Over the years, Americans have developed an unrealistic sense of entitlement to protection from fire, which was at first reinforced by public safety officials but has since proved unsustainable in the face of huge wildfire disasters such as Palisades and Altadena / Pasadena.

When the wildfires first broke out, L.A.'s emergency response system immediately kicked into gear and worked exactly as it as it was designed to do. It was eventually overwhelmed by conditions and circumstances in the field far beyond anyone's control.

Over the last eight years, we've seen wildfires wipe out entire communities in California and Hawaii, with the resultant loss of hundreds of lives. And in Colorado, you had the Cameron Peak Fire in 2020, which got uncomfortably close to Fort Collins. Our innate understanding of fire has to change if future conflagrations are to be mitigated and prevented.

(And as an aside, it's absurd that that the most vociferous critics of L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom during the SoCal wildfire crisis appear to be Fox News personalities who are 2,500 miles away, and whose idea of fire management expertise is Caitlyn Jenner and Marjorie Taylor Greene.)

Being from Pasadena, I never spent much time in Pacific Palisades and Malibu or other communities along Santa Monica Bay. My friends and I would go to Zuma Beach occasionally when we were in high school, but that's on the far west end of Malibu and well past the Palisades Fire's burn area. I never did understand why the county allowed people to literally build on the beach, never mind so close together.

What's amazing is seeing the few houses in Malibu that were spared, as though the fires simply bypassed them. The same thing happened in Altadena; whole blocks incinerated and then two or three houses that look unscathed. They're not, though. The smoke damage to the building interiors is likely extensive, and the accompanying odor takes forever to get rid of. The furniture, carpeting, the drywall - it'll all probably have to be gutted and replaced.

I'm just grateful that everyone I know who was displaced heeded the warnings and got out of potential harm's way. Material possessions can be replaced. Lives can't be. I talked to my former mother-in-law, who's surprisingly philosophical about her lost house in Altadena and is in relatively good spirits, all things considered. "When I was younger, I always wanted to live in Long Beach," she said, "and now, I am."

She said she had enough warning that day, so she and her daughter, son-in-law and grandson managed to pack up and take a lot of things like photos, her favorite art work, important papers, and clothes, etc. From all indications, the fire took her house later that night. She said she's counting her blessings but will likely not return to Altadena and rebuild. Her children and grandchildren are all in the Long Beach / San Pedro area.

I agree with you that this is so sad. Like the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and the San Francisco Bay earthquake and fire of 1906, it's a watershed event that will remain in the collective consciousness of the greater L.A. communities for generations to come.