This week has been nothing short of heartbreaking as multiple wildfires across Los Angeles have destroyed home after home. Seeing videos of people packing their belongings, evacuating with their animals and leaving their cars behind brought me to tears. My home has been spared (so far), but the fires have left a literal and proverbial dark cloud over the city prompting us to wonder what to do next.

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Fires aren’t uncommon in this city, but something about this time feels different. There’s a deep sadness paired with the question of, “Was this preventable?” And while we’re often told not to make tragedy political, it’s hard not to focus on how certain things like wild fires can be prevented and how we can prepare for them in the future.

It’s another way of asking, “When will people start to care more?” What will it take?

Each unfolding tragedy in this country seems to desensitize us more and more. We get better at avoiding the underlying issues, and we trust our leadership even less. We’ve seen it with gun violence, and we’re seeing it now with climate change. These fires have strained already thin city resources, despite the firefighters doing everything they can to get them under control. Additionally, we hear stories of insurance companies dropping people’s policies just months before these fires took place. And now we’re witnessing in real time people of all walks of life losing their homes, while others in certain corners of social media are responding with malice.

Is there no tragedy that will bring us all together? When will we collectively start to care? How many life changing incidents have to occur before people acquire more empathy? Will any of these situations ever be viewed as non-partisan?

The United States certainly has its shortcomings, but we can’t deny that as a society we are fairly privileged. But sometimes when we are stopped in our tracks, when our routines are interrupted and we are left to figure things out for ourselves, it gives us an opportunity to reflect. We so often get into a mindset of being comfortable with our current situation that we never think that in the blink of an eye it could be taken away from us. These very real events affecting our everyday lives will continue to grow to a point where we won’t be able to take steps to prevent anything. It will all be too late.

This week’s disasters have made something very clear to me. We as humans don’t take care of or appreciate the earth or people around us enough. At some point we must wake up and take the steps to prevent certain tragedies from being normalized and work together to rebuild when they do. We cannot get into the culture of simply accepting things when they happen if there are clear steps we can take to keep them from getting worse. Things like climate change and personal tragedy are bipartisan, human issues. And at at some point we have to start caring.

For resources and ways you can help those affected by the fires, click here.

Malynda Hale is a multi-hyphenate content creator in Los Angeles. She is an award-winning actress and singer who utilizes her voice through activism in digital media. Most recently she starred in the feature film Bull Street alongside Loretta Devine and Amy Madigan and made her directorial debut with the short film Curtain Call that has screened at film festivals across the globe. She has been a featured commentator on CNN and ABC News Live as well as a guest writer for The Daily Beast, Blavity and The Female Lead. She was named by Wired as one of the top influencers affecting the 2024 election, and has been featured in LA Times, on Good Morning America and NPR’s Marketplace Tech. She’s the owner of the entertainment production company JMV Entertainment and creator of The Black Voices Heard project.

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