January 2020 marked the peak of one of Australia’s worst bushfire seasons. At the time, watching the apocalyptic fires remotely via social media felt unreal. However, the fires quickly became old news by March when the world went into lockdown for the COVID-19 pandemic. In August the Bay Area saw its own series of catastrophic wildfires, which ripped through Big Basin Redwoods State Park. In 2023, the Maui fires devastated the town of Lahaina. This followed a record-breaking summer of wildfires in Quebec, Canada.
With this context, the LA fires that broke out one week ago on Tuesday, Jan. 7 feel like a combination of unfathomable loss and business as usual. Those in immediate or impending danger prepared to evacuate as safely as they could. Those more remote shared resources and donated to GoFundMes, mutual aid or humanitarian organizations. Our Bay Area firefighters answered the call to serve, sending equipment and personnel to join the thousands-strong force battling to contain the fires.
I think the attitude around fires has shifted so that even while one disaster is ongoing, people are quietly taking notes on what to do or not do, and anticipating the next one. But that doesn’t change the fact that for those directly affected—who lost their homes, loved ones or lives—the disaster isn’t just one news story among many.
