The Woolsey Fire, in November of 2018, burned down from Simi Valley to the Pacific, taking out nearly a hundred thousand acres and almost seventeen hundred buildings. Paradise Cove was levelled. Neil Young's house burned. Miley Cyrus's burned. Kim Basinger, Gerard Butler, Robin Thicke — all of them lost their homes that week.

Most of them moved back. They rebuilt on the ruins.

There is a saying in Malibu: you don't ask whether there'll be a fire, only when the next one is coming. The Santa Anas drive the dry desert heat in from the east, the California drought stretches into another year, and every few seasons something goes up. In January of 2025 the Franklin Fire took a few thousand acres. More houses gone. The sound of fire helicopters has become, for the people who live here, a kind of weather.