For three days, I couldn't find my fire on TV. And that's a problem -- before and after -- you've been evacuated from your La Crescenta home as I, my husband and my three children were in the early morning hours this weekend.
As a television critic, I have spent hours watching endless news loops of Octomom coverage, Tim Russert memorials and the Sarah Palin watch. Less than two months ago, I sat through at least an hour's worth of overhead shots of a freeway emptied in anticipation of Michael Jackson's memorial procession. An hour. Of empty freeway.
I have also been riveted by post-earthquake coverage and even other fires; not that long ago, I sat up into the small hours of the morning with my evacuee brother, watching flames roar through Griffith Park toward homes, including his, in Los Feliz. The cameras were so numerous and so close, you could see onto decks and into living rooms.
So why were so few news minutes and almost no imagery given over to the flames that for days now have busily consumed the hills behind my house? To find out what's actually happening, I have to drive up as far as the roadblocks allow, walk the rest of the way and peer through the smoke myself.
Not that I am averse to a bit of on-the-ground reporting, but this is a fire threatening at least five communities. What do we have to do to get a little blow-by-blow televised coverage? "If only Kate Gosselin lived in La Crescenta," I found myself thinking Monday morning as I watched KTLA-TV Channel 5 (which is owned by Tribune Co., as is The Times) move quickly off a brief report of the fire -- it's spreading -- into a segment about decoding carbs, then we'd have the news crews out in full force.
At least on Monday there was some coverage. The death of two firefighters and the threat to the communications towers on Mt. Wilson seem to have gotten everyone's attention. Now that some phone, radio and television service was in peril, suddenly everyone rushed to find La Crescenta/La Canada and Acton on a map. The national news stations began covering it occasionally and KCAL-TV Channel 9 devoted much of the day to the "Breaking News" of what is being described as one of the most unpredictable and widespread wildfires in recent history.
