge about the elements that contribute to SoCal wildfires, I have learned a lot just by living here. I’m sharing a bit of what I’ve learned for any of my family and friends who would like to understand more about what has happened here in the past couple of weeks.
And if I can help you better understand the fires in SoCal, then maybe you can better understand how we’re doing right now.
Climate and Weather
I grew up in West Texas, which is known to be arid and drought-prone, so I thought I understood a dry environment. But SoCal is dry on a whole different level. Several weeks after our August arrival in Southern California, I finally asked someone when to expect rain. They seemed surprised—not until November, of course! Rainy season officially runs from late October through May, but we generally don’t see much precipitation before November or after March. Don’t offer up any silly rhymes about April showers and May flowers—Southern Californians will just look at you weird.

Green hills and wildflowers abound in March along this hiking trail in a national park a few miles from my home.
In wet years, the mountains and foothills turn vibrant shades of green in early spring as wildflowers and wild mustard and native chapparal and non-native grasses and plants bloom and spread. The greens fade into varying shades of tan and brown during the dry summer. By early fall, dying or dormant plants and brush look lifeless and parched.
A native West Texan, I also thought I knew everything there was to know about wind. Then I moved to a place where wind in winter makes it hotter, not colder. Most of the time, we get nice breezes off the Pacific Ocean, which help keep our temperatures cooler and bring in a nice marine layer that adds some moisture to the environment. But in the fall and early winter, winds can shift into deadly dry desert gales called Santa Ana winds.
Humidity levels drop into single digits—something most of my Texas friends can’t even imagine. The hot winds dry out the vegetation even further. In these conditions, a spark from any source—a welder’s torch or a New Year’s bottle rocket or an arcing power line or an arsonist’s handiwork—can start a conflagration. Winds of 60-70 miles per hour can carry fist-size embers a mile or more to start new fires in new places.
That’s in normal years. Weather in 2024 and January 2025 has not been “normal.” The rainy seasons of 2023 and early 2024 were wetter than normal, which means more plant growth in the mountains and hills. The summer of 2024 was hotter than normal (one of the hottest on record) and there has been virtually no measurable rain in the area in eight months. Average rainfall by this time of the wet season is 4 to 5 inches, so January has not been “fire season” in normal years. But this January is not normal. The winds of January 7 were the highest the region has seen in decades. Gusts in some area were near 100 miles per hour; sustained winds in some regions were 60 to 70 miles per hour. At my house in Ventura County, the winds were blowing 20-30 miles per hours with gusts near 40 mph.

Firefighters battling the Franklin fire on the Pepperdine campus in Malibu in December. Photo by @timhortonphotomalibu
Fire Facts
In my 31 years in Southern California, I have witnessed numerous wildfires and firefights and have learned much about how fires move and how they can be battled. One of my first surprises was to learn that fire travels faster uphill. As fire burns, it heats the air and vegetation above it, which allows it to race uphill. Houses built high on a ridgeline in order to get the best view will also be the most threatened in wildfires. Homes sitting down in the valleys are easier to defend as the fire blows from ridgetop to ridgetop.
Firefighters will often let a fire run up a hill and then “make a stand” at the top. That stand can involve using bulldozers or other heavy equipment to clear away brush and create a break that can slow the fire. The firebreaks can also allow the firefighters space to bring in hoses and handtools to battle the blaze as it crests a ridge.
When fire officials speak of “containing” fires, they are talking about surrounding the fire with defensible space. They often set up protection lines along major roads or around major structures in a community. SoCal fire units have well-understood priorities when they battle these fires: save lives, save community structures, save homes, extinguish the fires. And time and time again, what looks to be out-of-control wildfires result in no loss of life or homes because of the priorities and the expertise of the region’s first responders.

A firefighting helicopter picks up water from a pond on the Pepperdine campus during the Franklin fire. Photo by @timhortonphotomalibu
Air Power
The most powerful tools in SoCal firefights belong in the air. I’ve watched enormous C-130 cargo planes striping hillsides with bright red fire retardant. I’ve seen helicopters lower hoses into small reservoirs, suck up a tankload of water, then fly to the front lines of a firefight to spread hundreds of gallons at a time on the front lines of a fire. Helicopters and planes of all sizes circle fire lines, drop their loads, fly away to pick up another load and head back. It’s like watching an aerial ballet and it’s awe-inspiring.
But not all the aircraft can fly in all situations, terrains, or weather conditions. Only a few are equipped to fly at night. Many can fly in the high winds typical of most Southern California fire events. But none could fly the night of January 7, 2025, when winds were not only hitting up to 100 miles per hour but were behaving erratically, not like the typical Santa Ana winds. We have lived in our current house for almost 30 years and the winds around our home that night were like nothing we have ever seen or heard.
Past Brushes with Fire
A destructive wildfire called the Green Meadows fire broke out near our Thousand Oaks apartment home just a couple of months after we had moved there from Texas. Another fire a few weeks later destroyed hundreds of homes in Malibu and threatened the Pepperdine campus, which was the reason we had moved to SoCal.
Since then, I’ve had close-up views of more fires than I can begin to name. In 2018, we evacuated our home in the middle of the night as the Woolsey fire raged through our community and then on to Malibu, destroying about 1,600 structures and killing three people.
My experiences have led me to place a lot of faith in first responders and weather forecasters and the proper planning and preparation from emergency officials. I’ve come to expect that firefighters can work wonders. I’ve seen fires that burned thousands of acres but caused little damage to homes. I don’t remember seeing a public school destroyed in any of the SoCal fires I’ve witnessed—until this month. In the Palisades and Eaton fires, whole communities were wiped out: schools, churches, drugstores, restaurants, dry cleaners, everything.
More than once we have watched pictures of fire raging around Pepperdine’s Malibu campus, knowing that students, staff, faculty, friends (and our son on one occasion) were sheltering in place in central buildings on that campus. We also knew that the university plans and prepares for just such fires and that firefighters were stationed on the perimeter, just waiting till the fire got close enough to do battle.

The Franklin fire burned around and through the Pepperdine campus in December 2024. Photo by @timhortonphotomalibu
After every fire—so far—we have driven around the edges of campus, looking at charred brush and plants and seeing where the first responders had stood and repelled the blazes. There have been at least five major fires that have threatened the Malibu campus in our 32 years here but only a very few structures have ever been damaged in those blazes.
The latest fire to lick at the edges of Pepperdine was in December 2024. The Franklin fire picked up quickly on a dangerously windy night. As Pepperdine employees, we got multiple alerts about the fast-moving fire even though we live 25 miles from campus. We watched TV reports and messaged friends who were sheltering in central campus buildings as flames spread around and through campus. Vegetation burned just outside of those buildings, but the structures were safe.
The fire frayed nerves, though, and forced students to leave suddenly. Michael’s fall-semester finals were delayed, then canceled. But it turns out that fire may have saved Pepperdine from the even more powerful, unpredictable winds on January 7. The Palisades fire was turned back where the Franklin fire had consumed all the fuel. That was only a couple of miles from the Malibu campus.

The Franklin fire scorched the Pepperdine campus but most of the buildings remained unscathed. Photo by @timhortonphotomalibu
What Went Right
It’s easy to look at the devastation of the Palisades and Eaton fires and know that some things went terribly wrong. Investigations have already started into various aspects of the fires, including possible mismanagement of water resources. Lawsuits have already been filed too, even though no one knows yet if lawsuits are merited.
I’m sure there were mistakes made. I’m sure things could have been handled differently. I’m sure different decisions would have led to different outcomes. And it’s imperative that officials step back and look at those decisions and resources and consider how to do their jobs better. Individuals need to also step back and think about what we can do better to protect our own lives and property.

Screenshot of a number of fires burning in our region in January. Screenshot from the Watch Duty app
But maybe we should also spend a little time considering what seems to have gone right on the fire front in the past couple of weeks. In the first 16 days of 2025, there were 14 multi-acre wildfires in the Los Angeles region, according to a CalFire site (https://www.fire.ca.gov/incidents/2025 ). All 14 had potential to be immensely destructive to life and property. The Kenneth fire raised alarms in my neighborhood and led a couple of fire refugees to my house.
But only the Palisades and Eaton fire got fully out of control and those started on the day that the wind overwhelmed every typical response and grounded the aerial attacks. The next day, the Sunset fire broke out in the hills above Hollywood, terrifyingly close to thousands of homes and structures and people at the bottom of hills engulfed in towering flames. There were Santa Ana winds blowing that night, but they were not strong enough to ground all the aerial firefighters. Within a few hours, the attack from the air subdued that fire, and I believe that victory should be celebrated.
I also think it’s important to take a look at a good map (such as this one: https://calfire-forestry.maps.arcgis.com/home/webscene/viewer.html?webscene=0a7381c8b46b4e26a057383424f32c06) of the area around the Palisades fire. What could have happened if this fire had grown east and south of where it did? Instead of thousands of structures lost, it could easily have been tens of thousands.
Yes, topography and wind direction and fuel supply played a big role in where the fire burned. But I have to believe that fire suppression planning and firefighting techniques played a large role too. Preventing the Palisades fire from moving east became important to me during this fire because my son now lives in one of those population-dense neighborhoods just east of the “Evacuation Warning” zones. Watching the evacuation lines creep eastward on various days was nerve-wracking.
As of Saturday, January 18, officials say at least 27 people died and more than 13,000 structures were destroyed in the Palisades and Eaton fires. That horrifying number may wind up being one of the highest in modern SoCal fire history. But it’s a fairly low number in light of the number of homes burned and places destroyed. Like the first responders always say, saving lives is a first priority.
Why This Feels Different
The 2018 Woolsey fire weakened my faith that fires could never reach into our neighborhood. We saw too much evidence then that winds can carry fires into places far from the “high-risk” foothill or mountain communities. The Palisades and Eaton fires confirmed those fears.
Many of the homes lost in the Palisades fire would always have been considered high risk. They sit high in the fire-prone hills and canyons along narrow roads that can be difficult for fire equipment to access. But many of the neighborhoods that were destroyed in Altadena seem to be a lot more like my neighborhood—built on a grid with streets wide enough for firetrucks and “defensible” areas between homes and the more vulnerable open space.
I’ve seen interviews with many Altadena residents who said something along the lines of “fires have never come into this neighborhood.” Every time I see a conversation like that, I shudder a little because it sounds like something I could say. I’ve watched fires running down hills I can see from my windows, but I’ve never seen fire in my streets.
But the winds on January 7 sent fire from the foothills into long-established Altadena neighborhoods in a matter of minutes, and the fire then took advantage of house after house lined up neatly to offer quick fuel.
Seeing images of block after block of burned-out houses makes me feel like it could happen to me too. These fires also feel different because so many community structures were lost. Schools and churches and town squares, doctor’s offices, banks, multimillion-dollar homes on the beach. Nothing seemed out of reach of this one.
Is this the “new normal”? Summers have been hotter and dryer in recent years. Winters bounce between massive amounts of rain and no rain at all. Wind events are happening more often, increasing in intensity, and lasting longer and longer at a time.
How Are We?
Thousands of words later and I’m still struggling to answer that question. I am heartsick by the devastation I have seen and the stories I have heard. I am fearful about the fights to come over who is to blame and how to rebuild and how to move on. I worry about what moving on even looks like. Most of all, I’m unnerved by the ferocity of these fires and worried about the Red Flag warning already predicted for next week. I’ve been breathing easier (in every sense of the phrase) since the winds finally quieted a couple of nights ago. But we have received no rain and there is no rain in the forecast.
I packed a suitcase of extra clothes, my prescriptions, our insurance papers and some sentimental items the night of Jan. 7. That bag is still packed. We put a couple of boxes of photo albums and special items by the front door. They will stay there for now. Because every time I pick up my phone, I see a notice about a “Red Flag Warning” coming this week.
It’s not really a question of if there will be another fire; it’s a question of where the fire will start and how bad it will get and whether the winds will be so bad that they take away the best firefighting tools. Everyone I know feels vulnerable to the next round of winds.
The events of the past month or so have reminded me how little we can know about the future, how little we can control, how few things we can really hold on to. It’s true every day but we just don’t acknowledge that truth every day. The truth is unsettling.
So, here’s my best answer to everyone who wants to know how we are doing: We are safe. For now.
And that is enough. For now.
Fantastic article Tammy. I’m still in shock from all of this. Hard to imagine driving down PCH and not seeing all those homes lined up along the coast. We’re definitely entering a new chapter as far as the severity of these fires. Glad you are safe and fingers crossed for the future…
Thanks, Robbie. I don’t know anyone who lives here who is unaffected by this. Take care and stay safe!