A number of wildfires that began Tuesday morning in southern Calfironia continue to rage, spurred on by powerful winds that, thankfully, have lessened a bit today. Still, the damage is very real. Between the Palisades Fire west of Los Angeles, the Eaton Fire north of Pasadena and the Sunset Fire in the Hollywood Hills, at least five people are dead, over 100,000 are under evacuation orders, over 400,000 are without power, tens of thousands of acres have burned and some 2,000 structures have been damaged.
Naturally, film and TV production in the area has also been disrupted, with FilmLA passing on the instructions of the LA County Fire Department that "all permits issued for filming in the communities of Altadena, La Crescenta, La Canada/Flintridge and unincorporated Pasadena are withdrawn."
Although most sound stages are not directly in the line of fire, the air quality is dangerous. The list of affected movies and shows is long: per Variety, it includes Hacks, Loot, Ted, Suits: L.A., Happy's Place, NCIS, NCIS: Origins, After Midnight, Doctor Odyssey, Grey's Anatomy, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Abbott Elementary, All-American, The Pitt, George & Mandy's First Marriage and Fallout, Prime Video's post-apocalypse adaptation of the venerable video game series. Shooting on the second season of Fallout is tentatively scheduled to resume on Friday.
Movie premieres for Unstoppable and Wolf Man have also been postponed or cancelled. Meanwhile, The A.V. Club reports that the Critics Choice Awards have been pushed back to Sunday, January 26; they were originally going to take place this Saturday. Likewise, the Oscar nominations were going to be announced on Friday, January 17 but have now been pushed back to Sunday, January 19. The voting deadline has also been extended by two days, from January 12 to January 14. The ceremony, which will be hosted by Conan O'Brien, is still on track for March 2, at least for now.
Hopefully the firefighters are able to get the fires under control soon, for the sake of these productions and, more importantly, for the sake of the people in the area.
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