Our reporter visits the remains of his childhood home, lost to the fires

Brian van der Brug was a staff photojournalist at the Los Angeles Times from 1997 to 2025.

James Rainey has covered multiple presidential elections, the media and the environment, mostly at the Los Angeles Times, which he first joined in 1984. He was part of Times teams that won three Pulitzer Prizes.

Mark E. Potts is the senior editor for video at the Los Angeles Times. A native of Enid, Okla., Potts graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a master’s degree in broadcast journalism. He has created and edited video for DreamWorks, YouTube, Microsoft, Sony and BET.