L.A. Wildfires – Southern California News Group

About the Project

On Jan. 7 our newsrooms, including the Pasadena Star-News and the LA Daily News, faced down a firestorm unlike anything Southern California had seen before. What resulted from the Eaton and Palisades fires, among others, was nothing short of devastation: More than 40,000 acres burned, thousands upon thousands of buildings destroyed and 30 deaths. Altadena and the Pacific Palisades were destroyed. Entire neighborhoods and communities were lost overnight.

Our newsrooms devoted significant resources to covering all the wildfires that tore through Southern California, including the Eaton fire in Altadena and Pasadena, the hometown community of the Pasadena Star-News. Exceptional reporting was also dedicated to the Palisades fire which was equally destructive.

The extraordinary circumstances of these fires, which rapidly spread due to a rare windstorm, led to remarkable coverage from our reporters, photographers and editors.

Featured in this submission are:

• A digital display of the victims who died in the fire. This display gave a home to all those who were lost, their images and stories within an easy to navigate mobile friendly display.
• A tense, compelling narrative from the perspective of the residents who experienced the fires, starting from the day before the fires and what life was like prior to this historic disaster and taking the reader through the day off and the immediate aftermath.
• A heartrending profile of 3 generations of a family who all lived in Altadena and each one lost their home. The story takes you through their history, how each came to the area and owning their home and what has been lost in the fire.
• A feature on a group of family businesses which had become a family within itself in the Pacific Palisades who all lost their businesses in the Palisades fire detailing what some of them had built with their life savings, what they lost in their business and community and their hopes and fears about the idea of rebuilding.
• A story on the rampant misinformation that spread on social media regarding the fires, some fueled by bad actors and other reports by politicians seeking to spin narratives about California. Either way, we sought to explain the issue and debunk falsehoods where possible.

It is of note that the quality and breadth of this coverage was done under extreme circumstances. Not only was this an unprecedented event in Southern California in terms of the extent of the damage, but many reporters, photographers and editors were personally impacted because they lived in or had family and friends who lived in these communities. Some were evacuated or helped others evacuate while reporting.

This is evident in the detail contained within our reporting. It isn’t a general view of the suffering of a place, but micro details covering specific losses and threats within communities: historic homes, local landmarks, senior centers, schools, pets, relatives and neighbors. Nothing was spared in the fire, but our coverage aimed to leave no person or part of our community overlooked.