Angelika The news often spirals out of control in these times. One disaster follows another. The people affected by them remain stuck in their situations while the world already turns to the next topic. As mentioned, we were traditionally back in Los Angeles after the Christmas holidays. The year before, we had just left when devastating fires razed entire neighborhoods to the ground.

During our visit a year later, we were honestly surprised at how little damage we saw at first glance. However, we were not in Altadena, the neighborhood that was hit the hardest, but in Venice Beach, which had been spared. Then we drove up to Malibu in our car. There, the fire had relentlessly worked its way to the ocean.

In many places, the view of the beach was suddenly unobstructed; where houses once stood, only individual concrete pillars jutted out of the ground like memorials. And as always, one cannot understand how it is possible that a solitary house has remained unscathed by chance, while the others are gone. We also saw charred palm trunks and peeling signs. Traces of the heat, like scars in the landscape.

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• More topics you might be interested in:

  	Power Outage In San Francisco
  	Cesar Chavez and Army Street
  	The Wende Museum, Los Angeles
  	Bier an der Selbstbedienungskasse" translates to "Beer at the
  	Treat of the Month: Bequet Caramel
  	Top Product: The Foldable Steamer Insert
  	Top Product: Foodsaver
  	TSA -- Partially closed