‘If You Move Out Here, You Make a Deal With Nature’: Life in a Fire-Prone Canyon

Topanga Canyon in Los Angeles County, home to both fire preppers and the fire fatigued, is a scenic, isolated world that has turned the threat of catastrophe into an everyday norm.

TOPANGA, Calif. — The Palisades Fire that forced hundreds to evacuate last month on the outskirts of Los Angeles never got close to James Grasso’s house. But he watched it carefully from the hilltops in Topanga Canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains, with his emergency radios and pagers by his side. Mr. Grasso, 60, a volunteer medic and an assistant director in the movie industry, serves on the Topanga Council on Emergency Preparedness. He long ago hardened his home, clearing all the growth within a hundred yards of his house. Last year, he outfitted an off-road U.T.V. with a 75-gallon water pump called a skid unit. And he has a cinder-block bunker stocked with emergency provisions. “I love living here, but I’ve quickly learned that nobody’s going to save me but me,” Mr. Grasso said.