Sunday, June 1,2025 | 12–4 PM |

Heal the Bay Aquarium, Santa Monica Pier
Free admission for this special occasion | All ages welcome

Join us for Community Resilience Day at Heal the Bay Aquarium as we welcome the powerful new Palisades Fire Map to the Bay. This large-scale installation honors the loss, resilience, and recovery surrounding the 2025 LA Fires and will be temporarily displayed at the Aquarium under the Santa Monica Pier.

For this special occasion, the Aquarium will be free and open to the public. Come by for a one-time chance to experience the map in its debut setting and to take part in a meaningful day of reflection and connection.

Grab a warm cup of coffee by the beach, connect with neighbors, and explore the stories behind the fire. The 8’ x 16’ freestanding map provides space for remembrance and community healing, especially for Westside residents who saw the disaster transform their homes, schools, and coastline. It also illustrates how fire impacts cascade downstream to the ocean, revealing our deep connection to water, land, and one another.

☕ Complimentary coffee and refreshments
🌊 Learn how wildfire affects ocean health and coastal communities
📍 Map created with support from LA County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath
🔗 On-site QR code with resources, fire relief info & ways to get involved

Let’s remember, reconnect, and commemorate the resiliency of our region—together.

Mapping Our Way Through an Unprecedented Disaster

Since the devastating fires of January 7th, Heal the Bay has been discussing how we could create a place for the community to express thoughts and feelings about the collective loss from the fires.  All Angelenos have borne a loss in the days that followed that frightful night. Gathering and sharing in the wake of any disaster is a way of honoring what once was.

The Altadena fire map project, created by Noel McCarthy, has proven to be a powerful tool for community healing. People stand in front of it, and the storytelling begins. Some stand in silence, some share a story about a friend’s loss, and some point to where their house once stood. It’s a vulnerability that brings intimacy and builds community.

The Westside community took a massive hit, losing 6,822 homes, businesses, houses of worship, and schools. There are rings of loss, like those that no longer have a workplace to return to. The Westside community, not directly impacted by the Palisades Fire, has had limited opportunity to mourn the loss and express fears about the damaged coast. 

The Palisades Map is made possible by support from Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath. 

The Artist’s Statement: Noel McCarthy

Healing is a process.

 It’s best to begin by acknowledging what has happened.

Sometimes words and photographs fail at communicating events, and that can be frustrating.

 It matters for both those who experienced the event when it happened and for those in the wider community who weren’t here because the next step is crucial—understanding.

Understanding that each little red house represents much more than a structure, it represents a person, a family, a community member, a culmination of (sometimes many lifetimes)… so many ideas…so many dreams. 

The next step is lengthy and often messy, especially when the story is complex as this. We often never get there, and that has Meaning.

Meaning is often elusive, especially with pain associated with the inevitable isolation that usually occurs following a tragedy. These days, people move on. They do. We do. We’ve been trained for it, but for those on the inside, tragedy is a verb. It starts with an event, followed by a long, often disorderly period of transitions. It is made all the more difficult by uncertainty, the unknown outcome that prolongs the pain.

There are people still dying from the attacks on 911. There are those who still need caring for. Think of all the conflicts that never really resolve. History isn’t really history. It’s quite active and subject to near-constant reinterpretation – based on ever-changing social norms, etc. 

New pressures on old problems — old tragedies.

Effective historical records only begin with objective truth. 

They are then colored and informed by the individual experience. That is what makes them real. The gravity or the insight that numbers can’t ever show —  the human costs… This is where our work starts. Healing is much more than forgetting.

A memorial is exactly what it sounds like — Memory in an accessible context.

 In any event, context often needs time to achieve the longer-term goal of Meaning. The best we can do in the meantime is take notes and Listen—listen to the stories and pay attention to the facts, especially now that we’re still at the beginning.

The scab is yet to form.

Eventually, all of these red houses will be black again.

But at this moment, it’s crucial to catalogue (however painful) what happened here. 

This fire. 

So we can someday find meaning and then move on to the important work of creating and nurturing a thriving society.