Malibu's post-Palisades fire silver lining: A safer PCH

Since the blaze, the once-hectic highway has slowed to a leisurely crawl and again offers unimpeded ocean views

- JAMES RAINEY

PACIFIC COAST HIGHWAY has taken on a new incarnation since the Palisades fire descended on Jan. 7.

ALLEN J. SCHABEN Los Angeles Times

A terrible beauty has emerged on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. It took January's wildfire to do it, but there it is: A 3.4-mile stretch of Route 1 is now mostly denuded by the flames that razed more than 300 homes and apartments. For the first time in roughly a century, humans can catch an unimpeded view of the Pacific Ocean, from Topanga Canyon to Las Flores Canyon. And it's glorious.

This is not intended to diminish the anguish felt by all those along PCH who lost their homes. Hundreds continue to struggle — with insurance, the city's bureaucracy and other hurdles — to rebuild houses that were sanctuaries. Their pain and losses are real and won't end anytime soon.

Many who suffered losses in the hellfire of January have remarked that in their sadness they have found some light: lost possessions reclaimed, neighborly attachments cemented even more firmly, a determination to start new lives affirmed.

So it goes with the transformation of PCH, an asphalt ribbon of life for Malibu that also has too often been a place of horrific death.