Here in Van Nuys

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On March 30, 2007 there was a fire burning in Griffith Park.

And I was walking in Studio City when a red-haired woman drove up and parked on Ventura Bl. in an odd little purple car, a Nash Rambler. Her license plate read “Kissmet.” I’m sure she is someone, or was someone, quite beloved, judging by her car and plate.

Yesterday, 13.7 years later, there was another fire burning above Warner Brothers Studio near Barham. And the same atomic plume of smoke went up in the sky and theatrically filled up the space between the rows of palm trees along Ventura Boulevard.

There was no Nash Rambler in yesterday’s photograph, and by comparison, in content and style, the new image is quite unexciting and unremarkable.

When fire threatens Los Angeles, the first thing we think of is our loved ones, and then our homes, and lastly our cars.  

Or perhaps it’s the reverse.