The sky above was a brilliant blue, empty of helicopters and ash.

My niece and I walked to the end of the Venice Pier on Tuesday to watch brilliant, orange flames creeping up the Santa Monica Mountains in Pacific Palisades.

In a post on Instagram at the time, she thanked the "brilliant medical teams who took such great care of me" and "the thousands of people who sent me such beautiful and encouraging messages".

Here and there, a brilliant burst of color against the darkened sky: a fuschia headscarf, a rainbow-striped puffer coat.

Maybe now is not as brilliant as the boom, but you need distance to judge.