THE SCENES kept getting worse. People abandoned their cars and fled on foot as the flames approached. Firefighters then bulldozed their vehicles to reach the blaze. Workers evacuated patients in wheelchairs from a nursing home. The sky above the Pacific Coast Highway turned orange and thickened with smoke. Palm fronds smouldered. A man walked his horses down the street as embers flew around them. Flames licked up the grounds of the Getty Villa, an art museum. Extreme winds sparked several wildfires across Los Angeles on January 7th. Nine months without measurable rainfall had primed the city to burn.