Military checkpoints were set up at the entrance to the ravaged neighborhoods. An exhausted firefighter explains it: “Every house is a potential trap. The structures are unstable, and the ashes are toxic. We cannot take additional risks by letting thousands of evacuees return. » Only firefighters, police officers and journalists are authorized to go to fire zones. So families, crumpled photos in hand, implore them to bring them fragments of a bygone existence.
A woman shows a portrait of her cat. “His name is Max. He fled into the garden when the flames reached our terrace. Please try to call him when you pass by my house,” she whispers. Further away, a man holds the image of a pretty house. “My father built it with his own hands. It has withstood several earthquakes, so why not this fire… My mother refused to leave. She said everything she loved was here. My neighbor pulled her out of the flames at the last minute.”
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A cemetery of memories
Beyond the barricades, the legendary Pacific Coast Highway, which connects Santa Monica beach to Malibu beach, looks like the end of the world. Car wrecks, abandoned in the panic, line the sides of the road. The famous “sandcastles”, these houses on stilts which once lined the shore, were swallowed by the flames. Of their former glory, only blackened skeletons remain. A cemetery of memories. Agglomerations of suitcases, melted toys, charred documents: each object tells of an existence frozen by flames. So Steve, a resident who refused to evacuate, collects things from the ruins and makes multiple trips to the checkpoints to return them to those who are stuck behind. And offer them some comfort. “A simple object can give hope. It’s not much, but it’s all I can do.” He brings a pair of earrings to a young woman who confides: “They belong to my mother, who is very fond of them. Even if they are damaged, she will be very happy to get them back.”
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Fire from space. In these satellite images, La Costa Beach in Malibu on January 9, 2025. Shortwave infrared thermal imaging reveals areas where temperatures exceed 100°C.
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© AFP or licensors
In Pacific Palisades, Clara-Lisa Kabbaz, director of the Lycée français and its annex, the kindergarten, recounts the chaotic evacuation of her establishment. “We saw the smoke approaching. Some parents were unable to pick up their children. We had to take them in our cars. When we arrived at the assembly point, it was already saturated with vehicles. The teachers, along with the students, had to walk through increasingly dense smoke.”
1,500 French people affected
Five days after the disaster, accompanied by Adrien Frier, the French consul general in Los Angeles, she can only face the facts: the school founded by her father is no more. “The toys, the notebooks, the nap mats, everything turned to ashes,” she said through a tight throat. Adrien Frier, pragmatic, quickly moved to coordinate the aid. “We have identified around 1,500 French people affected, including around thirty families who lost their homes. Our priority was to organize emergency accommodation solutions, in particular through partnerships with hotels. But the reconstruction will be long and arduous, and we will not be able to replace what the insurance companies do not cover.”
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The consul also highlights the complexity of local administration: “We often have to negotiate to allow some of our nationals to recover essential documents or souvenirs from their destroyed homes. It is an immense moral pain to see their past life reduced to nothing.”
The actor couple Livia Pillmann and Sebastian Harrison, in front of their charred car in Malibu, on January 10. They also lost their house.
© DR
A few blocks from the school, Rick Mosenter, an employee of the Hollywood film studios, contemplates what remains of his home. “Everything is gone. Letters from my mother, photos of my children… Even my dumbbells are twisted by the heat. When we were evacuated, we thought we would be able to return quickly. We left everything behind. » Same hasty flight for Livia Pillmann and Sebastian Harrison, who lived not far from there. But after asking his wife to leave, Sebastian returned to their burning house. “I took what I could: the bag I had given my wife for our wedding anniversary. It was not for its material value, but to preserve part of what constituted our history. »
“The ground was so hot that my soles were almost melting,” says Sebastian. I thought I was going to die.”
Son of actor Richard Harrison, he also wanted to save the memories of a lifetime of cinema kept in their house. “The ground was so hot that my soles were almost melting. The heat was unbearable, the flames so close, I thought I was going to die. Unable to hold on any longer, I ran to my car, but it too burst into flames. It felt like everything was exploding behind me. I ended up getting back onto the road and jumping into a fire truck. »
Abandoned on the Pacific Coast Highway, his completely burned vehicle bears witness to the horror of this nightmarish night. “It was a collector’s car that I held very dear. The craziest thing is that, in a hurry, I left in the trunk all the objects that I had tried to save at the risk of my life and they burned. »
Twenty-four hours after the fire that completely destroyed their Malibu villa, Livia and Sebastian managed to evade security by sneaking into their neighborhood in the middle of the night. By the light of their cell phones, they plunge their hands into the debris. “I found a ring and some hard drives, in which there are photos of our wedding. I pray that a computer scientist can extract them. »
Reconstruction is a privilege reserved for the elite
In this upscale neighborhood, where 80% of homes are insured, material losses will be partially covered. But, with the average price of a villa around $5 million, the fires will leave a deep economic scar. Between 10 and 15 billion dollars in damage must be reimbursed by insurance companies, or risk going bankrupt. While the fire was still active in several neighborhoods, they were already sending letters to their members to inform them that they will, in the future, no longer be able to cover fire risks, as some have stated. already done for earthquakes.
As the ashes fall, another reality emerges: that of a society where reconstruction is a privilege reserved for the elite. Social disparities are glaring. In Altadena, a working-class neighborhood, bastion of the black and Latino community hit hard by the disaster, the future is even darker. “The rich find refuge in 5-star hotels or in their second homes in Palm Springs or Santa Barbara, while we sleep in our cars,” complains a local volunteer. A contrast that reveals a bitter truth: in the flames, everyone lost a lot, but some more than others.
Masy, the dog trained in corpse detection, with firefighter Eric Darling.
© DR
Faith, 19, testifies to the indifference felt by her community. “We didn’t have any evacuation orders on our cell phones like we did in Pacific Palisades. It was the firefighters who were screaming in the streets to warn us. » Unlike those on the coast, here barely 30% of homes are insured against fire. For Faith and her parents, this means starting from scratch. In this area neglected by institutional relief, local solidarity becomes a fragile bulwark against despair. Faith transformed a store owned by her aunt into a makeshift donation center. “The clothes we wear, the food we eat, it all comes from the generosity of others. »
A postapocalyptic setting
In Los Angeles, where 76,000 homeless people live and where rents are exorbitant ($2,500 per month for a studio), rehousing will be one of the most difficult challenges for local authorities. Especially since some shelters have also disappeared. Journalist Alexandra Datig, a former alcoholic saved by a Methodist support group, looks with sadness at the ruins of the church that helped her rebuild her life. “This place saved my life twenty-five years ago. Today, nothing remains. I am worried for those who are still trying to get by and no longer have a place to find comfort.”
At nightfall, in this postapocalyptic setting, worthy of a zombie film made in Hollywood, the fentanyl junkies, their bodies disjointed, wander the streets of the disaster-stricken neighborhoods, sometimes sneaking up to the still-smoldering ruins to recover their belongings. treasures. After all, didn’t Robert Redford find an Oscar in the rubble of his house? Added to the human tragedy is the threat of looters determined to profit from the misery of others, while the search for victims continues. On January 13, under the first full moon of 2025, we leave the ghost town of Altadena and come across firefighters, exhausted after six days of a fierce fight against a fire monster. One of them, Eric Darling, plays with Masy, his 4-year-old dog trained in corpse detection. We will learn later that she had just pulled ten bodies out of the rubble.
