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I still remember the morning of 28 October 2019 as though it were yesterday. I woke to a strange amber glow seeping through the curtains and, within minutes, my phone was buzzing relentlessly with alerts: a wildfire had erupted in the hills beside the 405, right next to the Getty Center. The Getty Fire, as it would come to be known, forced thousands of us across west Los Angeles to confront something we had always known was possible but never truly expected to experience firsthand.

The Night the Santa Ana Winds Turned the Hills into a Furnace

What struck me most that night was how scientific and methodical everything felt, even amidst the chaos. Firefighters worked through precise maps of the terrain, tracking the fire's every movement the way researchers might track data across a carefully mapped surface. I later learned the blaze began when a tree branch snapped in the ferocious Santa Ana winds and fell onto power lines, hurling embers into the dry brush above Brentwood. Within hours, more than 600 acres had burned, and gusts approaching 80 miles per hour meant the flames were spreading faster than anyone dared to predict.

I was fortunate. My flat sat well outside the mandatory evacuation zone, which stretched from the 405 west towards Mandeville Canyon and the exclusive streets of Brentwood. Still, the uncertainty was suffocating. Friends who lived on Mountaingate packed their cars in the middle of the night, grabbing photograph albums and passports whilst ash drifted like grey snow onto their windscreens. Schools across the entire west side closed. The air was thick, acrid and unbreathable; I wore a mask just to fetch the post.

What amazed me, and continues to amaze me, was what survived. The Getty Center, that gleaming citadel of travertine stone perched on the ridge, emerged almost untouched. Its architects had designed the campus precisely for this eventuality, with fire-resistant stone walls, buried power lines, and sophisticated suppression systems. Watching the fire wrap around that hillside, seemingly deflected by thoughtful engineering, felt like witnessing a quiet victory of preparation over disaster.

The Getty Fire was fully contained after about a week, having scorched roughly 745 acres and destroyed or damaged more than a dozen structures. Mercifully, no lives were lost. But it changed how I think about living in Los Angeles. I keep a go-bag by the door now. I check the wind forecast in October the way others check for rain. And every time I drive past those brown, brush-covered slopes above Sepulveda, I remember that strange orange dawn, and I am grateful, still, that my neighbourhood was spared.