from our home destroyed in a wildfire

The 2025 Los Angeles wildfires destroyed at least 16,251 structures and burned through 57,000 acres in Pacific Palisades and Alta Dena. Almost nine in ten homes in the Palisades are gone. What’s left of people’s family heirlooms, curated collections and cherished possessions is now called rubble. Memories are held in a charred mug or a doorknob to a sacred yurt, objects that get reinvented and enshrined because they survived.

There’s a desire to physically hold a family’s history in an item, any item, to make memory tangible. Where identity feels lost or even stolen, these items are real. Archeology digs up the truth about what once was. Our beloved avenue, called Swarthmore, where the Pacific Ocean peeks out between the palm tree lined sidewalks, is still one of the most beautiful streets in southern California. The Hamm family lived there—happily, fully and with tremendous, joyful energy. That energy is now in the soil, under that rubble. It will grow again.

Jenn Hamm in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California