As I write, the four wildfires that hit three communities of Los Angeles County are still not completely contained. Viewing this disaster from Britain, there is no doubt that the fires have been devastating – nearly impossible to comprehend. It has already been cited as the costliest fire in U.S. history. Several communities were most affected by the fires – Pacific Palisades, Malibu, and Altadena – but the four fires have killed at least 27 people with over 30 still missing, and close to 12,000 structures destroyed, leaving 40,000 acres (three times the size of Manhattan) covered with ash and debris. The impact of this disaster on the people, households, wildlife, and spirit of Los Angeles is difficult to imagine.

However, as a resident of the County for over two decades, from 1980-2002 I lived with my family in Manhattan Beach, south of the devastation, and worked at one of the major universities in the City of Los Angeles. I know and worry about my neighbours, friends, colleagues, and everyone living and working in the county and Greater Los Angeles area. Media coverage of the fires was excellent for days after the fires began on 7 January 2025, but already – even before the fires have been completely contained – coverage has dropped off with the media agenda, understandably shifting to Israel-Hamas negotiations and the second presidential inauguration of Donald Trump. What coverage I do find in Britain is generally focused on the difficulties facing the families who have lost their homes. How can they possibly recover?

I don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know that they will recover. I have no doubt. While the destruction is widespread, and appears huge, even visible from satellite imagery, the proportionality is critical and often lost on the viewing public from afar. The most affected communities are in Los Angeles County, which has 88 incorporated cities and over 100 unincorporated communities. The loss of 12,000 structures is great, and about 80 thousand households faced evacuation orders. However, there are about 3.4 million households in the county of 9.7 million people, central to the Greater Los Angeles area of nearly 13 million people.

Public officials are convinced that the 2028 Olympics will be held in Los Angeles, and I am sure they will. I was in LA during the 1984 Olympics, and I felt that no other event was big enough to bring all LA together as this distributed Olympics Games did. The devastation of the fires is also likely to bring the Greater Los Angeles Area together once again to rebuild their communities and to hold the Olympics. Already you can find households hosting displaced families. More generally, the scale, innovative culture, and can-do spirit of Southern California and LA is truly powerful – difficult to over-estimate.

Frankly, I can already sense that truly amazing developments will rise out of this destruction. The community will inevitably go through stages of shock and anger but will recover the spirit that has made California so innovative. If any place in the world could do it, LA would be my best bet. Call me naïve or an optimist, but I’ve lived there, have some distance from the immediate devastation, and am confident that LA will deal with the problems it faces in a world-leading way.