The Brief

It’s been five years since the Woolsey Fire tore across Los Angeles and Ventura counties, killing three people and destroying more than 1,600 structures.

Since then, we’ve been forced to adapt to living with devastating fires year after year across the state, making things quite different now than they were on Nov. 8, 2018.

The ruins of an ocean view home are seen in the aftermath of the Woolsey Fire in Malibu, California on Nov. 14, 2018.

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David McNew

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AFP via Getty Images

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Here are a few of the things that have changed when it comes to living with fire in Southern California.

We fully understand how bad fires can be

The Woolsey Fire fundamentally changed our understanding of just how violent and fast moving fires in Southern California can be.

Not that the Thomas Fire and the Tubbs Fire the year before, or the deadly Cedar Fire in 2003, didn’t have an impact, but Woolsey was so shocking in its spectacle, tearing through one of the most populated regions of the country in less than 24 hours, that it solidified the feeling of just how unprepared we were for the new normal that was unfolding.

A hospital worker embraces her co-worker as they evacuate patients from the Feather River Hospital during the Camp Fire on Nov. 8, 2018 in Paradise, California.

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The Camp Fire, which was destroying the town of Paradise 415 miles north at the same time as Woolsey, contributed to that feeling across a broader swath of the state, even more so.

Since then, deadly, unstoppable conflagrations have become somewhat expected, brought on in many places by a combination of overzealous fire suppression, aging infrastructure, and extreme drought and heat exacerbated by climate change.

Our firefighting infrastructure has its limits

With the Woolsey and Camp fires burning at the same time, firefighting forces throughout the state were completely overwhelmed.

Only about 50% of the requested firefighting resources were sent to Woolsey, according to L.A. County’s after action report.

A firefighter pulls a hose line as smoke rises into a pyrocumulus cloud while firefighters work to contain wildfire along Bautista Canyon Road during the Fairview Fire in the San Bernardino National Forest near Hemet, California, on September 7, 2022.

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AFP

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In the years that followed, repeated hundred thousand-plus-acre complexes maxed out both the number of aircraft available and people on the ground. And the long, arduous fire seasons have taken a toll on personnel as well, jeopardizing their health and wildfire response.

Residents have been forced to accept that there’s a limit to firefighting resources, and sometimes they just need to get out of the way and save themselves, as their homes are going to be lost.

Normal people feel the need to step in

Our firefighting limits were realized by many during Woolsey, as multiple communities felt abandoned during the fire as they expected their homes to be saved.

In response, some neighborhood groups bought trucks, hoses and other equipment, in an effort to lead their own firefighting efforts if they ever again felt abandoned during a crisis.

I covered one such group in Bell Canyon, who have gone through training, and plan on battling flames until professionals with gear show up.

A volunteer firefighter in Bell Canyon walks past their brush truck.

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Jacob Margolis

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Neither L.A. County nor Ventura County fire officials endorse regular citizens fighting fire, but the former has recognized the need to directly interface with these communities, and include them in the process of preparation and response.

They’re establishing a community brigade program to help ameliorate feelings of alienation. The goal isn’t to have normal folks fight fire, but to train them to help with home and brush prep in advance, and evacuations when needed. Establishing contact with people who know the community gives them an in, and will hopefully smooth communications.

The Bell Canyon Volunteer Wildland Fire Department practices handling a hose.

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Jacob Margolis

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LAist

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“The goal for the program is to kind of show that this is a shared risk, and it's a shared responsibility to respond to that risk between the community members and the agencies,” said Keegan Gibbs, whose family lost their home in Malibu’s Point Dume community during Woolsey. He’s been involved with the creation of the program.

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Relying on heavier air power

In 2021, a so-called quick reaction force made up of burly helicopters from Coulson Aviation was created to assist Ventura, L.A. and Orange counties on brush fires.

The program is partly funded by Southern California Edison, which was found responsible for starting Woolsey.

As soon as the alert goes out for a first-alarm brush fire, CH-47 Chinooks (which carry 3,000 gallons of water or retardant), along with other support aircraft, take off from nearby airports. The idea being that if they can hit fires early, they can help stop spread. They’re available 24/7, can access fires in treacherous terrain and can fly at night.

“It’s really helping,” said L.A. County Fire Capt. Sheila Kelliher Berkoh.

A Los Angeles city firefighter monitors the Palisades fire above Santa Ynez Canyon near Pacific Palisades in the late hours of May 15, 2021. The fire had burned over 700 acres by nightfall, prompting evacuations.

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Emergency messaging systems still need to be improved

Effective emergency messaging during an unfolding crisis is notoriously difficult, and in L.A. County’s after action report for the Woolsey Fire, emergency agencies got knocked for their communication during the event.

Messaging during crisis can be clunky, as they're accidentally sent to people outside the area of concern, spreading confusion. And if you’re getting blasted by irrelevant messages all day, you might just ignore the one meant for you.

L.A. County Fire is trying a new system where they can alert people within specific high risk divisions, such as Topanga, Calabasas and Agoura. The hope is that they can use targeted messaging to more effectively coordinate among small groups, things like evacuation orders.

You can download the app and sign up.

Firefighters quickly got a fire under control near the historic Griffith Observatory and the iconic Hollywood sign on July 10, 2018.

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Whether this system will be any better than Wireless Emergency Alerts or text based services, is unclear, though it’s worth giving a shot to see if it helps during a crisis.

Any cellular-based system won’t mean much if networks go down, so make sure you buy an emergency radio as well. Or, better yet, leave before evacuation orders have to be issued.

You don’t want to get caught on the road with flames coming for you, as could easily happen in an emergency situation in Topanga Canyon.

What did I miss?

What did the Woolsey Fire teach you? What do you think it changed here in Southern California?

Always feel free to send me a note via the Hearken link below.

Los Angeles city officials are asking LA28 to hand over a list of its contracts, saying the Olympics organizing committee could be in violation of its agreement with the city.

LA28’s annual financial report released last week included a broad review of the organization’s deals with contractors hired to help put on the event, but no names or detailed breakdowns of spending.

The Games Agreement between the city and LA28 requires the committee to submit the name, type, amount, term and purpose of each contract it has entered into worth more than $1 million.

No such list was provided in LA28’s report.

“It's inadequate, what we've been provided, and that's not acceptable,” City Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky said at a committee meeting on the 2028 Olympics Wednesday afternoon.

Chief Legislative Analyst Sharon Tso said she has requested a full list from LA28 and is waiting to hear back.

Jacie Prieto Lopez, a spokesperson for LA28, said in an emailed statement to LAist that LA28 had received the request.

“We are working through those requests now and remain committed to meeting our obligations," she said.

Tso told the council committee she had seen a more detailed list of LA28’s contracts, but only when it was “flashed on the screen very quickly” at a meeting with her, Olympics organizers, the city administrative officer and the mayor’s office.

“So we don't have a list,” Tso said. “We don't have the names of the folks. We don't have the dollar amounts.”

Tso told the council that Olympics organizers were wary about making contracts public, due to concerns that public disclosure could harm negotiations over competitive event sponsor deals.

City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez said that did not satisfy LA28’s obligations to the city.

“They can just be like, ‘Flash it, we're done, and we did our requirement,’” Soto-Martinez said.

The federal financial aid process opened this past week for students applying to college for next year. But for many California students, a source of state financial help remains untapped.

In 2022, the state launched the California Kids Investment and Development Savings Program, also known as CalKIDS, and began creating investment accounts for more than 6 million children in the state to use for higher education.

Babies born on or after July 1, 2022, can get up to $175 in their accounts, while low-income public school students can claim up to $1500.

In Los Angeles County, about 1.1 million public school students are eligible for the accounts, but fewer than 20% of kids have claimed them, said Cassandra DiBenedetto, executive director of California’s ScholarShare Investment Board. The claim rate is even less for babies — about 11%.

“The money itself, it has a long trajectory. So you have these newborns, and there's not a sense of urgency among some parents; they know the account's there, it’s been created. Parents are busy,” DiBenedetto said.

There is no deadline to claim the money, which is already growing in the investment accounts. (You do have to use the money by age 26). But DiBenedetto says kids are more likely to see themselves as college-bound if they have it — and will be able to watch the account grow over time.

“ You talk to second-and third graders who are like, ‘I'm gonna go to UC Santa Barbara,’ ‘I'm gonna go to Cal Berkeley,’” she said.

The state is working with the Los Angeles Unified School District and other school districts to get students signed up.

The city’s top financial adviser is recommending that the Los Angeles City Council deny a police department request to procure 300 additional vehicles for the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics.

The report, submitted to the council Monday by City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo, found that the L.A. Police Department would have enough vehicles to temporarily expand its fleet during the Games without the additional cars.

LAPD officials had previously requested around $31 million, arguing the additional officers deployed for the Games will need additional vehicles for their police work.

But Szabo disagreed in his report, finding instead that the department would soon have a large enough fleet.

“Given the current available vehicles and new vehicle procurements which have already been funded, it is not recommended to authorize the procurement of any additional police vehicles for the 2028 Games deployment,” Szabo wrote.

An LAPD spokesperson declined to comment on the city administrative officer’s report. Previously, the department has emphasized that its request seeks only to temporarily expand its fleet, with plans to retire old vehicles after the Games.

The police department has offered different estimates of how many additional vehicles it will need to patrol the Olympics. Two months after the LAPD asked for an additional 300 vehicles, the department released another report estimating an even higher need: 576 police vehicles.

Either way, Szabo’s report found that more than 1,100 police vehicles not yet in use by the department were funded in the past three budget cycles. He said those should be sufficient for the Olympics.

When you sit down at Birria Pa La Cruda in El Sereno, you might be expecting one thing. What you'll leave talking about is something else entirely, and it's just as good.

Take the mushroom quesataco. It starts with a tortilla brushed with avocado oil and griddled until lightly crisp, then layered with a thin skirt of cheese and a smooth smear of refried red kidney beans. On top goes a heap of shimeji mushrooms braised in a house-made salsa verde, mild, nutty and savory with a bright finish.

It's a slight departure for chef Carlos Jaquez, who spent seven years building a reputation for the birria de res at his popular pop-up. Now, at his new brick-and-mortar just blocks from where he got his start, he's serving his much-loved birria alongside several vegetable-focused dishes — including this one.

You get the sense that Jaquez has been refining each one for years through his pop-up, his work as a private chef and his high-end dining background at Otium and Bestia.

Homegrown talent

Jaquez grew up in El Sereno and launched Birria Pa La Cruda (which means “for the hangover” in Spanish) as a Sunday pop-up in 2019. Over the years, he's drawn on everything from his family's cooking to his Indigenous roots, to the bounty of local produce, building a repertoire that showcases the full range of his influences. His new place, on Alhambra Road near Cal State L.A., is his chance to prove it.

Carlos Jaquez, chef and owner of Birria Pa La Cruda, draws on the El Sereno community where he grew up and a wide range of culinary influences.

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Eric Valle

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Courtesy Birria Pa La Cruda

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"I don't wanna just be the birria guy," Jaquez said. "If people know me for just the birria, then I'm sure that one day when I cook something else they'll be like, 'Wow, he can cook other stuff too.'"

The menu

The mushroom quesataco may be exquisite, but Jaquez's birria de res hardly takes a back seat. For example: the mulita. Two corn tortillas are dipped in spiced 12-hour braising liquid, and the beef he uses is cooked in a pot lined with charred blue agave leaves that Jaquez harvests from the El Sereno hills. The meat is piled on thick, then topped with cheese, resulting in a juicy, well-seasoned bite where all the flavors and textures meld together. It's a mouthful, but the mulita shows backbone, never falling apart bite after bite.

The sweet potato tamal, topped with date-almond mole and sesame seeds, served with red amaranth leaves and pickled vegetables.

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Eric Valle

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Courstesy Birria Pa La Cruda

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Where the birria is a constant, the tamal is expected to change with the seasons. Right now, it's sweet potato and organic yellow corn masa steamed in a banana leaf, then topped with a rich mole made from California-grown dates and almonds. It's entirely vegan, though Jaquez doesn't advertise it that way. It's served alongside pickled carrots and a small salad of amaranth leaves grown just outside the space and dressed in a confit garlic vinaigrette.

Amaranth was a staple for Indigenous peoples in Mexico long before the Spanish arrived. Jaquez, who attended Anahuacalmecac, an Indigenous-focused charter school in El Sereno where students learn Nahuatl from third grade through high school, wanted it on the plate.

"We were eating amaranth and tamales and maybe even combining them thousands and thousands of years ago," he said. "Serving that on a menu today is a reflection of the resilience of our roots."

California love

Jaquez believes the caliber of his cooking comes from using local ingredients, whether it’s tortillas and masa milled in Boyle Heights by Kernel of Truth or heirloom tomatoes from Valdivia Farms in Carlsbad.

Chef Carlos Jaquez's birria de res is braised for 8 to 12 hours before it's served.

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Eric Valle

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Courtesy Birria Pa La Cruda

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"Its uniqueness comes from the locality and the quality of the ingredients that we're afforded because we're in L.A. and California," he said.

So, is it a taqueria or a restaurant?

"I don't know," Jaquez said. "It's Birria Pa La Cruda."