How To Support Dallas Artists Displaced by Los Angeles Fires

Since Tuesday, over 10,000 homes have burned in fires raging across Los Angeles, and many of the fires remain uncontained.

On Tuesday, North Texas songwriter and guitarist Emily Elbert was flying back to her 100-year-old Altadena home after a performance in Las Vegas. She tours as part of Leon Bridges’ band. Initially, her flight was delayed due to wind, but she eventually landed in Irving that afternoon. The fires hadn’t reached her neighborhood by the time she got back.

“It was such a miraculously fortunate timeline of things,” she says. “For some weird intuitive reason, I was about to go out to a friend’s house for dinner but I decided to sit and practice banjo. Twenty minutes later is when the fire started.”

Elbert’s house was on a hill with a small studio at the base. When she went outside and saw the flames approaching, she rushed to gather as much clothing and music equipment as she could. Her two roommates did the same.

“It was such a confusing, dissonant and disorienting mental state,” she says. “It all happened so fast. The fire started and all the sudden it was growing, massive and heading our way.”

After alerting her elderly neighbors, Elbert hit the road and traveled south, eventually landing at her partner’s parents’ house in Torrence.

“I didn’t sleep a minute that night,” she says. “I couldn’t slow my mind down.”

Though safe, Elbert didn’t know the state of her home and belongings.

“I went to a grocery store because I sort of just didn’t know what to do,” Elbert says. “I had no appetite but it just felt like a normal activity.”

She received a call from a friend on her street, informing her that her home had burned down.

“There weren’t any thoughts in my head,” Elbert says. “I just fell to the ground at Trader Joe’s. My partner’s childhood piano, precious old things that contain stories.”
A GoFundMe was set up in Elbert’s name to raise money for what was lost. At the time of publication, it had raised $59,219 of the $75k goal. Other fundraisers have been set up to help aid displaced people in Los Angeles, including many supporting artists originally from DFW.

Bobak Loftipour and Casey Trela from the rock band Dark Rooms, which relocated to Los Angeles some years ago, both lost their homes in the Altadena fires. Loftipour's GoFundMe has reached $49,970 of its $60k goal, and Trela's has reached $33,882 of its $50k goal.

Additionally, Santa Monica-based nonprofit, Musicares, is offering temporary financial and food assistance to Los Angeles musicians in need.

On Monday, Elbert flies out for an Australian tour with Leon Bridges.

“I’m really grateful to play music with people I love and breathe some less toxic air,” she says. “It will feel amazing to be in a very different kind of surreal atmosphere.”