Consider This from NPR - 'The birds are back.' Resilience in the ruins of the Palisades fire

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

Will Rogers State Historic Park is a vast stretch of natural space in the Santa Monica Mountains. It's a treasure to Angelenos. People get married there, picnic there, and have kids' birthday parties on the great lawn.The park's namesake, Will Rogers, was a vaudeville performer, radio and movie star, and was known as America's "cowboy philosopher." His nearly century-old ranch house is the park's centerpiece. It's survived a near miss with wildfire before. Last week, as firestorm engulfed large parts of Los Angeles, this piece of American history was reduced to rubble.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.orgEmail us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Here in Los Angeles, a lot of people are still replaying exactly where they were last Tuesday, when the Palisades fire began roaring through the mountains, like Barbara Tejada, who was speeding down the Pacific Coast Highway. I threw on the hazard lights and we kind of upset a few people probably, but we were driving on the shoulder of the road so that we could get here. Here, as in the historic ranch home of Will Rogers, the vaudeville performer and radio and movie star, he was known as America's cowboy philosopher. And last week, as smoke billowed in the hills just beyond his ranch, park officials like Tejada jumped into

action. We pulled up trucks right here where we're standing on the lawn. You dashed into the house. What was your first room? The main living room. We have a lot of Charles Russell bronze sculptures. There were some key things owned by Will, like his, you know, his boots, his typewriter, and people are packing, people are packing. We're moving things into trucks. And you keep spinning around and looking out the windows. Yes, and at one point I came out and I literally saw the smoke plume start to churn. And that was the clue, like I realized, okay guys, whatever you have in your hands, that's it. We've got to go. Like this is the last round of things, we've got to go. They hopped into their trucks and before they left, Tejada took one last look at the house.

And something told me to take a picture, because this might be the last time we see it. So I did take a, I do have a photo from the, from the truck. Oh my god. So the ranch house is right, right there. The sky is just lit orange, red, yellow, gray. It looks like a watercolor. Yeah, if you didn't know how destructive it was, it would be beautiful.

Consider this. The ranch house was nearly a century old, the centerpiece of Will Rogers State Historic Park and a piece of American history. In one night, a firestorm reduced it to rubble. From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Sending or spending money abroad, hidden fees may be taking a cut. With WISE, you can convert between up to 40 currencies at the mid-market exchange rate. Visit WISE.com. TNCs apply.

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What's in store for the music, TV, and film industries for 2025? We don't know, but we're making some fun, bold predictions for the new year. Listen now to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR. Will Rogers State Historic Park is a vast stretch of natural space in the Santa Monica Mountains. It's a treasure to Angelenos. People get married here, they picnic here, have kids' birthday parties on the Great Lawn.

There's a huge network of trails that snake up into the hills, packed with hikers and bikers. And this ranch house itself has survived a near miss with wildfire before. But this time, it wasn't so lucky. What went through your mind when you saw what we're staring at now, these charred remains, these lone chimneys sticking up into the sky with nothing around them.

I was taking deep breaths to not have a panic attack. And I was just, it's gone. I can't believe it's gone. This house that has stood here for nearly a century is now a pile of rubble surrounded by yellow police tape. Those stone steps, that was the entrance. Yeah. So that right there is, you know, you see the bathtub,

that was actually on the second story. Like there's- The bathtub's now right behind the fireplace in the main room. Yes, exactly. Tejada then leads us across the Great Lawn, the only thing that's still green around here. There's little burn marks here and there from embers. And we go past the destroyed horse stables to meet Richard Fink,

who helps manage the state parks in this area. So if you were to come here on weekend days, you're typically going to see a line of cars eager to get in. He guides us towards the Inspiration Loop Trail, which was one of the most popular hikes in this park. Now it's completely empty. It's very surreal, you know, probably never see anything like this again and it's devastating. Oh wow Richard, I've hiked these trails many times and this is just completely different. It's black. I mean, the only plant life are these blackened twigs jutting out of the ground,

these skinny skeletal tree trunks. It's kind of spooky. It's spooky. And if you get up to the top of the inspiration loop at inspiration point, every hillside that you look at from around the park here looks exactly the same. And yet, we suddenly notice small traces

of what used to be a few singed pieces of paper poking up from the eucalyptus leaves. I just found this page on the ground for Julian's chili. It was a Will Rogers cookbook. Here's a recipe from the governor of Oklahoma for carrot pineapple cake. Well I'll give this to you if you're going to assemble the recipe book again. It does make you think what nature was thinking when it decided what to save and what to destroy. Right. Still standing next to the ruins of the ranch house is a majestic oak tree where I meet

Armando Quintero, the director of the California Department of Parks and Recreation. And I ask him what these fires have done to the relationship between Angelinos and all the nature that surrounds them. It's an answer full of emotion. You know, these places are off for restoration for us as individuals, for families to gather. They're places of memory. And I mean, this is literally a disaster of memory for so many.

I mean, I'm also just thinking about people in Southern California who may not have a home with a big yard, who can flock to a big space like this and feel for a moment that they live in a beautiful corner of Los Angeles. Exactly. This is the home of Angelino's. It's the home of Californians. Can you even begin to describe the psychic injury that has been inflicted on people who have used outdoor space as solace and are now looking at the charred remains of what used to be

an incredibly beautiful park. You can see me. It's overwhelming grief. And being the director of a department with all these employees and the public and the responsibility is one of how do we care literally it's about caring this work is caring for each other caring for our homes and strengthening what makes us human? I'm heartbroken. But as painful as this time is, Quintero says, listen, you can hear the birds.

They're back. And look, he says, the deer. They're wandering back, too. Oh, there's a deer right now. Oh, yeah. I do. A lone deer just walking tentatively into the stable. Oh, yeah, there's another. We see them walking in the abandoned horse pasture.

Nature does... Come back. Continue. What does that feel like to you to watch the deer come back? Hopeful. Life goes on. Things will return. Yeah. A small reminder that nature ultimately is resilient and that this beautiful park

will come back one day. This episode was produced by Kira Joaquim, Michael Levitt, and Elena Burnett. It was edited by Christopher Intaliyata. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. Finally, thank you so much to our Consider This Plus listeners who support the work of NPR journalists and help keep public radio strong. Supporters also hear every episode without messages from sponsors.

Learn more at plus.npr.org. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang. Since the beginning of women's sports, there's been a struggle to define who qualifies for the women's category. Tested, from NPR's Embedded podcast and CBC, takes you inside that struggle. Listen to Tested, the series that was named one of the 10 best podcasts of 2024 by Apple, Vulture, and the New York Times. It's season 20 of NPR's Embedded Podcast.

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