Documentarian Loses Home in Palisades Fire, Reflects on Community Loss

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — Documentary filmmaker Tracy Droz Tragos, known for her work on the 2020 film “Rebuilding Paradise,” lost her home in the devastating Palisades Fire that swept through her neighborhood on Jan. 7. The fire, which began around 11 a.m., forced Tragos and her family to evacuate with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

“I honestly thought this was a dry run, I don’t know why,” Tragos told The Hollywood Reporter. “You really don’t think it’s going to happen to you.” The family is now staying in an Airbnb near Santa Barbara, grappling with the loss of their home, personal belongings, and community landmarks.

Tragos, who documented the aftermath of the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, California, said the experience gave her a unique perspective on evacuation preparedness. “Neighbors were like, ‘Why are you bringing toilet paper?'” she recalled. “And I said, ‘Trust me, you may find yourself in a situation without a bathroom, and you’ll really wish you had toilet paper.'”

The Palisades Fire has destroyed 10,000 homes and businesses, leaving 10 people dead and thousands displaced. The fire has consumed approximately 56 square miles, an area larger than San Francisco. Tragos emphasized that the impact extends beyond material loss. “An entire community, wiped off the face of the Earth,” she said. “It’s not just your house – it’s your neighbor’s house, the park you used to walk in, the place you got coffee. All of it.”

Tragos, whose mother also lost her home in the fire, shared her grief on Instagram, writing, “I don’t know what to do with the sadness that comes in waves. The mug I will never see again, the clothes I’ve collected for special events over a lifetime, a great-great grandmother’s watch. It’s all just gone.”

The filmmaker, who won a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance for her 2014 documentary “Rich Hill,” had recently moved her work archives to her mother’s house to save on storage costs. “I had it all in an outside vault until a few months ago,” she said. “But I thought, ‘Let me save the $80 a month from that Culver City storage space and just put it at my mother’s house.'”

Tragos’ story highlights the broader impact of wildfires on middle-class communities often overshadowed by media focus on celebrity evacuations. “I know people think Pacific Palisades is fancy, but there’s a whole part of it that’s really not,” she said. “It’s multigenerational. The high school is a really cool place where my kid is able to go to school and meet people from all over.”

As the community begins to rebuild, Tragos reflects on the emotional toll of returning to a place marked by trauma. “Do you really want to go back and be reminded of all the trauma?” she asked. Insurance will cover 14 days at the Airbnb, but Tragos is unsure where her family will go next. “I hope we can be kinder to each other, tell more human stories,” she said. “I don’t know when I’ll be able to tell those stories because all my work is gone. But I hope other people can.”