LA Wildfires Destroy Important Archives, Libraries, Historic Sites & Cultural Resources

The catastrophic LA wildfires began on January 7th with the "Palisades Fire" igniting near the Pacific Palisades neighborhood and have continued to spread loss and destruction in their path. According to recent reports the fires have destroyed over 12,000 buildings, with the majority of the damage coming from the Palisades and Eaton fires, with damages estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars. As of Jan. 23rd the death toll stood at 27.

The book world was not exempt from the consequences; one notable impact came when the ABAA Pasadena Book Fair, originally scheduled for early February at the Pasadena Convention Center, was forced to cancel when the venue was converted to an emergency evacuation center. That left many regional, national and international dealers who had already signed up to exhibit without a show and many anticipated a substantial loss of revenue.

RBH spoke with Howard Prouty, (ReadInk), who like quite a few others decided to make the best of a bad situation by making the trek up to San Francisco, where what was formerly the “shadow show” took in some who were forced out of Pasadena. The San Francisco event is scheduled February 1-2, in the Gateway Pavilion at Fort Mason

Veteran bookman Brad Johnson explained the impact of the fires in more detail in a Jan. 14th email to RBH reading in part, “As a lifelong Angeleno, it is not an uncommon experience to see smoke rising in the distance, a hillside ablaze, or ash falling from the sky. But I cannot recall wildfires as destructive as what Southern California has experienced this past week. The loss of life and culture is devastating and while they will certainly rebuild, communities like Altadena and the Palisades will never be the same.

“It’s been said that every single person in Los Angeles knows at least one person who has been directly affected by the fires. "At least" are the operative words. We are fortunate to be out of harm’s way, about eight miles to the east of the Eaton fire. Sadly, many of our friends and colleagues have not fared as well. We know three people in the trade, including Tom Rogers, owner of the Book Alley in Pasadena, who lost their homes. Several others are living through the uncertainty of evacuation.

“The Altadena Town & Country Club was where the Zamorano Club, Southern California’s oldest bibliophilic organization, met on the first Wednesday of each month. It succumbed to the flames on the night the fires broke out. The club’s president, Jim Tranquada, has been keeping members of this close-knit organization updated on those who live in the evacuation zones.

“As one of the three trustees of the ABAA Benevolent Fund, I should also add that we have been diligently monitoring the situation and making every effort to expeditiously direct funds to those who have been adversely affected.”

Also hard hit was the Pasadena based Theosophical Foundation which lost its theosophy archives and building including a library with 40,000 titles, the entire archive of its history, as well as membership records since 1875, art objects, and countless other irreplaceable materials.

Similarly the BBC/MSN reported the loss of musical archives of composer Arnold Schoenberg . According to the article, “At least 100,000 scores by the pioneering 20th century Austrian-American composer were destroyed in the Los Angeles wildfires.

“The sheet music was kept at his family's music production company - which burnt down in the Pacific Palisades neighbourhood ….. While no original manuscripts were lost, the music owned by Belmont Music Publishing had been the main collection of scores rented out to orchestras and musicians.

“The director of the American Symphony Orchestra, Leon Botstein, said these had been an 'indispensable resource' for performing musicians.

“Schoenberg's son, Larry, 83, said the sheet music had been kept in a building behind his house. Both buildings were razed in the fires last week. Other Schoenberg memorabilia was also destroyed, including photographs, letters and posters.”

A recent article in the London Review of Books by Colm Toibin gives an eyewitness account of the ongoing events and also provides details of the loss of the books of cultural critic Gary Indiana.

In the public sector the fires have significantly impacted books and libraries, most notably causing the complete destruction of the Pacific Palisades branch of the Los Angeles Public Library, resulting in a substantial loss of books and community access to vital resources; other libraries in affected areas have also sustained smoke and water damage, impacting their book collections and functionality, while the overall damage to the LA Public Library system is estimated to be in the millions of dollars due to fire damage and smoke contamination across multiple branches according to multiple reports.

Media outlets all over the world are in the process of verifying other losses to books, libraries, archives, as well as important historic cultural and architectural sites. These include a Jan.15th report in the NY Times and a Jan.16th article in Vulture

A more personal view of being on the ground in the midst of the disaster was provided by Jo Ann Carroll, former owner of the Old Lahaina Book Emporium on the island of Maui. She retired a few years ago and now lives in a Glendale apartment complex. Her household consists of two elderly adults, an additional older disabled adult and a large older dog.

Since the emergency began she reports being “constantly on edge. We didn’t have to evacuate but we’ve been hyper-vigilant.” She also noted that due to the shifting nature of the fires and their location she and her family have gone from being prospects for evacuation, to a possible temporary relocation site for friends in other areas more recently threatened.

Carroll also said that many of her friends from Lahaina, itself a site of a recent and deadly fire, called in to check on her: “I heard from customers and friends, people I worked with, they were all concerned about our safety.”

She said there are several similarities between the Lahaina Fire and the devastation of Pacific Palisades and Altadena including exceptionally high winds, power lines down, and not enough water for demand.”

“There’s a great big mountain right behind us,” she continued, “it’s very dry right now, but rain is expected …if it’s heavy there could be a great deal of burned toxic material that runs off into the ocean.”

As for what do you pack as you get ready to run for your life?

“We reverted to the essentials,” she said, “a dozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and hard boiled eggs, and bottled water. Our main concern is the dog. There are people who will take us, but most can’t take an animal.”

In another related matter she reported that prices immediately skyrocketed. “We’re looking at eggs at $13.99 a doz. That is partly a result of the bird flu, but everything else has also gone up: a six pack ginger ale is usually $2.99, within a day it was $5.99.”

Possibly the only bright spot in recent disasters were reports of properties that did survive, and are largely unscathed. Most prominently mentioned by numerous sources was the Getty Museum in Bel-Air. The Chicago Tribune ran an editorial on what average Illinois homeowners could learn about preparedness from the uber-wealthy Getty.