The Brief

Fire has never been a foreign concept in the life of Altadena-based photographer Kevin Cooley.

It's been a major theme across his work. His fine art photos have focused on smoke, explosions — including those he creates himself — and a man nicknamed the Wizard of Awe who made fireworks in Southern Minnesota.

For his day job, Cooley chases and captures wildfires in California for a photo agency and publications like the New York Times.

"It's hard not to want to go right to the fire, but I often want to find an angle to create an image, a scene where you put the fires within a larger context than the burning house, the burning building, the threat to people," he said.

One of his favorite pieces is a photo taken during the Woolsey Fire in 2018, which burned nearly 97,000 acres in L.A. and Ventura counties and prompted the evacuation of some 295,000 people.

Screenshot of the New York Times story where Kevin Cooley's photo was published.

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Courtesy Kevin Cooley

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The photo was shot on assignment for The New Yorker and was also used for a Times opinion piece. Taken at a house in the San Fernando Valley, the picture was uncannily Hockney-esque in its composition and symbolism.

"It's of a house with a swimming pool in the backyard, beautiful landscape with the fire just encroaching right over the wall behind it," he said. "In a way that's kind of like the end of the California dream."

A photo Kevin Cooley took during the Bobcat Fire in the San Gabriel Mountains above Los Angeles in 2020.

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Courtesy Kevin Cooley

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Cooley moved to Los Angeles from New York in 2012, and was already familiar with the city's tendency for destructive wildfires having gone on assignments to photograph them before.

His relationship to his subject deepened half a decade later, when the La Tuna Fire scorched some 7,200 acres — becoming the largest wildfire in the history of L.A., at the time.

That was 2017, and Cooley had just moved into his new home, barely a week or so in, when La Tuna came about a hundred yards from his house.

Instead of wary, he became more fascinated.

"The ecology of Southern California is the chaparral, and the chaparral needs to burn. You know, fire is part of that ecology. We live in its domain," Cooley said.

"That  really got me more interested in going to more fires," he said.

But, he added, " I much prefer to go to the fires than have them come to me."

At 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 7, a brush fire started in Pacific Palisades and grew exponentially over the course of the day, fanned by damaging Santa Ana winds unseen in a decade.

Kevin Cooley's new book, Wizard of Awe, is a compilation of photos he took of a man in Minnesota that makes smoke generators for big events.

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Courtesy Kevin Cooley

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Two photos inside Kevin Cooley's collection of photographs, Wizard of Awe. The West Coast launch of the book was postponed due to fires spreading across Los Angeles starting on Jan. 7.

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Courtesy Kevin Cooley

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That morning, Cooley was installing a gallery show in downtown Los Angeles for the West Coast book launch of Wizard of Awe, a collection of photos he took over the course of more than a decade of a man named Ken Miller, who made huge smoke generators at his Minnesota farm for airshows and other splashy events. Some of those photos were published in Popular Mechanics magazine. Those shots, and the accompany story, landed Miller in prison for violating federal explosive laws.

Miller was scheduled to fly out to L.A. to join this weekend's book launch.

But as the Palisades Fire grew in strength, Cooley got a call to go on assignment.

So he left the gallery and headed out.

From Kevin Cooley's "Controlled Burns" series.

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Courtesy Kevin Cooley

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" I've done enough where you can kind of get a sense of, you know,   looking at different resources and angles from fire cameras. It's like, 'OK, that's a fire. I got to go.' And you just go," he said. "That was the Palisades that day."

He and a friend spent hours out in the Palisades shooting the unprecedented blaze — until he got a call from his wife saying that a fire had broken out near Eaton Canyon and was growing fast.

" I could tell from the photograph that she sent from our house that it was like, 'We got to get back right now.' It was already that intense," Cooley said.

They hauled back to Altadena and saw firsthand what was happening to his neighborhood.

" I thought the [Palisades Fire] was the most intense fire I've ever been on until I got back to Altadena.  And that was more intense, at least for me, because it's my community," he said.

Cafe de Leche, a small coffee shop on Lake Avenue in Altadena, destroyed by the Eaton Fire.

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Courtesy Kevin Cooley

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Cooley, his wife and their 10-year-old son evacuated from their duplex near  the intersection of El Molino Avenue and Morada Place, straddling the border of Altadena and Pasadena, at about 5 a.m. Wednesday.

Once they settled into their friend's Bungalow Heaven home in Pasadena for shelter, Cooley headed back north.

 "Being the fire photographer that I am, I couldn't sit and I went back straight to my house and it was already on fire," he said.

Kevin Cooley and his family's Altadena duplex consumed by the Eaton Fire on the morning of Jan. 8.

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Courtesy Kevin Cooley

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Another view of the Cooley home.

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Courtesy Kevin Cooley

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A wall of fire was close to engulfing his car.

"I figured I probably should go," Cooley said.

The veteran fire photographer said after leaving his home: "I just went around the neighborhood like I always do, except I knew all the houses."

By early Wednesday morning, on Jan. 8, just hours after the start of Eaton Fire in Altadena, Cooley and his family has lost their home — along with so many people in the area.

He went to Instagram and posted a video of his house being ripped apart by the flames.

The next morning, one of the photographs he took of the Palisades Fire was published in the New York Times.

Cooley was showing me that shot in the backyard of his friend's Pasadena home that afternoon — while ashes from the fires burning across Los Angeles fell from the sky around us.

A screenshot of the New York Times opinion piece where Kevin Cooley's Palisades Fire photo was used.

He said he isn't sure what's next, what's going to happen, where he and his family are going to go, or whether they'll stay in L.A.

But he did say living with wildfires has become part of living in this city.

"If there's an earthquake, it's not gonna be like we weren't informed. People who live on the beach, [it's not like they] aren't aware that the sea is coming," Cooley said. "It's just all part of our living in this 21st century."

Because so much of Los Angeles teeters at the edge of paradise lost.

Kevin Cooley in front of his Altadena home destroyed by the Eaton Fire.

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Aaron Giesel

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Courtesy Kevin Cooley

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***

The West Coast book launch of Wizard of Awe has been rescheduled:

KEVIN COOLEY | THE WIZARD OF AWE
These Days
Location: 118 Winston St., Los Angeles
Event: Artist Reception + book signing: Jan. 18, 7 - 9 p.m.
Exhibition dates: Jan. 18 - Feb. 1

Sweltering summer days have arrived in Southern California, with temperatures this week expected to climb to the triple digits in some places.

Heat advisories from the National Weather Service are in place for much of the region and will remain in effect until 8 p.m. Friday. The highest temperatures are expected Wednesday and Thursday.

The forecast

L.A. County: The interior valleys and mountains, including Pasadena and Glendale, could see temperatures up to 105 degrees. Inland coastal areas, including downtown L.A., will likely get up to the low 90s. Coastal temperatures will stay in the 70s and 80s.

Orange County: O.C. will avoid some of the highest temperatures this week. Inland highs will be in the 80s, and coastal temperatures will stay mostly in the 70s.

Inland Empire: Riverside County and San Bernardino County valleys could see temperatures up to the low 100s, while the area’s mountains will hit the mid-90s.

Coachella Valley: The National Weather Service has declared a more severe Extreme Heat Warning for the Coachella Valley, where temperatures are expected to climb as high as 116 degrees. It is also expected to stay relatively warm overnight, with lows falling only to the 80s.

The elevated temperatures are expected to pose a significant risk of heat illness, especially for the elderly, young children and other sensitive populations.

What’s driving the high temperatures?

Much of the heat will be driven by a combination of two meteorological forces: a high-pressure system hovering over Southern California and off-shore winds, commonly called Santa Ana winds.

“Everything is dictated by which way your winds are blowing and high-pressure systems,” said Lisa Phillips, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Oxnard.

High-pressure systems push warm air down, trapping it closer to the ground. Then, the offshore winds carry dry, hot air from inland deserts toward the coast, raising temperatures in the L.A. basin even higher.

The heat wave also comes as the marine layer weakens. The marine layer, often called June gloom, is lower-temperature air and cloud cover generated by changing temperatures in the late spring and early summer. As the summer gets warmer, the marine layer retreats.

Fire risk

The high temperatures and dry conditions this week will also exacerbate fire danger, particularly in the region’s valleys, foothills, mountains and other areas away from the coast.

Philips warned residents to be extra cautious as the heat and offshore winds dry out vegetation. That creates more potential fuel.

“We are headed into our fire weather season, where we have more wildfires. The vegetation is dry, so it does catch fire more easily,” Phillips said. “That just means that fires are going to be a lot more easy to start.”

Southern parts of Santa Barbara County are expected to see more significant fire weather, with periods of gusty winds.

What’s next? 

Temperatures are likely to dip starting Friday.

The high-pressure system is expected to move to the east, some southerly winds to bring some cooling moisture with them. But Phillips said temperatures will come down only slightly and are expected to remain above average throughout the weekend.

The slight respite won’t last long either. Another, possibly worse, heat wave is right around the corner.

“We could be looking at even warmer temperatures next week,” Phillips said.

In what they described as an effort to prevent more corporate landlords from displacing Los Angeles renters, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors decided Tuesday to move forward with plans to require a new step in the process of selling certain apartment buildings.

The board voted unanimously to develop a “Community Opportunity to Purchase Act.” If passed on a final vote, the law would compel apartment owners to notify affordable housing groups when they put certain buildings up for sale in unincorporated parts of L.A. County.

The goal, county leaders say, is to ensure that organizations committed to keeping rents low have a chance to buy buildings that would likely otherwise be scooped up by investors who might push out existing tenants through rent hikes.

“The county is facing rising displacement pressures as rents outpace incomes,” said Supervisor Hilda Solis, who introduced the idea.

She cited statistics showing that more than half of L.A. County renters are considered “rent burdened” by federal government standards, with even higher rates among Black and Latino households.

“We need to fight,” Solis said. “We need to have tools to keep people in their homes.”

What buildings would be covered?

The proposed rules would only apply to buildings with five housing units or more and only to properties located in unincorporated areas, such as East L.A., City Terrace and Altadena. Based on past property sales data, the rules would apply to anywhere from 30 to 130 listings annually.

Nothing will change right away. Tuesday’s vote gives county staff 180 days to develop the regulations and bring them back to the board for a final vote.

During that time, the county will also work on developing a list of qualified buyers — such as affordable housing developers, community land trusts and other mission-driven organizations — who would be the first to hear about buildings coming up for sale.

Depending on how the regulations are written, the law could give those groups a “right of first refusal,” meaning they would have first dibs on making an offer to buy the building. County officials noted that a similar program in San Francisco gives qualified groups five days to respond with a letter of interest, followed by 20 days to place an offer.

Landlords would not be required to sell to these groups if they can get a better offer on the open market, county officials say.

Would sellers end up in a ‘Hotel California’ situation?

Though the idea is still in early stages, landlords and real estate agents expressed strong opposition during Tuesday’s public comment period.

“This proposal moves in the wrong direction by adding another layer of regulation and taxpayer expense, without creating any new housing units,” said Elizabeth de Carteret, the government affairs director at the Southland Regional Association of Realtors.

Meg Sullivan, who described herself as a “mom and pop” rental housing owner, said if the county establishes these rules in unincorporated areas, investors will choose to buy properties elsewhere.

“No private party in their right mind is going to invest in a market that looks like the equivalent of the ‘Hotel California’ song, where investors can check in, but it’s not clear they can ever leave, or on what timeline,” Sullivan said.

Existing groups say they’re ready to pursue deals

Tenant advocates told the board the proposed law would help protect renters from the whims of the profit-driven housing market.

Brenda Tafoya, executive director of El Sereno Community Land Trust, said organizations like hers have the experience needed to make market-rate offers on available properties.

“We work with the real estate market because we understand it,” Tafoya said. “We can partner with willing sellers and tenants to acquire properties, ensuring smooth transactions, while preserving permanently affordable housing.”

In response to concerns that the rules could delay properties from being offered to other prospective buyers, Supervisor Holly Mitchell asked county staff to consider regulations allowing listings to hit the open market at the same time affordable housing groups are given the chance to make an offer.

“This motion is not about taking property, forcing a sale or preventing a sale — it’s about creating a fair and transparent process,” Mitchell said, arguing that many older landlords want to retire without having to sell to corporate buyers.

Where would the funding come from?

Mitchell said public funding to support building purchases could come from money raised by Measure A, the county sales tax increase voters approved in 2024 to support housing and homelessness efforts. The L.A. County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency, which is funded by the tax revenue, has programs to support affordable housing preservation.

L.A.’s idea is not new. Washington, D.C., has had a “Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act” in place since 1980.

Supporters say D.C. tenants use the city’s program to form associations that negotiate with new buyers to ensure ongoing affordability in about half of buildings coming up for sale, according to a 2023 study by the Coalition for Nonprofit Housing and Economic Development.

But critics point out that D.C.’s program rarely results in tenants actually owning their buildings. That same 2023 study found that ownership by a tenant-sponsored cooperatives was the outcome in only about 2% of building sales.

Solis said she wants the county to take a phased approach, with the initial program eventually being expanded to include a way for tenants to purchase their buildings directly.

The Covina City Council is set to vote Tuesday night on whether to allow construction of a battery energy storage facility that’s faced backlash from community members.

The project is a 110-megawatt storage system that would include two structures that take up 3.4 acres in a mixed business and residential area in northeast Covina.

The city’s planning commission voted unanimously against the project in June following resident feedback. Hundreds of community members attended the commission’s meetings in June, resulting in hours of public comment on the issue.

The backstory

RWE Americas, a subsidiary of German energy company RWE, filed an initial study report with the city for the construction of a 110-megawatt battery energy storage system in Covina in January.

These types of systems store electricity generated from other sources, such as wind farms and solar plants, in large batteries. The batteries can then be tapped by local electrical grids during power outages or times of high usage, such as heat waves.

RWE Americas’ website says the project would enhance the reliability of the city’s electrical grid, create 150 jobs during its construction and generate over $17 million in property taxes.

The public response

The proposed project has received significant negative backlash from the community on social media.

Some residents allege a lack of transparency from the city regarding the project’s development while others cite concerns ranging from potential noise pollution to fires and smoke to insurance hikes.

There has been similar backlash from communities against proposed battery energy storage systems in the City of Industry and San Juan Capistrano in recent years.

Recent storage system fires include incidents in San Diego in 2024 and Monterey County in 2025. The San Diego fire had flareups for seven days following the initial incident. The Monterey County fire resulted in the evacuation of 1,200 local residents for 24 hours.

The root causes of these fires remain under investigation by the EPA, but have been linked in some instances to an overheating process called thermal runaway associated with the lithium-ion batteries used in these facilities.

Covina is one of eight storage projects in the United States proposed by RWE Americas.

How to keep tabs on the Covina City Council

The Covina City Council meets on scheduled Tuesdays. Meetings start at 7:30 p.m.

Here’s how you can follow along:

• Attend in person: The board meets at City Hall, Council Chambers, 125 E. College St., Covina
• Watch the live broadcast
• Here’s how to submit a comment or contact the council

Topline:

The details: Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California allege Michael Angel Alvarez, 41, was an 18th Street gang leader at the same time he worked as a peace ambassador for the nonprofit Healing Urban Barrios. The job focused on reducing tensions and potential violence among gangs in L.A.’s Council District 1.

The backstory: Alvarez was previously convicted of a gang-related murder in 2002 and released from custody in 2024. A spokesperson for Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who represents the district, previously told LAist they were never told of any new allegations against Alvarez prior to his arrest in May.

What the lawyers say: Prosecutors claim in court documents that Alvarez already admitted to law enforcement officers that he was in a leadership position within the gang and had body armor despite his previous murder conviction.

Alvarez’s lawyers have argued in court documents that he did have contact with the 18th Street gang after his release from prison but only because of his employment as a gang violence-reduction worker with Healing Urban Barrios.

Lawyers for Alvarez and the federal government told LAist they would not give further comment on the case Tuesday.

What’s next: A trial date has been set for Aug. 18. Alvarez currently is in federal custody after the court found “by clear and convincing evidence that [he] presents a serious danger to the community,” court records show. Prosecutors wrote in court documents that Alvarez also “knows that he is under investigation for crimes that carry great sentencing exposure,” indicating other charges could be coming.