The Apocalypse Has a New Zip Code: Los Angeles
Breaking News
Los Angeles is burning. And no, this isn’t some poetic hyperbole about the decay of the American Dream or the soul-crushing grind of the entertainment industry. I mean literally burning. The City of Angels is now the City of Ashes, a hellscape lit by orange skies and choked by smoke thick enough to make you cough up last year’s sins.
The Palisades Fire is the ringleader of this fiery circus, tearing through 15,000 acres like a drunk rockstar smashing up a hotel room. Over a thousand structures gone, just like that—poof! One moment you’ve got a nice view of the Pacific, the next you’re picking through the smoldering remains of your life, wondering if your insurance adjuster is already on vacation in Tahiti.
Pasadena’s Eaton Fire, meanwhile, is playing the understudy, chewing up over 10,000 acres and leaving behind a trail of devastation that includes five lives lost and one historic temple turned to rubble. And let’s not forget the Sylmar-adjacent Hurst Fire, a smaller but no less vicious monster clawing at the edges of the city, forcing thousands to pack up and run for their lives.
The air? Forget it. Every breath feels like you’ve just taken up smoking six packs of Marlboros a day. The skyline is an apocalyptic painting—beautiful if you don’t think too hard about the carcinogens. People are walking around in masks—not the COVID kind, mind you, but the heavy-duty, industrial-grade gas masks that make you look like an extra in Mad Max.
Historic landmarks? Toast. Will Rogers State Park, a spot where families used to picnic and kids dreamed of being cowboys, is now a blackened wasteland. The Topanga Ranch Motel, once a charming throwback to old Hollywood, is gone too, reduced to a pile of memories and ashes.
The human cost is staggering. Over 100,000 people have been told to grab their loved ones and get the hell out. Evacuation centers are bursting at the seams, a dystopian mishmash of cots, confusion, and desperation. And let’s talk about the poor firefighters, these unsung heroes battling flames taller than skyscrapers, all while running on fumes and adrenaline.
And then there are the unlucky ones—those who didn’t make it. Five lives snuffed out, countless others maimed or injured, and the body count might still rise. This isn’t just a disaster. It’s biblical.
Governor Gavin Newsom has slapped a state of emergency on the whole mess, while President Biden has greenlit federal disaster aid. That’s nice and all, but it feels like putting a Band-Aid on a severed limb. The winds might be dying down, but the damage is already done, and the road to recovery stretches longer than the 405 during rush hour.
This isn’t just another California wildfire season. This is the big one, the one that will haunt us long after the last ember dies out. It’s a wake-up call for a planet playing Russian roulette with its climate, a brutal reminder that nature doesn’t mess around.
As for LA, the city will rebuild—it always does. But for now, the apocalypse has come to town, and it’s charging cover at the door.
Trump vs. the Apocalypse
While Los Angeles burns, Trump, never one to miss a spotlight, has stormed onto the wildfire stage with all the subtlety of a flamethrower at a gas station. This time, it’s not just about his greatest hits—“Fake News,” “Sleepy Joe,” or “China”—no, now we’ve got fish. Yes, fish. Specifically, the delta smelt. Extinct or endangered, it doesn’t matter; to Trump, it’s the scaly villain of this fiery saga.
According to Trump, Governor Gavin Newsom is single-handedly responsible for the “apocalyptic” wildfires consuming LA. Why? Because, in Trump’s telling, Newsom is more concerned with saving a little fish than with sending water to Southern California to battle the flames. The former president even coined a new nickname for his old frenemy: “Gavin Newscum.” Classy as ever.
Here’s Trump’s take: Newsom refused to approve some mythical “water restoration declaration” that would have magically diverted water from Northern California to SoCal, quenching the fires and saving the day. Instead, Newsom chose to protect the delta smelt—a fish Trump claims is dead anyway—leaving Southern Californians high, dry, and crispy.
The imagery is rich: firefighters hosing down infernos with empty hydrants, residents fleeing with bottles of Dasani, all while Newsom lovingly cradles a delta smelt like it’s his firstborn. Never mind that no such “water restoration declaration” exists—Trump doesn’t let facts get in the way of a good rant.
Of course, Newsom’s team has refuted Trump’s claims, calling them nonsense. They say they’re focusing on protecting residents and making sure firefighters have the resources they need. But that doesn’t matter in Trump’s world, where nuance is the enemy and every crisis is another excuse to take a victory lap—whether or not there’s a finish line.
This isn’t their first rodeo. Trump and Newsom have been at each other’s throats for years over California’s environmental policies. Back in September 2020, Trump even threatened to withhold federal wildfire aid unless Newsom abandoned protections for the delta smelt. Now, with LA in flames, he’s back to settle the score, pointing fingers and tossing gasoline on the political fire.
Meanwhile, the actual fires rage on. Over 100,000 people have been evacuated. Historic landmarks are gone. The air is poison. But instead of solutions, we get this: a former president using a natural disaster to dunk on a sitting governor, a governor defending his record while his state burns, and a fish caught in the crossfire.
The real villains here aren’t Newsom or Trump, or even the delta smelt. It’s a system that treats climate disasters as political theater, where leaders argue over who’s to blame while the world quite literally goes up in smoke.
The last time Trump faced a crisis of this magnitude, a million lives were lost to COVID-19—leaving us to wonder how many more could perish if the next catastrophe unfolds with him once again in the White House.
As the flames creep closer and the skies glow an ominous orange, one thing is clear: the apocalypse has a PR problem, and Trump is its loudest spokesperson. Somewhere in the ashes of Los Angeles, someone is laughing. It might be the delta smelt.
Oh, God, so far it's touched most of the neighborhoods I've lived in. Mandeville Canyon, most notably, my childhood home. Brentwood, where we used to shop at the Brentwood Country Store, Will Rogers State Park, where iI hiked when we lived in the Brentwood Riviera, The Bay Theater in the Palisades (and where I got kicked out as a teenager as we couldn't stop laughing), the Palisades where I had my friends and get Chinese food to go at the House of Lee, Malibu, where I worked and had friends, and Topanga, where my brother lived for a time.
I'm surprised it hasn't touched Laurel Canyon, my old stomping rounds, but with the next big winds, it just might succumb, as well.
And, yes, Trump is never one to miss an opportunity to denigrate a Democrat. His classless and calloused opportunism knows no bounds. That goes without saying, and especially when there is someone who has disagreed with him. Classic narcism at its finest.
The disaster will continue to unfold, not elegantly but explosively and chaotically. This is why resistance must be immediate, concerted among concerned groups, and at all levels of government and commerce. And protestors would do well to believe, deep in their hearts, that they all will overcome some day.