On Fleeing the Inferno
It’s surreal to leave your home without knowing if you’ll ever see it again.
For much of the world, the news of the Los Angeles fires was a series of video carousels, politicized X posts, and overhead images of blazing hilltops. The knowledge of the city’s burning was shared by the world, but the visceral threat it posed to one’s safety was only felt by its residents.
…Of which my family was one.
On Tuesday evening, my biggest concern was that my wife wouldn’t be able to drive back safely from work because of the intensity of the Santa Ana winds. I didn’t even know about the fires because I was with my daughter the whole evening, and the only thing that felt like a threat was the thrashing winds that struck the walls of our home.
But by early Wednesday morning, there was no question that multiple fires had enraptured the city, and one of them was burning just a few miles away. I looked outside to see a dark, ominous cloud hovering above our entire neighborhood, with the shade of sepia coating everything in its wake. We had no power, the stench of smoke infiltrated our nostrils, and trails of ash were floating through the sky.
When you think of an emergency situation in your home, you might imagine it to be some combination of screaming and chaos that accompanies an escape. But it’s quite the contrary. When you know that it’s time to flee, there is a quiet conviction that accompanies your actions. You make sure your children are next to you, you grab some things you think you’ll need, and you pack the car. There is an efficiency to the process because your priorities are abundantly clear, which makes every subsequent action an intentional one.
We decided to first go to Koreatown, which is where my brother lived. Even though Koreatown was in Los Angeles, it was insulated from the two major fires that erupted on the western and northeastern parts of the city. But as we drove there, we began to hear from nearby friends that already had their lives flipped as a result of the blazes.
A family friend who lived just a few miles away in Altadena received news that their son’s school burned down. They, in turn, received news of their closest friends having lost their homes. It was as if a cascade of misfortune was unfolding by the minute, with someone knowing someone that lost a home, and if not a home, an entire community. Because even if their own home was spared, what remained around them was a toxic wasteland that made their neighborhood uninhabitable. After all, a home isn’t just the four walls that enclose you, but the neighboring community that gives those walls its warmth. So if those neighbors are no longer there, do you still have a home?
All this was going through my mind as we drove away from our own. While I was hopeful that we’d be returning back in a few days, I later learned that my wife packed up thinking that this would be the final time she would see it. That came through in the items she’d packed, one of which included a photo album of our wedding day. Seeing that was yet another reminder of why I loved her, and how I knew that no matter what happened, we would get through it. Sentimentality isn’t a soft trait designed to bring tears to your eyes; it’s a symbol of strength that emboldens the heart toward what matters. And I knew that we had that inner momentum on our side.
What followed was a sequence of events that eventually led us to my cousin’s home in Yorba Linda, which was about 40 miles southeast of where we lived. We found refuge in his family’s generosity and hospitality, which provided us with the headspace to stabilize and recalibrate. I had no idea what was going to happen to our home, but I could rest assured knowing that my heart – my family – was with me. The knowledge of that was enough.
As the days passed and the fires raged, I felt conflicting emotions. There was a relief in knowing that the fires were moving away from my neighborhood, but that meant that they were heading toward someone else’s. The Eaton fire was making its way up to Mount Wilson, where undeniably, people were evacuating in the same manner that we did on Wednesday. In situations like these, there is no such thing as a sigh of relief. Empathy reaches another degree of salience when you know that the bullet you dodged is en route to striking someone else.
By Friday, the power in our neighborhood was restored, and nearby evacuation orders were being lifted. As we continued communicating with our neighbors and following the news, we gathered enough information to make the decision to return to Los Angeles on Sunday. The fires weren’t contained (and still aren’t), but it looked like our area would be spared from the flames.
I am writing this from the very home that we were prepared to leave behind. There are moments in life where you feel like everything’s a bonus, and this certainly feels like one of them. The fact that we’ve been able to retain this place where my daughter took her first steps, where I’ve shared countless laughs with my wife, and where we’ve hosted so many of our loved ones feels like an incredible blessing from an unknowable force.
But what about those who weren’t as fortunate? What about those who lost everything? What about the people that died from this catastrophe?
These questions don’t have any immediate answers, and I’m in no place to provide them. What’s important, however, is that we collectively ask them so we can understand the plight of others and to help rebuild a community that has been reduced to ashes. And in asking these questions, we’ll learn more about own hopes and fears as well.
When we decided to leave our home, it felt less like a decision and more like an imperative. We knew exactly what we needed to do even if it meant losing everything. Because deep inside, we operated on the belief that as long as we had one another, we knew we could weather whatever lay ahead.
One thing I’ve been reflecting on is how we fail to do this in our day-to-day lives because of our attachments. Life tends to create the illusion of permanence; that what you have today will persist tomorrow. This extends far beyond the domain of possessions and into that of one’s identity. We are so attached to the personas we’ve built, the achievements we’ve reached, the projects we’re working on, the idea of who we are. But what you’ll realize is that one day – whether it’s through a nearby fire or the finish line of existence – these attachments will be meaningless.
We often refuse to flee those attachments because that makes us feel like we’re giving up. But it’d be crazy to say that we fled our home because we gave up on it. Our home is one of the most important things in our lives, but we left without question because having an intact family was far more important. When emergencies bring clarity into your priorities, there is no need for a pros and cons list to determine your actions. You move swiftly and decisively.
Hopefully there is no fire around you to make this visceral, but it’s worth considering what attachments are worth leaving behind. In recent days, I’ve been taking inventory of what attachments I have because I fear what might happen if I let them go. I’ve noticed that I’m engaged in certain pursuits not because they’re empowering, but because I fear what would happen if I no longer had them. Perhaps it’s because of a fear of what others might think, of not making money, or of not satisfying an expectation. If that’s what’s keeping me attached to it, then it’s because there’s no urgency that’s there to show me how futile it all is.
Well, the past few days introduced a level of urgency into my life, and I’ve been fortunate to have the headspace to reflect on it as the sirens have subsided. One of life’s great ironies is that troughs birth epiphanies that then propel you toward peaks. So in the end, maybe the purpose of this piece is to share that epiphany without the burden of the emergency that originated it.
It’s a cliché to say that life is short, but profound to experience an event that brings that cliché to life. And if there’s one pattern that governs people in this category, it’s that their new life starts when they realize which of their old attachments must end.
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