The author, an adopted resident of Los Angeles, recounts their personal experience witnessing the devastating wildfires from afar, initially feeling disconnected before the fires directly impacted their community. They reflect on the city's duality: its challenges and cultural significance, ultimately emphasizing the shared vulnerability of all residents in the face of natural disasters.
As the Los Angeles fires developed overnight, I was left with a strange sense of disconnection and removal watching events unfold from afar. The pictures were dramatic, but the experiences seemed distant, and the people fleeing their homes were inevitably strangers, reduced to characters in a TV news drama.
Suddenly, there is a strange cocktail of emotions: paralysis from the 14,000 kilometres between me and the world I know, fear for the safety of my friends and colleagues, and also, an unexpected sense of relief that I am a long way away.Los Angeles, currently grappling with the worst fires in its history, is my adopted home. It’s an ugly, unforgiving and often unfriendly city, which constantly tests your love for it. It has brutalistic architecture, and an industry full of brutal personalities.
Tonight, however, LA is a city learning the hard lesson that whether you’re an Oscar-winner or a valet parking attendant, you are powerless in the face of Mother Nature’s tempest. Our homes, not much more than paper and string. And our souls brittle, especially when what matters to us is placed at risk.
As a more experienced journalist, watching from Australia creates a strange sense of disappointment at the distance between me and the story. Every instinct tells me I should be there, covering the fires. My first thoughts are not even for my house, or any danger to it. That is just a temple dedicated to the accumulation of stuff. And none of it matters, truly, in the end.
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