Welcome to what is usually the Friday Diary, but today it's just a check in from the wildfires currently burning through LA.
Quick update of whats happening in LA right now and the fires.
What makes these fires so scary is the Santa Ana winds that are at hurricane levels.
Stay safe friends,
Big Love
Lola
Welcome to your Diary episode. Here's the thing. I'm a bit of a nomad, so these episodes come to you from wherever I'm living or traveling to at the time, so I'll share with you what's going on in my world, from book tours, animal encounters, delish meals, nature adventures, health discoveries, to swimming in hidden Byron Bay beaches. Come with me as I share my adventures with you. Hello, Diary pod. Not a chirpy, happy regular one. It's a little bit scary. As we record this pod. We are in the middle of the Ala wildfires. They kicked off yesterday a vou and they've been going throughout the day today and then more of just kicked off tonight. So what's really scary is is like four big different fires in all different parts around LA. So you've got the Pacific Palisades, which is kind of like between Santa Monica and Malibu, and that's kind of moving towards Santa Monica, so a lot of Santa Monica is evacuated right now, So that's kind of the famous pier if you've ever been here or seen the photos. And then you've got these big fires in Pasadena, which that's like more East, more Inland, and just in the last hour, a massive fire has started on the iconic famous Runyon Canyon, which is like the hike that everyone does when they're in LA and it's really scary. We have a rooftop and from our rooftop apartment we can see all of the fires burning around us, so it's like, really, really scary. It's very apocalyptic. If you want to see what's going on. I've been posing a lot on my Insta, but it's quite scary, like it's quite hard to breathe, like it's super itchy eyes and we're just about to pack a suitcase, so we're ready to evacuate essentially. But I thought, I said to bass, I was like far out, like the pods meant to come out tomorrow, and I kind of wanted to share real time what was going on here. To be honest with you, I reckon how many of our friends have had to evacuate. Four groups of mates have had to evacuate. So it's pretty scary because it feels like there's nowhere to go, and the traffic is gridlocked as well, and it's like fully in the city, like the heart of La right now as well, like the one Runion is moving all the way down towards Hollywood Walk of Fame, Hollywood Boulevard, like Musso and Franks, Chateau Malmo, they're all on evacuation. So it's really like those places that if you've ever visited at La There. I don't know how they're going to look tomorrow. We just went up to our rooftop and like there were other people like from our building up there, and we're all like, what are you doing? So some people have evacuated from our building. We haven't had a notice of evacuate evacuation order. And I'm following this great app. I'm going to tell you it because if you're just at all interested or fascinated in this, we've been told to expect it to last until Friday. And remember we're a day behind you, guys, So it's Wednesday here as I record this. But there's this app called Watch Judy, and it really gives you very real time specific highlights is the wrong word, but like up to date information about the fires. But it is super scary, super like the moment we open our apartment door, it smells like smoke, which is quite scary. We've got air filters going, We've gone out today and got filtered water. Matt just made a really healthy dinner tonight because we're like, I don't know if we're going to be here tomorrow or it's going to be happening, so we feel okay. We just are preparing, just like all of our friends are. And what's crazy is it's not like one area is affected, like so many areas around La are affected from Santa Monica Art all those like west side areas like Brentwood, like the iconic Montana have where you would go, you know a lot of people go shopping down there. So that's what's really scary is it's like it's hitting like suburban areas and if you know Pacific Palisades, it is like rubble right now, and like, of course I love me in Air one, the Air one in Pacific Palisades. Like there's there's footage on TikTok of it just like almost engulf with flames, and there's like a whole shopping mall around there. It's like a beautiful outdoor shopping precinct and it's all gone and you can see like TikTok is like interesting, but also like it feels like a trap that you don't want to get caught in because it is quite stress and juicing as well because you're just looking at like so many celebs have lost there. I know Spencer and Heidi, Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag I think her name is their reality stars Off the Heels and they like have shared so much on TikTok about their place going off in flames and like they shared video footage from the baby monitor of the baby room like completely getting burnt through, like so sad, so heartbreaking. Who else Mandy Moore has been evacuated? She was more in the Pasadena Pasadena fire, I think they're calling it. I'll pull the app up because the way that each fire has its own name, but yeah, it's like pretty full, Like I think Adam Sandler's house has gone, Adam Brodie their house is gone, Chris pratz X, what's her name? I've forgotten, but let me pull this ap up. So it's called Watch Duty and basically it shows you all the fires and it shows you where you are. So there's one, one, two, three, biggies four or five, so you've got right now. The Palisades fire is huge it is fifteen eight and thirty two acres and they've just increased the evacuation all the way down to Montana Ave in Santa Monica. So if you know Santa Monica, that is like a huge shopping precinct. So that's super wild. So the next step after that is essentially downtown Santa Monica. I spent a favorite of time living there last year and it was right near there, so I've checked on that friend they've evacuated. Okay, So the areas that are like on high watch basically are in pink. We've been on high watch all day today. We've been in pink and it isn't on. We're not in the pink now. We've just gone back to white about an hour ago. So when you're in the pink, you're essentially on evacuation, like be aware, and we're currently not. But we have been on pink all day and we live opposite a school and we watched it about midday the school get fully evacuated and I was like, oh my goodness, it could be air quality. Though, Like all the advice is don't leave your house, don't leave your apartment, like don't be on the road if you won't have to. We are stucked out to literally get water and just a couple of ingredients and we wore those in ninety five mask things. But the names of the fire is really interesting. So you've got the Palisades fire, and then you've got the Sunset fire that's someone in run yin can In. You've got the Eaten Fire. That's the one that really has caused a lot of havoc and really really dangerous of people in Pasadena and the area that it really hit. I'm trying to see because each area has its own little code. It's really fascinating. I think it's called Altadano or something, but that's called the Eaten Fire, and that is ten thousand, five hundred and ninety acres. People in Australia are asking me, I'll hang on to you the other fires. And then you've got the Hearst fire that's more sand Fernando, so that's more deeper in. And then you've got the Lydia fire, also deeper in. What area is that in? That is more Palmdale, So that's a little bit further in. We've done gone into those areas when we've fostered pups. So and then there's a fire, the Royal Fire, but it like they've got rid of that one. So this app is really good because it tells you like where it says where the evacuate evacuation centers are, and it kind of like it says where their shelters are for animals as well, and it's just really good because it's literally updated, Like if I click on the closest fire to me, okay, it was last updated sixteen minutes ago, and it says the fire is estimated to be approximately fifty to sixty acres per LAFD helicopter overhead. Okay, so it's got bigger from ten acres to now fifty to sixty, which is really scary. An evacuation center for Sunset fire has opened, a Panpacific Recreational Center located on Beverly Boulevard, and then it explains which way the winds are going. The heaviest fire activity is on the southwestern side of the fire, where helicopters are actively working. The fire on the eastern side has active flames with in the interior, but the perimeter is holding well along the fire road with ground resources in place. The heel of the fires had its active flames knocked down with smoldering still on the interior. All info per Hallo hal COO over helicopter Coordinator via radio traffic Control. Two additional strike teams of engines have been registered by Incident Command. That means ten engines have gone out. Additional LAFD ground resources are being requested. A number of helicopters are working this fire, including copters from LAFD, LA County FD and a Hali tanker from the Quick Reaction Force. And then so for the Aussies that are saying why is it spreading so fast? We have this wind in La at this time of the year called the Santa Ana wind, and it's super unpredictable and the wind just to give you like an idea of the wind, it's like hurricane levels. So I put a story up on my Insta. I think I put it in a real but you can see this palm tree just like blowing, and then there's olive trees just like blowing all over the shop and it is like crazy. Like I went up this morning when the sun rose and you couldn't say it was all smoke. It was black. The sky was like black, And it really feels apocalyptic at the moment, if I'm being honest, and I was like filming and I was like, oh my god, the phone is literally going to flatter my hands, like that's how windy. It felt like nothing wind not like what I felt in Australia. Of course, I was also on a rooftop. But yesterday when I was in acting school, I walked to the car in my break to call boss and I saw like huge garbage bins, like trash bins because they're on rollers, just rolling down the middle of the road on their own, and like things like on the highway yesterday, like palm trees are on the highway. So it was like gearing up yesterday. Not that this is like at all a big thing, but I had two really exciting filming gigs. One was today and one was next Monday, and they both got postponed. So one is for one is for a really exciting pilot and one was like I was all booked, all set to go, got my hair down orright now's on everything, And literally I got an email at seven pm yesterday going we have to cancel tomorrow because these fires are breaking news. So that was like a little dagger in my heart. But then obviously when you know how lucky that boss go and I is safe right now, and you know, have a plan in place, so I'm yeah, literally going to jump off now and get packing so that we've got a I agreed to go near the door if the fires move our way. Even just talking to you, I thought that the fire that was close to us was ten acres, not fifty to sixty. So it's already grown in an hour six times in size. So that's what's scary about it, I think, is like how quickly and because of these really unpredictable wins, it's quite scary scary in that sense. And yeah, I'm just watching like date, like I'm really looking at like what areas we need, what we need to be like fully aware of from a from an evacuation point of view. But when we're on the roof, it's so interesting how like natural disasters bring people together. When we're on the roof. We've made friends with this guy Brian, and we all like swap numbers straight away and we're like, wef we evacuate, we're going to tell you. And he's like, yep, I'm going to tell you too, And he's like you know, clean out your rear, Fielter, and we were like all talking about now air filters cleaner and cranking them. So we're doing all the right things. It's super super scary and it's very apocalyptic. Boss is pretty chill. I'm pretty anxious, if I'm being honest. But we're just taking it as it comes, and I just wanted to give you a really honest, true update of someone living in LA and seeing it unfold in real time. And yeah, I just hope like in the coming days things came down a little bit. But I do think we're going to be seeing a lot of devastation and destruction off the back of this. I mean, just seeing the photos of Pacific Palisades today, I don't know what, you know, Hollywood Boulevard is going to look like tomorrow. I don't know, Like Runying Canyon like everyone does that high. It's how you can see the Hollywood sign so beautifully. And so I'm yeah, like we're just checking in with all our local mates. I think a couple of mates are coming over here tonight that live quite close to Runyon and don't want to be near there. So yeah, it's just a funny old time but thanks for the people that have checked in. It really means loads, and I'll keep sharing and keep you updated on what goes on here. All right, over and out from La La Land, Los Angeles. All right, friends, hooru, stay safe, big love,