‘It Was Biblical’: Ash and Flame Upend Life in Southern California

“This is my fourth fire and the only time we’ve ever left,” said Muffie Alejandro, 74, the owner of a manufacturing company who has lived near Eaton Canyon since 1989. On Tuesday, she evacuated to a hotel with her husband,Jan, and her dogs, Mingus and Clinton. “This is the worst I’ve ever seen,” she said.

Sylmar is yet another Los Angeles, remote and rugged, far to the north in the San Fernando Valley, an arid swath of ranches and working-class suburbs once known for its groves of olive trees. Its population is about 80,000, and three-quarters Latino. The terminus of the Los Angeles Aqueduct system is there, as is the Olive View-U.C.L.A. Medical Center.

It burns regularly, too. One wildfire, in 2008, destroyed nearly 500 houses. El Cariso Community Regional Park, a local landmark, is dedicated to fire crews who died in a 1966 blaze.

This week, those distinct versions of paradise became one, united in terror.

“There’s a kind of mantra that when the wind blows, Los Angeles burns,” said D.J. Waldie, 76, a historian who has written extensively about Southern California and is a lifelong resident of the Los Angeles suburb of Lakewood. “That’s true again, but there’s an ominous sense this time.”

This disaster, he said, has come suddenly, and all over, and seems only to promise more disaster: “I think that Angelenos are thinking, ‘This is going to go on and on and on. And what will become of us?’”