On Jan. 7, fire personnel responded to homes and land burning while a helicopter dropped water over the growing fire in the Pacific Palisades.
“This was the worst devastation I’ve seen,” says photographer David Swanson (photoswanson.com), whose career regularly takes him to the frontlines of historical disasters and war. A photojournalist for more than 30 years, his portfolio archives a range of tragedies including 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the 2010 Haiti earthquake and the Iraq War. “This was unfathomable,” shares Swanson of the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires. “There’s no better word than just shocked.”
Swanson was already set up in Topanga Canyon on Jan. 7, the day the Palisades and Eaton Fires broke out. Like other photographers, he was already familiar with the Watch Duty app and saw the red flag warning on it, signaling the high risk of wildfire ignition. “I got to the top neighborhood where the fire began 11 minutes or so after the first Watch Duty announcement,” he remembers. Starting at the bottom of the canyon, Swanson made his way up to the Palisades Highlands where he snapped photos, capturing fire personnel and helicopters working to put out the flames. Even while snapping billowing plumes in front of him, Swanson figured the fire would be contained to the area. “I had no idea what was happening below me and spent a lot of the day up in that neighborhood.”
Later, Swanson started to assess that the fire was bigger than he had first thought. He saw that the flames spanned to the mountains across the canyon. His photojournalist instinct was to stay, but he headed home around 11 p.m. because he had to be up early the next morning to shoot the SAG nomination announcements, which ended up being canceled. “I regret not staying through the night,” he says. “I went to [the Eaton Fire] the next morning, and we had 12, 14-hour days the next two weeks.”
See also: Beyond Hospitality: The Hotels That Became Safe Havens During L.A.'s Wildfires
Photography by: DAVID SWANSON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
