The Eaton and Palisades fires brought unprecedented death and destruction to Los Angeles. The damage from these fires, however, was far from uniform.
Some neighborhoods were spared and others were devastated. In many cases, homes remained on blocks where others were leveled.
The uneven distribution of fire impact came down to several factors, experts said, including topography, firefighting resources, home construction and just plain luck.
The Altadena public library still stands several blocks west of North Lake Avenue, though it remains closed. The library and the area around it are an example of the changed Altadena landscape: dozens of homes razed, while many appear minimally damaged.
The image below shows the area on Jan. 6 (left) — the day before the Eaton fire began — and again on Jan. 14 (right).
The image shows less affected pockets of the neighborhood amid dozens of destroyed homes. Christmas Tree Lane, the iconic street just east of the library, was largely left intact, while fire cut wide swaths to the east, north and west.
“They are pretty lusciously green,” Cristhian Mace, a natural areas biologist for Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation, said of the cedar trees on Christmas Tree Lane in January. “Which makes me think they were well-irrigated, and that’s probably one of the factors that saved them.”
“They weren’t dry and brittle, and when you look at cedar bark, it’s thick and somewhat fire-resistant,” he said. “I don’t know how else to account for their resiliency.”
The neighborhood was among those west of North Lake Avenue that did not receive evacuation warnings or orders until about 3:30 a.m. on Jan. 8, well after fire had already encroached on the area.
Noyes Elementary School was located near the Pinecrest gate in northeast Altadena, one of the earlier areas to burn in the Eaton fire. Fire was reported in the area as early as 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 7, according to radio records reviewed by The Times.
The neighborhood had received evacuation orders at 7:26 p.m., while western Altadena would wait another eight hours.
The image below shows the area around Noyes Elementary School on Jan. 6 (left) and Jan. 14 (right).
The school, and many of its neighbors to the west, were destroyed. To the southeast, in the direction where the fire began, many homes were left standing. Pools have turned from blue to black.
Experts told The Times that the fire began on the mountain but quickly spread from home to home as winds propelled embers well beyond fire lines. Homes could ignite those around them, leading to pockets of destruction.
Some 35 miles away in Pacific Palisades, a similar story unfolded as uncontrolled wind-driven flames tore through urban areas.
The Summit, an exclusive hilltop neighborhood in Santa Ynez Canyon, is located just west of the starting point of the Palisades fire. The area faced a chaotic evacuation, with the few exit routes jammed with traffic as fire erupted in the late morning of Jan. 7.
Still, much of the neighborhood survived relatively unscathed. The photo below shows the Summit on Oct. 24 (left) and again on Jan. 14 (right).
The damage inflicted on the Summit neighborhood was significantly less than what can be seen in the more densely developed areas of Pacific Palisades down the mountain.
After firefighters moved on, Nic Libonati of the Summit continued to fight the fire, which encroached on his home. Libonati had been the first to report the Palisades fire.
He and friends spent that Wednesday night — the second night of the Palisades fire — at the scene of where the fire was first reported. They put out hot spots using pool water.
“I think last night we saved my cul-de-sac,” he said. “Everything across the street — gone. Torched. Fully crumbled down.”
In Malibu’s Big Rock neighborhood, nearly every beachfront home was flattened by the Palisades fire. Just up the hill, about half of the homes were still standing.
Counterintuitively, the homes closer to the water were hit harder than neighboring homes on a dry hillside were. Even on the waterfront, where several pockets of homes remained — the devastation appeared to have occurred in clumps.
On the hillside, homes seemed to be almost flattened at random, with neighboring houses often suffering wildly different fates. The result was a grid of unpredictable destruction.
Malibu, resident Bill Strange told The Times, is a place that “no matter what, goes back to its wildness. They can build those big ol’ houses and do whatever they want. But they’ll never be able to tame Malibu. It turns out we are all just renters here.”
Times staff writers Jeanette Marantos, Noah Goldberg and James Rainey contributed to this report.
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