For nearly as long as Los Angeles has been a city, the sky above it has changed colors, for short and long spells, at times portending doom. It happened again this week. Winds that would not be out of place in a hurricane roared down the western slopes of the San Gabriel Mountains toward the city. Fires ignited in the eastern chaparral foothills and along the Malibu coast. With blithe cruelty, they sprinted across the landscape, burning through thousands of homes, erasing whole family histories. In some places, they oranged…
