Angelenos have spent the past week under a haze of smoke, barraged by evacuation warnings, many of them searching for a place to stay after fleeing their homes.
On Tuesday, though, the sky over Mid-City, a Los Angeles neighborhood about 15 miles east of where a major wildfire devastated Pacific Palisades, was clear and blue. The air was refreshing and the temperature was a balmy mid-60s, with little wind. People lined up for the bus, FedEx trucks made deliveries, and a truck serving tortas was opening. A city parking officer scribbled out a ticket for a van.
Life, in other words, went on.
One of the defining characteristics of the greater Los Angeles region, an area of 18 million people and more than 33,000 square miles, is its enormous sprawl. So while tens of thousands have been displaced and are dealing with immediate needs like finding shelter, many other residents have been grappling with the unsettling feeling of witnessing a crisis unfold from afar — but not that far.
“It’s this weird balance of, How much do you pause, and how much do you keep going?” Nathalie Martin said, as she stood in the contemporary art gallery where she was associate director in Mid-City. “The whole city isn’t shut down — it’s definitely shocked.”
Ms. Martin, 24, said she had friends who had lost their homes or had been evacuated, and the gallery had artists who had lost their work and their studios. She said people like herself, who live far from the damaged areas, were trying to help out — including offering refuge to friends and displaying art so that displaced artists could earn money — while continuing to live their lives.
“It’s walking a line of putting your energy where it’s needed but also working your job so you can make money,” she said. “It’s definitely jarring.”
After days of hazy skies, the air quality on Tuesday in many parts of Los Angeles, especially farther from the fires, was recorded as “good” or “moderate,” according to AirNow — better than in other areas of California, like Sacramento and parts of the Bay Area. Most schools reopened on Monday, and the city’s two N.B.A. teams, the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers, both hosted home games on Monday night, after contests last week were postponed.
In Santa Monica, just south of the evacuated zone for the Palisades fire, people were walking their dogs and jogging in Palisades Park along the water, even as the view of burned patches of the Santa Monica Mountains to the north offered a sobering reminder of the devastation.
On the Santa Monica Pier, some shops were open and the Ferris wheel was spinning, but the usual crowd of tourists was not there. Philip Moinester, a Postal Service worker making deliveries to the pier, said he worried for the businesses.
“It’s so quiet here,” he said. “Normally, this is mobbed.”
Ryan Frederick, a firefighter from the Bay Area who pulled a 48-hour shift when he first arrived last week, was taking a moment to soak up the sunshine now that his schedule had eased slightly.
“It’s a nice break,” Mr. Frederick said. “You go from devastation to normal life.”
The danger was far from over, with the National Weather Service continuing to warn of extreme fire risk through Wednesday because of high winds. Smaller fires have also continued to break out around the region.
Even people enjoying a quiet morning far removed from the at-risk parts of Los Angeles were well aware of the crisis elsewhere in the city.
On Pico Boulevard in Mid-City, a major thoroughfare that stretches from Santa Monica to downtown, Mark Boone was grabbing breakfast at a cafe with his dog. Though the fires continued to rage elsewhere, he couldn’t even see the smoke.
Mr. Boone, 35, said his uncle lost his home in Altadena, the neighborhood north of Pasadena where the Eaton fire swept through last week. He said he had tried to volunteer and get involved, but donation centers and volunteer groups said they were at capacity, overwhelmed by a surge of support.
“It’s kind of weird to be going on with your daily routine and knowing what’s happening around the city,” he said.
Farther down the road, Lloyd Robinson, 82, said he had received calls from relatives on the East Coast worried about his safety, without knowing that he lived far from the blazes. He, too, said he had friends whose houses had been destroyed, and had tried to help find them a place to stay. In the meantime, Mr. Robinson, who was dropping off his dry cleaning, planned to keep going about his day.
“Life is a daily journey, and that journey continues regardless of your circumstances,” he said. “Whether you’re homeless, or you’re in a home, or you’re in the midst of the fire area, you still have to think about tomorrow.”
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