Returning Pacific Palisades residents were grieving not just homes turned to ash, but memories buried amid the rubble. Wildfires had crept close to the Pacific Palisades before. Just in 2018, the catastrophic Woolsey fire wreaked havoc in nearby Malibu. There’d been other close calls: evacuations because of a brush fire in 2019. A blaze chewing through steep remote terrain nearby the following year.
![[Man with green helmet and mask holds object]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/3bd70713c8fc0fc9a8c7314f659613037507f807/0_0_4969_3313/master/4969.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
And yet, even as flames roared through the hillsides flanking the neighborhood and trees thrashed in ferocious winds, they couldn’t fathom what was coming. This firestorm, which would ultimately share the name of the community it consumed, would unleash unexpected horrors. It swept in, and left little in its wake. The Palisades fire is one of several major blazes that have exploded across Los Angeles since Tuesday, fanned by extreme winds fueled through parched landscapes.
![[Destroyed home.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/7c14e411d9d1cb1f03d76b602e28c533cb420d9f/0_221_5864_3518/master/5864.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Preliminary estimates based on satellite imagery indicate that across Los Angeles county, more than 12,000 structures have been lost. At least 11 people have been killed, a death count officials say is undoubtedly to rise. Some residents have been able to return to the neighborhoods they had to evacuate, many hiking or biking through the backroads up through the burned canyons to reach areas that are still closed.
![[Smoke rises above beach]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/59350fe3a9d0d0c7093e1db2c99af02675a38ced/0_72_6115_3669/master/6115.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
For them, and for thousands others who will be returning in the coming days, the sheer scale of the loss is only beginning to sink in. “It’s not just about your own house – it’s about the loss of your community,” said Ricky Gordon, who bought her Palisades home in 1987.
