We’re on fire. This is not the time for your political hot take on L.A.

Good morning. It is Saturday, Jan. 11. This is not how any of us in Los Angeles saw ourselves starting 2025 — during our “wet” season, no less — but here we are. Let’s look back at the week in Opinion.

This come come as a surprise from a guy paid to edit and write commentary, but it needs to be said right now: As entire neighborhoods in and around Los Angeles are wiped out by fire — and as people experience the grief and abject uncertainty that come from losing everything in an instant — maybe resist the urge to have an opinion about it.

I say this in the face of what appears to be a politically motivated, bad-faith effort to blame the destruction on the alleged incompetence of L.A.’s Democratic leaders. Don’t get me wrong: There could be a host of bad decisions that led to these fires being worse than they had to be, and uncovering those, if they exist, should be the subject of careful investigation. But right now, the priority is delivering services to affected residents and supporting emergency responders.

And besides, I’d rather not delve into the falsehoods swirling around these fires, because as someone a few miles downwind from the fire that destroyed much of Altadena, I’m focused on what needs to be done right now. Here’s what that looks like.

Since the Santa Ana winds first kicked up Tuesday night — and “kicked up” is an understatement; where I live in the San Gabriel Valley, they hit like a bomb — my wife and I have been calming the fears of our three children, none of whom has experienced anything like this. We showed them how to pack a “go” bag in case our neighborhood got an evacuation notice, demonstrating the value of readiness and doing what little is in our control. Early the next morning, when a niece called from an evacuation zone but didn’t have access to a car, I drove to Glendale to take her and her partner to my home, where they will remain until it’s safe to go to their home. Invitations have been extended to displaced teaching colleagues of my wife to stay at our house; similarly crowded homes with evacuees can be found throughout our neighborhood. Many doors are open to many people who need them. As I write this, my wife and children are collecting clothes to donate at an evacuation shelter.

Calls have poured in from concerned friends and family; we’ve also offered our support to those we know who lost everything. Messages sent among work colleagues always come notes of concern: How are you holding up? Are you safe? Is there anything I can do for you?

You wouldn’t know it from the rhetorical knifing dominating coverage in some media right now, but on the ground, well within breathing distance of the fires’ smoke, there’s an outpouring of humanity devoid of any partisan considerations. Because that’s what we need right now.

Readers in fire-weary Australia send their love to Los Angeles. I don’t normally blurb letters to the editor this high, but these reader notes expressing sympathy from the other side of the world were too lovely not share here. (Side note: Back in January 2020, when Australia was undergoing an exceptionally catastrophic fire season, we published a letter from a reader in that country saying his people’s suffering offered a preview to the rest of the world as climate change takes hold.)

How can the L.A. Zoo and its fundraising arm end their feud? The Greater Los Angeles Zoo Assn., or GLAZA, an independent fundraising organization, has partnered with the city-owned L.A. Zoo for six decades. It’s been an uneasy relationship at times, with either body thinking it knows how to spend money raised for the zoo better than the other. Now, the two are locked in a legal battle that serves neither the zoo nor the public, says The Times’ editorial board.

Taylor Swift to Moo Deng: What the stranded astronauts have missed. Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore will return to Earth from the International Space Station no earlier than March. That would be far enough away even if they haven’t been in space since June, when they blasted off for a mission originally to last 10 days. Editorial writer Carla Hall considers all they’ve missed over their unplanned months-long excursion.

Yes, Trump could make an improvement to U.S. foreign policy. Donald Trump wasn’t exactly a model of sober foreign-policy making when he was president, but his first administration (and the subsequent Biden presidency) laid bare the hypocrisy of the “rules-based” order the U.S. insists its upholds, say Samuel Moyn and Trita Parsi. “Trump would be wise to drop the phrase from the U.S. lexicon,” they write.

More from opinion

From our columnists

• Robin Abcarian: How the stars of “It Ends With Us” spawned a universe of legal and PR battles
• Jackie Calmes: Don’t forget what happened four years ago on Jan. 6

From guest contributors

• If “Baby Shark” represents the worst of children’s music, this is the genre’s best
• Meta is changing its rules and embracing Trump. What does that mean for the world?
• The election shredded the rule of law

Letters to the editor

• These problems will always prevent L.A. from solving homelessness
• Fires happen. Why are we still building homes out of wood?
• I live in a low-risk area. Why is my home insurance going up by 65%?