LOS ANGELES — Just four days before a raging fire tore through his Pacific Palisades house, Rick Citron and his wife left town to mourn the recent death of their adult daughter.

Little did they imagine that this would be the last time they would see their home of more than 40 years.

At around 5 pm on January 7, Citron remotely turned on his Tesla car camera to watch this unimaginable scene.

He saw huge embers flying in the air and swirling around the Ocampo Drive house he bought in 1982. "This doesn't look good," he remembers thinking before forcing himself to sleep around 11 p.m.

But at 5 a.m. on January 8, a dull feeling woke him up. He turned on his camera and saw firefighters running from his home, pulling a hose behind them and trees lighting up like matches. He switched to the rearview camera and saw his house on fire. Minutes later, his scooter exploded.

"I thought to myself, 'I've lost 40 years of history that my family has built,'" he said. "Our three children grew up there - learned to ride bikes there, went to local schools there. I coached kids' sports in the park. It's a way of life - community."

The siege began on Jan. 7, when fires fueled by hurricanes and dry weather engulfed the seaside community. Later in the day, another equally violent fire in Los Angeles County destroyed parts of Altadena. Two fires killed at least 27 people and razed densely populated areas of the county.

Citron's home was one of more than 3,500 structures destroyed in the Palisades Fire, which leveled much of the Pacific Palisades community and nearby Sunset Mesa.

"He lost his sister and he lost his home," Rick Citron's daughter-in-law, Shelly Citron, said of her husband, Justin. "What do you do with this? This house is part of our future."

Perched on hilltops and cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Palisades is known as the playground of the rich and famous. But it's also home to families who purchased houses and apartments generations ago for a fraction of what they are today.

Over the years there was a small sporting goods store and a popular deli where children gathered after school, an ice cream parlor frequented by families, and a bookstore beloved by locals whose narrow stacks attracted local people.

It’s Los Angeles’ version of Main Street U.S.A., giving Palisades a small-town feel within a metropolis. This old village of mom-and-pop shops was demolished several years ago by billionaire developer Rick Caruso and replaced by high-end brands like Saint Laurent and Lululemon.

"At the time, we were just keeping our feet on the ground," said Glenn Turner, who has lived in neighboring Sunset Mesa since 1988. His home was destroyed in the fire, but he plans to use it Insurance money and savings to rebuild.

"People who work at Vons can live there," he added, referring to the West Coast grocery chain. “You have school teachers who can live there.”

Even after new developments arrived, remnants of the old fence remained. Many long-term residents purchased their paradise when prices were still affordable and plan to pass their homes on to their children and grandchildren, many of whom would never be able to afford a home today. Ruthless market.

“You could live on a working-class wage in Pacific Palisades,” said Wade Graham, a historian and scholar affiliated with the University of Southern California. “Until recently, it was a place where the rich ruled place.”

Graham described Pacific Palisades as a series of different real estate ventures that grew into a community over time.

In 1911, a film producer founded a studio called Inceville at what is now the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and the Pacific Coast Highway. At its peak it covered more than 18,000 acres and could accommodate a crew of 700. According to Hollywood lore, a fire nearly destroyed the studio in 1915.

The intersection became a chokepoint last week as hundreds of fleeing residents tried to flood PCH from Sunset Boulevard, one of the only routes out of the neighborhood.

In the 1920s, a Methodist group selected the Palisade bluffs north of Santa Monica as a prime location to build a church and hold meetings, according to the Pacific Palisades Historical Society. Modesty single-family homes began to appear in the area that came to be known as "Alphabet Street," many of which were razed in last week's fire. The area also became a haven for Jewish creatives and intellectuals fleeing the horrors of Hitler's Germany.

"Our parents found the fence 40 years ago when it was in the middle of nowhere," said Birdie Bartholomew, whose sister, uncle and aunt lost their home in the fire. "They built their lives there, which in turn gave us this community. That's what's been lost."

Graham said the Palisades has maintained its achievable appeal for decades as neighboring Santa Monica urbanized. Continuing north along the PCH, Sunset Mesa becomes the new Shangri-La.

Sunset Mesa is a planned community built on a hilltop overlooking the ocean and the nearby Getty Villa Museum, and was originally a group of condominiums. That's followed by about 500 mid-century homes starting at about $38,000, according to historical records. Many of these homes are now worth more than $3 million.

When wildfires ravaged northern Malibu in 1996, flames engulfed the western slopes. Sunset Mesa was spared, but the fire threat in the Santa Monica Mountains always loomed.

"Mesa feels like the safest place on earth," said Jason Silver, whose parents moved to the neighborhood in 1988. "You can walk on the beach, surf in the ocean and then walk home while the lamp posts come back on." In. "

Separated from the fence by rugged terrain and museums, Sunset Mesa is a community in its own right. Every day around 4pm, about 16 families and their dogs gather on the corner of Kingsport Drive and Oceanhill Way to share the day's news. It eventually became known as "Puppy Corner" and became a safe haven, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic when people were isolated from loved ones and colleagues.

“We would drink martinis outside, 6 feet apart,” said Anne Salenger, who founded Puppy Corner in 1981. Her house was one of only two in the group that didn't burn down.

Jon Cherkas, who moved to the neighborhood in 2001, said he didn't start meeting his neighbors until his wife started taking her black Labrador for walks. He noticed people gathering just a few blocks from his home every day and thought he would tag along. Soon, a new community flourished around him.

After the fire, several members of Dog Corner met for lunch in Century City. He said there were no dogs present, but it felt like he was back with family again.

“It’s nice to hug our friends and see faces they’ll never see,” he said. “It was only a week or so, but it felt like forever.”

Like most members of the party, Cherkas plans to rebuild. Frankly, he couldn't imagine living anywhere else.

"I'm going to stay for the rest of my life," he said. "It will be passed on to my children."