Reliving the Palisades Fire

(Editor’s note: Henry Kamer is a junior at Palisades High School and he was asked if he would share his remembrances about the Palisades Fire.)

This is the Kamer residence in the Alphabet Streets.

By HENRY KAMER

It’s shocking to see how much time has passed since the January 7 Palisades Fire, but how that time has still felt so slow. The feeling that the fires happened yesterday becomes familiar as life progresses and we are forced to, too. Every person’s account of the fires and their life through them are important to highlight and thoughtfully observe. After all, tradition and history are only recorded once an individual passes their stories onto the next.

Here’s my story.

My family, and our dog, had planned a trip for a few days to Santa Cruz to get out of the house and spend time together because my brother had come back from college in December.

On the morning of the sixth, we finally left the house around 10:30 a.m., taking the small, brand-new electric Audi, my mom had leased just a week earlier instead of my dad’s Jeep Grand Cherokee which was better suited for road trips.

As I volunteered to pull my mom’s old Audi into the driveway to put on the appearance that we were home in case of burglars, there was an annoyed and frantic mood in the atmosphere. It was further amplified by my accidental spilling of paint that was in the driveway.

After a quick drive to the Fed-Ex store on Via de La Paz, we were off. Eventually, after many rounds of taking turns driving (which was the first time for me since I had acquired my permit) and a crucial stop for lunch at In-N-Out, we arrived in Santa Cruz, exhausted and ready to settle in.

My mom forgot to check if the hotel was dog-friendly, sending us on another journey to find one that was. By then, it was dinner time and my brother was complaining as he often does (sorry Ben, I love you) so my dad chose to stick around with him while my mom and I walked through the city of Santa Cruz to find take out food. I still remember playing a historical chronology game, the NYT Flashback, while we waited.

On January 7 around 10 a.m., we walked downtown to scout out a breakfast place. We eventually decided on Mad Yolks, which would turn out to be a very fitting name. After eating our sandwiches and eggs, which our dog Wally enjoyed to the fullest, the three of us (my mom, my dad, and me) explored the city while my brother headed back to the hotel to join an online meeting for a possible summer internship.

Not long after we started walking, my phone began to blow up with messages. They were from the Track and Field group chat, and numerous people were asking what was going on while pictures of the fire – from the news and from Pali High and the Alphabet Streets – streamed through the chat.

The time was 10:37 a.m., just thirty minutes before the second of the spring break track practices were set to begin.

I remember feeling guilty as we walked for not being at track, but as I would quickly learn, practice would not be happening for a long time.

I shared the fire news with my parents, but we thought it would be out fairly quickly, just like the small burn that occurred on New Year’s Day in the Highlands; my dad and I had actually walked through the burn area to Skull Rock after that fire.

Boy, were we wrong.

As we spent the rest of the day in Santa Cruz and Carmel, the news of the evacuation and the community crisis began to reach us. My dad is a very active member of the community, and given that fact, he was alerted by city officials to help coordinate evacuation processes for those who were at high risk: the elderly, the disabled, and those who were adamant on staying.

We were trying to enjoy the beach in Carmel, while my dad was busy with the crisis. As we drove back to our hotel, I remember a family friend called. He and his family were in Thailand at the time and were extremely worried about what was happening in the Palisades.

We were too anxious to go to dinner. In the hotel room, we crowded around my dad’s laptop and watched our security camera footage.

A branch from a nearby tree had fallen and smashed my dad’s car, embers were everywhere but that would be the least of our worries. We all tried to reach out to any group that could help, from ABC7 to LAFD to my dad directly calling the fire leader covering our area, but to no avail.

As we continued to watch, we saw the fire grow closer and closer to our house. First the shrubs on the side caught fire, and then the embers started to get dangerously close to the house, and then it was over.

The security cam footage cut out along with other neighbors when the internet poles collapsed. We accepted that there was nothing we could do. A small sliver of hope remained, but that would quickly die.

I awoke the next morning, my family was already all up and seemed grim. I could immediately sense that our house was gone, but I didn’t know the extent of the damage. That would quickly be revealed to me as I saw or was shown drone shots depicting the devastation left in the Alphabet Streets as well as the attempts of a neighbor to salvage their house in the worst of the fire on January 7.

As soon as the realization seeped in, we all went into a stage of panic. We wanted to get out of Santa Cruz because the hotel was very cramped, but didn’t want to rush down to LA because there was no home to return to and the fire was still very actively raging. So, we made our way to San Luis Obispo, where we stayed for two nights.

We were still grappling with the whole situation, and the realization hit us in different stages and in different ways.

My mom got very sick for around a day while the rest of us just embraced each other as we dealt with our sadness and the unknown of what the future would bring.

We celebrated my dad’s birthday on January 9, watching a rocket launch from the roof of our hotel. So much had changed when we all viewed a rocket launch on December 31 from the Highlands.

We arrived back in LA on January 10. Our original plan was to stay in an Airbnb in the valley near the family, but after long and hard thought, we decided to unbook the Airbnb and instead went to my grandma’s (dad’s side) house in Brentwood. She was not there because my step-grandpa had fallen and broke his hip not too long before the fires. He was due for surgery in a few days, so she was staying in a hotel close to the hospital.

When we arrived at her house, it was hard to settle in, and we all were in flight-or-flight mode, especially me. Just as my dad and I were taking the few items of clothing we owned out of the washing machine, we received the alert to evacuate immediately from Brentwood.

We lugged wet laundry to the car and got out and drove to my grandpa’s house (dad’s side again) in Bel Air, where we spent the night.

It was great to be with family, but everyone was worried, constantly playing the news of the fire on the TV, which was definitely not healthy for my brother and me.

The next day, we visited a prospective house to rent, which was overrun with people from the Palisades. My mom saw multiple people she knew, including someone talking on the phone, who had a friend looking at the rental for them.

We were able to secure a temporary home in West Hollywood that belonged to one of my dad’s clients who was out of town.

I went to a friend’s house in Santa Monica for the night.. My birthday had been on the fourth, and I didn’t get to do the sleepover that was originally planned. Generously, my friend offered to host a birthday party sleepover, and we all had a great time.

Then my dad picked me up and took me to the house in West Hollywood, which was an inconvenient location but had beautiful views. We stayed there for more than a month.

I started a whole new life there: going online for Palisades High School classes; took my ACT test; failed my driver license test; and went to track practices in Kenneth Hahn State Park and West Los Angeles College. (Track practice is now at West Los Angeles College).

We moved to Mar Vista, where we will be until the end of the summer. Our good family friends who lived down the street from us in the Palisades, now live around the corner, and bonus, they have a pool! School is back in-person now at the old Sears building – and it is interesting.

When people asked how I felt after the fire, I told them I felt two sides of differing emotions and responses.

One side was filled with mourning and sadness as I remembered the life I was forced to leave behind. I’ve only ever lived in the Palisades, the same house since I was born.

However, the other side was filled with immense gratitude and acceptance. It took an event of terrible devastation like the fire to make me realize how insanely lucky and privileged I was to live in the Palisades. It looked like paradise to so many people, but to me it was just my everyday home, and I took that for granted.

I found the fire to be a necessary humbling and maturing experience, as it restored my humility and forced me to be grateful for what I had.

That is why after the fire I said to my mom: “I feel so fortunate.” So much love and support had been poured into me and my family from so many people. Everyone from family and friends to coaches (looking at you Coach Rolfe) to random people who were so kind.

It made me wonder what I did to deserve all of the love that I had received. That love is so necessary in times of crisis however, because throughout time, human culture and community have proved the only means of survival. We’re human. We all need each other and need to be kind to each other.