“That is hearth sea­son in Los Ange­les,” Joan Did­ion once wrote, relat­ing how yearly “the San­ta Ana winds begin blow­ing down by way of the move­es, and the rel­a­tive humid­i­ty drops to fig­ures like sev­en or six or three per cent, and the bougainvil­lea begins rat­tling within the dri­ve­means, and peo­ple begin watch­ing the hori­zon for smoke and tun­ing in to anoth­er of these excessive native pos­si­bil­i­ties — on this occasion, that of immi­nent dev­as­ta­tion.” The New York­er pub­lished this piece in 1989, when Los Ange­les’ hearth sea­son was “a par­tic­u­lar­ly ear­ly and unhealthy one,” however it’s one among many writ­ings on the identical phe­nom­e­non now cir­cu­lat­ing once more, with the excessive­ly destruc­tive Pal­isades Fireplace nonetheless burn­ing away.

Again in 1989, lengthy­time Ange­lenos would have cit­ed the Bel Air Fire of 1961 as a par­tic­u­lar­ly vivid examination­ple of what mis­for­tune the San­ta Ana winds may carry. Broad­ly rec­og­nized as a byword for afflu­ence (not not like the now vir­tu­al­ly oblit­er­at­ed Pacif­ic Pal­isades), Bel Air was house to the likes of Den­nis Hop­per, Burt Lan­forged­er, Joan Fontaine, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Aldous Hux­ley — all of whose hous­es depend­ed among the many 484 destroyed within the con­fla­gra­tion (during which, mirac­u­lous­ly, no lives have been misplaced). You possibly can see the Bel Air Fireplace and its after­math in “Design for Dis­as­ter,” a brief doc­u­males­tary professional­duced by the Los Ange­les Fireplace Depart­ment and nar­rat­ed by William Con­rad (whose voice would nonetheless have been immediate­ly rec­og­niz­in a position as that of Mar­shal Matt Dil­lon from the gold­en-age radio dra­ma Gun­smoke).

Los Ange­les’ repeat­ed afflic­tion by these blazes is per­haps overde­ter­mined. The fac­tors embody not simply the dread­ed San­ta Anas, but in addition the geog­ra­phy of its canyons, the dry­ness of the veg­e­ta­tion in its chap­ar­ral (not, tempo Did­ion, desert) ecol­o­gy, and the inabil­i­ty of its water-deliv­ery sys­tem to satisfy such a sud­den and enor­mous want (which additionally proved destiny­ful within the Pal­isades Fireplace). It did­n’t assist that the typ­i­cal home on the time was constructed with “a com­bustible roof; large, low eaves to catch sparks and hearth; and an enormous pic­ture win­dow to let the fireplace inside,” nor that such dwellings have been “shut­ly spaced in brush-cov­ered canyons and ridges ser­viced by nar­row roads.” The Bel Air Fireplace caused a wood-shin­gle roof ban and a extra inten­sive brush-clear­ance pol­i­cy, however the six a long time of fireplace sea­sons since do make one received­der what sort of mea­sures, if any, may ever sub­due these par­tic­u­lar forces of nature.

through Boing Boing

Relat­ed con­tent:

NASA Cap­tures the World on Fire

When Steve Busce­mi Was a Fire­fight­er — and Took It Up Again After 9/11

Take a Tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House, the Man­sion That Has Appeared in Blade Run­ner, Twin Peaks & Count­less Hol­ly­wood Films

Aldous Hux­ley Explains How Man Became “the Vic­tim of His Own Tech­nol­o­gy” (1961)

Take a Dri­ve Through 1940s, 50s & 60s Los Ange­les with Vin­tage Through-the-Car-Win­dow Films

Behold 19th-Cen­tu­ry Japan­ese Firemen’s Coats, Rich­ly Dec­o­rat­ed with Myth­i­cal Heroes & Sym­bols

Based mostly in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His tasks embody the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the guide The State­much less Metropolis: a Stroll by way of Twenty first-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social web­work for­mer­ly often called Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.