What would you take with you in the face of a wildfire?

Besides a pint of half n' half

Around 5:30 am on Wednesday morning, which feels like years ago, I woke up and checked the Watch Duty app which reports on fires that are surrounding LA county at the moment. I could see that the Eaton fire, 20 or so miles to the east, had expanded in the night and the evacuation bubble had done the same. Tujunga was safe, but for how long?

I looked out the window and could see an orange glow in the distance, offset by the pitch black of the sky, where the usual rosy-fingered dawn was being clouded by a massive cloud of smoke blocking the daylight. That was all the information I needed. If I could see the fire and there was 0% of containment, it was too close for me.

I had packed some things the night before, thanks to the urging of my friend Rachel who grew up in Malibu and is no stranger to wildfires. I scrambled around the house to gather everything together. My worst fear was that somehow the three main roads out of my niehgborhood might get blocked from the fires which were both to my east and west, and I would be stuck playing chicken.

What I had to decide in that moment, as I prepared to leave, was what could I live without. I only had my compact sedan, and much of the trunk was filled with plein air painting equipment and the backseat had my cats’ crate and a suitcase taking up much of the space. So what was worth saving?

What I realized, when faced with that very not-theoretical decision, is completely cliché but still true, that I actually needed very little to move on with my life. Other than some paintings and old film photographs that I put in my closet hoping to protect them somehow, I considered the rest of my belongings and, like a hellscape-bound, trans version of Elsa, heard a voice in my head say let it go.

And in the moment I felt that I would be fine. I knew everything else was replaceable and that nothing is more valuable than my memories, my community and family, and my ability to move forward with acceptance and love.

I later saw a list of things that you should take to help your chances of survival and laughed at the reality of my list compared to the recommendations:

Recommended:
- water, flashlight with extra batteries, a first aid kit, garbage bags, toilet paper, a hand-crank radio, a printed map of your area

What I brought instead:

- a pint of half n’ half, a larger carton of oat milk, instant decaf coffee, grated cheese, tortillas, 2 slices of bread that turned out to be moldy, a journal, 2 tarot decks and a copy of The Artist’s Way ( You won’t know till you know how you’ll handle a crisis.)

After the scramble, we all piled into Athena the silver Camry around 6am and headed east into battle, directly towards the orange glow and the giant plume of smoke that rose above the 210 highway. We were lucky there were few cars on that stretch of highway. It was dark, and the winds shoved the car in and out of the lane.

When I reached my studio in Atwater Village, I spent the next few hours a little shellshocked, along with the rest of the city, texting friends, posting my whereabouts, and making plans. This song came on the radio as I wrote the first draft to this essay, reminding me that love is all that we need. It felt reassuring, although I was still stuck in the smoke.

By the time the sun had come up, the sky had shifted from pitch black, to charcoal gray, to a dirty sherbet orange and then a warm gray, with charred debris falling from the sky. Nothing us humans love more than burning chunks falling on us.

After that, my coping mechanism of dealing with stress by working kicked in (Hi, I’m Thibault and I’m a workaholic) This meant that I panicked about losing money from my freelance jobs and spent a couple hours, I’m embarrassed to say, doing my new delivery gig buying apocalypse groceries for other people.

Yes, during the early hours of the fires, all my brain could think to do was “Go buy supplies for someone else.” As I shopped for baby food and paper products at Sprouts, I questioned the wisdom of what I was doing. It was like the crazy glitch people get in horror movies where they go back up the stairs to get murdered instead of out of the house where they would be safe. I was three steps away from getting the ax from Michael Meyers.

I eventually came to my senses and headed north to Ventura to stay with a friend who offered me a room at his place. Driving out of the city felt like traveling through a war zone. The sky was blue, but spotted with dystopian orange and gray clouds. I saw a group of five pregnant-looking planes ready to unload water and fire retardent. Plumes of smoke rose rose up in every direction, while notifications from Watch Duty alerted me every 30 seconds to a new fire.

Add to that the wind. While the fire is ultimately what has destroyed and continues to destroy so much, the wind has been like the evilest of vilains and crookedest of governments: powerful yet invisible, erratic and unstoppable. Without the perfect chaos of the Santa Anas, this would be a very different story. It is still our biggest nemesis, in this ongoing saga.

Since Wednesday I feel like I have lived many lives as I have watched friends lose houses and at the same time have received a flood of warm messages from all over the world that have helped me feel less alone. I have made random stops along the central coast to see old friends who have offered their generosity and their homes. I am now in the city by the bay, resting on the plushest couch with the heaviest blanket trying to decompress and share my story.

As it stands my house is still untouched by the fires. It’s a miracle I don’t understand, and one that may or may not last. The biggest danger, besides the massive Eaton fire is the new Creek fire which sits at three acres wide a mere 8 miles away from my house on Mt. Luken. It is on the other side from Deukmeijian park, which was the inspiration for my painting show earlier this year and the site of the massive 2009 Station Fire. When I created the title for the show, Things Worth Saving, I had no idea it would apply to me so literally. Maybe I am better prepared on this subject now because I have had time to mull over a similar disaster, but I don’t know if you can ever really be ready.

In parallel, at this moment and as one of the themes of the show, is the loss of my identity- my cis gendered, straight self. I have had to let go of the many years spent not living my most authentic self as a queer, trans person and all the regret and shame that go with it, and all the bad habits that I am trying to undo. This is a battle I wage every day, silently and away from the news reports and Instagram. Much like the things that I could not take with me when I left this week, I have had to let my past die a million deaths every day as I come more into my own. This process of letting go of my belongings felt connected somehow, a release of another part of myself that accumulated all that stuff.

I feel myself slowly and often painfully moving through a sort of portal forged by the my long repressed desires and by the flames surrounding Los Angeles demanding of me, and all of us, to give up what we don’t truly need. And dig in to what we do.

Since saying goodbye to my place, possibly forever, I have been surrounded by nothing but love. I will keep you posted as I know more. Letting go in theory and letting go for good are two different things, I realize. My heart goes out to all people who have lost their homes and their children’s schools and their way of life.

It’s hard to imagine LA going back to normal for many years, but I’m buoyed to see there are already fundraising efforts to get people back on their feet.

Here are a few resources that I have found for artists in case you find yourself in need. Hoping everyone is safe and has agency to act in their best interest. If you’re in LA and reading this, let me know how and where you are, and if I can help.

Art World Fire Relief LA https://artworldfirereliefla.start.page/

CERF+ Grants for Craftspeople https://cerfplus.org/grants/emergency-relief/

ICA LA’s Wildfire Resources https://www.theicala.org/en/yellow-pages/adam-lee/2025-wildfires