Prayers for all the victims of the fire. Witness an incredible 2.5 hour journey driving through the fiery streets of Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades, and Venice Beach during the devastating fires that have gripped the region on January 7th 2025. Uncut, unedited shot in real time for posterity so viewers can feel the scale of the event.
Starting in Santa Monica, we head toward the heart of the fire-affected area in Pacific Palisades, capturing the haunting beauty of the flames and smoke as they blanket the hills during the first few hours of the blaze.
We drive down the coast along the Pacific Ocean and can see Santa Monica and Venice Beach covered in smoke with the fire in the mountains in the distance on the horizon.
The video concludes with a nighttime drive through Pacific Palisades and Brentwood, where the flickering flames and glowing embers paint a surreal and somber scene against the dark sky. Thanks for watching.
Recording Date: January 7th 2025 at approximately 4:30pm
1. Context of My Channel:
If you look at my other videos on my channel, you will see it focuses on documenting life driving around this area of the city regularly, not because of the fire. Most of my video drives are of this area of the city, including a video driving these same exact pacific palisades streets 48 hours before the fire. Additionally, I never enter areas blocked off by police. You can even see in one part of the video I’m driving behind a news van in Pacific Palisades, demonstrating that I operated within the same boundaries as accredited media.
2. Timing of Filming:
Although I was already in the area when the fire started at 10:30 AM, I chose not to record until 4:30 PM—six hours later—after most evacuations were complete and emergency vehicles had access to the area. This decision was made deliberately to ensure I did not impede any evacuation efforts or emergency response. No firefighting vehicles were obstructed during my recording nor do you even see any in my video.
3. Avoiding Sensationalism:
I consciously avoided going to the front lines of the fire, where active firefighting was taking place even though doing so would have gotten the sensational type of viral tiktok videos with 25million views you saw others do during the first days of the blaze. I focused on areas away from firefighters where I could document without interfering with ongoing efforts.
4. Potential Assistance to Others:
I chose to drive into the back areas that are all now completely burnt down thinking there may be some stragglers who may need assistance to get out because their car broke down, flat tire, overheated, car blocked by fire or smoke. You saw almost nearly zero police or other emergency vehicles in parts I drove who could have helped those people. During disasters this big, cell towers are out or 911 lines are too busy. Although I didn’t pick anyone up to evacuate or need to use my satellite phone get a paramedic to someone, there were plenty of stories on the news of people who did.
5. Purpose and Timing of Sharing:
I did not rush to film content for views or to post it during the initial days when fire-related content was trending virally. Instead, I waited until the immediate danger passed to share the video. My intent was to document the event to provide a resource for future discussions on emergency response and city planning. It is my hope that this video and videos like it will help city planners and community leaders improve how we might better prepare for similar events in the future.
I hope this provides clarity and context to my approach.
Timeline:
0:00:00 Preview
0:02:54 Santa Monica Pier
0:05:15 Santa Monica Ocean Blvd
0:12:18 Pacific Palisades View Fire
0:18:50 Amazon Delivery Guy Still Delivering Packages
0:20:00 Pacific Palisades
0:38:31 Pacific Palisades Village Fire
0:44:19 Pacific Palisades Ocean cliff Houses
0:51:50 Pacific Palisades Village more
0:57:45 Santa Monica Pacific Coast Highway
1:02:00 Santa Monica
1:04:00 Santa Monica Beach Sunset
1:17:00 Venice Beach
1:25:00 Marina Del Rey
1:34:00 Fire from a Distance
1:45:00 Santa Monica on Lincoln Blvd
1:56:00 Santa Monica Night Fire Mountainside
2:03:12 More Mountainside Fires
2:07:10 Brentwood
2:15:30 Pacific Palisades Fire at Night
Best viewed in 8K or 4k HDR TVs. This video was captured with 3D Binaural Audio ASMR.
#DrivingTour #pacificpalisadesfire #pacificpalisades #California #LosAngeles #Travel #Sunset #santamonica #venicebeach #marinadelrey #brentwood #fire #californiafires
[8K HDR] Driving Pacific Palisades Great Fire During First hours in Los Angeles 8K HDR Dolby Vision 8K HDR 60fps with 3D Binaural Audio ASMR mastered in Dolby Vision
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All footage edited And color corrected by me. Do not reproduce or re-upload.
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