As Bryson fire reignites trauma in Malibu, neighbors lean on one another
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Set us as preferred Speculation among Malibu High School students began early Thursday morning.Surely school would be canceled, they told parents — perhaps based more on wish than intel.
What are the odds the power was cut? What if a fire broke out?The Santa Ana winds picked up through the afternoon.Gusts slammed into Malibu homes with force.
Lights went out across town as Southern California Edison cut power.Around 5 p.m., Watch Duty notifications lit up residents’ screens: A fire had started on the other side of the mountains.
The winds were blowing it toward the coast.Volunteers with the Local Brigade were staged in the parking lot of Trancas Country Market along the coast, awaiting orders from the L.A.
County Fire Department.A column of thick smoke, made red by the setting sun, rose over the hillside.In a town of fire survivors — where many have lost their home in blazes at least once, if not twice — a quiet, familiar feeling filled the neighborhoods: Here we go again.By Friday morning, it became clear the Bryson fire was not on the verge of becoming another Woolsey or Palisades fire.
It nonetheless triggered a flood of trauma and emotions.Many longtime residents have developed habits to calm their minds during these exceptional conditions — meditation, a dip in the ocean to trigger the calming mammalian dive response, support groups to talk through the pain.
But each time a home is lost, or, God forbid, a loved one, it wears down even the most hardened Malibu resident a little bit more.“It took me six years to rebuild,” Kim Devane said as she walked her dog Dino around the country market’s parking lot Friday morning.Devane lost her home in the 2018 Woolsey fire.
She lost several more properties in the 2025 Palisades fire.“I mean, the idea of having to do that again ...”Strangers at the country m...