LOS ANGELES — Actor Steve Carell is sending Southern California high school students affected by the devasting wildfires in Los Angeles to the prom for free.

The “Office” actor and comedian said Tuesday in an Instagram video that he was working with the Alice’s Kids charity to pay for prom for seniors at six high schools in Pasadena.

“If you have already paid for your prom tickets, they will reimburse you for your prom tickets. It’s a pretty good deal,” Carell said.

The Los Angeles area fires destroyed more than 16,000 homes, businesses and other structures and killed at least 29 people in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood and Altadena area north of Pasadena. It also scorched school campuses, upending the lives of thousands of students and parents who were left scrambling looking for classrooms for their kids to go to.

Alice’s Kids will donate about $175,000 for more than 800 students to attend the annual right-of-passage dance for graduating students. Tickets typically range from $100 to $150 each.

“Going to prom should be a celebration, and we wanted to help make the big night just a little easier for seniors whose lives have been turned upside down by the wildfires,” Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of Alice’s Kids, said in a statement. “Hopefully this allows the students to unwind and have some fun after a devasting year.”

An Instagram video posted by John Muir High School, one of the recipient schools, show students clapping and cheering as they were surprised with Carell’s announcement during a school assembly.

Another recipient includes Aveson Charter School, whose campus for kindergarten through 5th grade students burned down in the fires and building for sixth through 12th graders is damaged and unusable.

Carell also participated in the star-studded “Skate for LA Strong” hockey tournament last week to raise money for fire relief.

In closing, the actor said: “Have fun, enjoy the prom. And remember, this is Steve Carell.”

LOS ANGELES — Former Vice President Kamala Harris stepped on the NAACP Image Awards stage Saturday night with a sobering message, calling the civil rights organization a pillar of the Black community and urging people to stay resilient and hold onto their faith during the tenure of President Donald Trump.

“While we have no illusions about what we are up against in this chapter in our American story, this chapter will be written not simply by whoever occupies the oval office nor by the wealthiest among us,” Harris said after receiving the NAACP’s Chairman’s Award. “The American story will be written by you. Written by us. By we the people.”

The 56th annual Image Awards was held at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in the Los Angeles area.

Harris, defeated by Trump in last year’s presidential election, was the first woman and the first person of color to serve as vice president. She had previously been a U.S. senator from California and the state’s attorney general.

In her first major public appearance since leaving office, Harris did not reference her election loss or Trump’s actions since entering the Oval Office, although Trump mocked her earlier in the day at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Harris spoke about eternal vigilance, the price of liberty, staying alert, seeking the truth and America’s future.

“Some see the flames on our horizons, the rising waters in our cities, the shadows gathering over our democracy and ask ‘What do we do now?’” Harris said. “But we know exactly what to do, because we have done it before. And we will do it again. We use our power. We organize, mobilize. We educate. We advocate. Our power has never come from having an easy path.”

Other winners of the Chairman’s prize have included former President Barack Obama, the late Rep. John Lewis and the late actor Ruby Dee.

Harris was honored during the ceremony along with the Wayans family. The family was inducted into the NAACP Image Awards Hall of Fame in recognition of pioneering contributions to film, TV, sketch and stand-up comedy that have shaped Hollywood for decades.

Keenen Ivory Wayans, Damon Wayans Sr., Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Kim Wayans and Damon Wayans Jr. each were recognized.

Marlon Wayans, whose guest appearance on Peacock’s “Bel-Air” was up for an NAACP award, shared how Keenen Ivory Wayans sparked the family’s rise.

“He raised us all like Jedis,” he said. “We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for our big brother.”

Marlon Wayans joked that when his brother told their mom he was leaving college for comedy, she said, ”Boy, I’ve known you your whole life, and you ain’t never said nothing funny. That’s the funniest thing you’ve said.”

The crowd erupted in laughter, a fitting tribute to a family that has kept audiences laughing for more than three decades.

The family has a long list of credits. Keenen Ivory Wayans created the sketch comedy series “In Living Color” in 1990 and directed the 2000 slasher spoof “Scary Movie,” which was written by Marlon Wayans and Shawn Wayans, who also wrote and starred in “White Chicks” in 2004. Damon Wayan’s had a starring role in the 1995 comedy “Major Payne,” and currently co-stars with son Damon Wayans Jr. in the CBS sitcom “Poppa’s House,” which was nominated for an NAACP Award. The pair also were nominated for their acting on the show.

Damon Wayans Jr. has acted in two of the most critically acclaimed comedies in recent years: “Happy Endings” and “New Girl.” Kim Wayans, a comedian, actor and director, also received praise for her work in the 2011 drama “Pariah.”

Keke Palmer expressed her surprise after her name was called as winner of the coveted entertainment of the year.

“Oh my gosh. Guys, I didn’t think I was going to win,” said Palmer, who paid homage to fellow nominee Cynthia Erivo’s Oscar-nominated performance in “Wicked.”

Palmer starred in the buddy comedy “One of Them Days,” which debuted No. 1 at the box office last month. She also won an Emmy for her hosting efforts on NBC’s “Password.”

“It’s such an amazing category to be in with all these people,” Palmer said. “It’s a beautiful night. It’s Black History Month, y’all. It’s so important we all come here together and celebrate one another with one another.”

Other nominees included Kendrick Lamar, Kevin Hart and Shannon Sharpe.

Image Awards host Deon Cole honored residents of the nearby Altadena neighborhood who were affected by January’s devastating Los Angeles-area wildfires.

A video of the fire devastation played before actor Morris Chestnut took the stage.

“Homes were lost, stores destroyed, countless lives shattered and over two dozens souls gone forever,” said Chestnut, a Los Angeles native who referenced impacted areas such as Altadena, the Pacific Palisades and Malibu.

“But what was not lost is the spirit of our community,” said Chestnut, who noted 22 Altadena residents attended the show on Saturday. Many in the audience stood and applauded.

Cole shifted tone and brightened the mood with a comedic prayer for Kanye West’s wife to find more clothes after her barely-there Grammys look and for Shannon Sharpe to finally size up his T-shirts.

The opening act was a lead-up to the evening’s first award: Queen Latifah as best actress in a drama series for her role in “The Equalizer.”

Dave Chappelle was honored with the President’s Award for his “thought-provoking humor.”

Accepting the award, Chappelle talked about the NAACP’s push against negative portrayals of Black people in media and the importance of representation.

“Every opportunity we get, we just keep chipping away at this monster of a machine,” he said.

Past recipients of the President’s Award include Jay-Z, Lauryn Hill, Usher, Rihanna and John Legend.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom has asked Congress to approve nearly $40 billion in aid to help the Los Angeles area recover from January’s devastating wildfires, which he said could become the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

Newsom sent a letter Friday asking for support from lawmakers including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), the House Appropriations Committee chair.

“Los Angeles is one of the most economically productive places on the globe, but it can only rebound and flourish with support from the federal government as it recovers from this unprecedented disaster,” Newsom wrote.

Estimates of the total economic loss from the firestorm have been estimated to surpass $250 billion — with real estate losses from the Palisades and Eaton fires predicted to potentially top $30 billion, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis. More than 16,200 structures were destroyed as flames ripped through Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Pasadena and Altadena.

Newsom vowed that the funding would be used to rebuild homes, infrastructure, businesses, schools, churches and health care facilities, while supporting the needs of people affected by the devastation.

“Make no mistake, Los Angeles will use this money wisely,” Newsom wrote.

His largest request is for an additional $16.8 billion from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, mostly intended for the rebuilding of property and infrastructure, with $5 billion earmarked for debris cleanup.

Newsom also asked for $9.9 billion from the Department of Housing and Urban Development for grants to fire victims, homeowners, businesses and renters, as well as $5.29 billion from the Small Business Administration for homeowner and business loans.

Newsom thanked President Donald Trump for support for fast-tracking debris removal. The letter did not mention recent threats by the Trump administration that federal aid could come with strings attached.

“We are eternally grateful,” Newsom said.

Trump has been a frequent critic of Newsom and California’s water policies. Ric Grenell, a Trump ally serving as his envoy for special missions, said Friday that “there will be conditions” to any federal aid for the state.

He said one of the possible conditions being discussed was defunding the California Coastal Commission, which regulates coastal development and protects public beach access. Trump has criticized the agency as overly restrictive, bureaucratic and a hindrance to timely rebuilding efforts.

Snow, sleet and freezing rain were expected to continue pummeling the central Appalachians and mid-Atlantic states Wednesday, while California readied for a storm that could flood areas ravaged by the recent wildfires.

Especially heavy snowfall — up to nearly 14 inches (25 centimeters) — was expected in parts of Virginia and West Virginia, according to the National Weather Service. Ice accumulations could reach more than a third of an inch (8.4 millimeters) in Stanleytown, Virginia, and a quarter of an inch (6.3 millimeters) in Glendale Springs, North Carolina.

In California, an atmospheric river — a long band of water vapor that can transport moisture from the tropics to more northern areas — was expected to move in late Wednesday, likely flooding urban areas across central and Southern California, according to the weather service.

The snowstorm that blew into the mid-Atlantic states on Tuesday caused accidents on icy roads and prompted school closures. By Tuesday night, nearly 12,000 people in Virginia had lost power, according to PowerOutage.us.

“Stay home and off the roads tonight, Virginia,” the Virginia Department of Transportation posted on social media Tuesday night, alongside a meme of Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz” saying, “There’s no place like home.”

In parts of Baltimore and Washington, an inch (2.5 centimeters) of snow was falling each hour, according to the weather service. All Washington public schools were closed Wednesday due to the weather.

Appalachian Power, which serves 1 million customers in West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee, said Tuesday it had 5,400 workers dedicated to restoring power.

About 65 Virginia National Guard soldiers were at facilities along the Interstate 95 and state Route 29 corridors and in southwest Virginia to support the storm response, guard officials said. Another 20 soldiers and members of the Virginia Defense Force were in support roles.

Winter storm warnings extended from northwest North Carolina to southern New Jersey, and the snow-and-ice mix was expected to become all rain by Wednesday afternoon as temperatures climb.

Meanwhile a separate storm system was expected to dump heavy snow on an area stretching from Kansas to the Great Lakes starting Tuesday night, the weather service said. The Kansas Legislature canceled Wednesday meetings because of the weather, and Gov. Laura Kelly closed state offices in the capital, Topeka.

In Virginia, where Gov. Glenn Youngkin declared a state of emergency and schools and government offices were closed Tuesday, state police reported 700 accidents and dozens of injuries Tuesday. Although Matt Demlein, a spokesperson for the Virginia State Police, said they can’t say definitively that all were weather related.

In southern West Virginia, multiple crashes temporarily shut down several major highways Tuesday. Smith’s Towing and Truck Repair responded to at least 15 calls, mostly from tractor-trailer drivers who got stuck on Interstate 64 in Greenbrier County near the Virginia border, dispatcher Kelly Pickles said.

“Basically they just get sucked over into the median or they go off of the interstate just a little bit on the right-hand side,” she said. “And they just don’t have enough power in their vehicles to get back onto the road due to the icy conditions.”

Paige Williams, who owns Downtown Books in Lexington, Virginia, closed her store Tuesday because of the weather. She hoped to reopen Wednesday, noting that Lexington and surrounding Rockbridge County are dependable when it comes to clearing the roads.

But with temperatures on either side of freezing Tuesday night and Wednesday, the rain that is supposed to follow could make the roads better or worse.

“It’s just going to depend on where those temperatures go,” Williams said. “Rain can clear things off. And rain can also freeze. And then you have a lot of skating rinks instead of roads.”

An Arctic air mass stretched from Portland, Oregon, to the Great Lakes.

The temperature bottomed out Tuesday morning at minus 31 degrees (minus 35 Celsius) in Butte, Montana, where over the past two winters at least five people died from cold exposure, said Brayton Erickson, executive director of the Butte Rescue Mission.

Advocates for homeless people in the city of about 35,000 were out on the streets distributing sleeping bags, jackets, mittens and other cold weather gear to anyone who needed them, according to Erickson.

“When it gets this cold, we kind of pull out all the stops,” Erickson said.

In Oregon’s Multnomah County, officials extended a state of emergency through at least Thursday. Five emergency shelters were set to open Tuesday night through Wednesday afternoon. Midweek wind chill readings could dip to 10 degrees (minus 12 Celsius) in Portland, the weather service said.

The atmospheric river was expected to arrive in California starting late Wednesday and to peak Thursday, according to Miles Bliss, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Along with flooding, heavy snowfall was expected in the Sierra Nevada.

More than 700,000 sandbags have been arranged across central and Southern California, according to the California Department of Water Resources.

___

Associated Press journalists from across the U.S. contributed to this report.

MOSS LANDING, Calif. — Hundreds of people were ordered to evacuate and part of Highway 1 in Northern California was closed when a major fire erupted Thursday afternoon at one of the world’s largest battery storage plants.

As the fire sent up towering flames and black smoke and showed no sign of easing by Thursday night, about 1,500 people were instructed to leave Moss Landing and the Elkhorn Slough area, The Mercury News reported.

The Moss Landing Power Plant, located about 77 miles (about 124 kilometers) south of San Francisco, is owned by Texas-company Vistra Energy and contains tens of thousands of lithium batteries. The batteries are important for storing electricity from such renewable energy sources as solar energy, but if they go up in flames the blazes can be extremely difficult to put out.

“There’s no way to sugar coat it. This is a disaster, is what it is,” Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church told KSBW-TV. But he said he did not expect the fire to spread beyond the concrete building it was enclosed in.

There were fires at the Vistra plant in 2021 and 2022 that were caused by a fire sprinkler system malfunction that resulted in some units overheating, according to The Mercury News.

It was unclear what caused this latest fire. Vistra said in a statement that after it was detected, everyone at the site was evacuated safely. After the fire is out, an investigation will begin.

“Our top priority is the safety of the community and our personnel, and Vistra deeply appreciates the continued assistance of our local emergency responders,” Jenny Lyon, a spokesperson for Vistra, said in a statement.

North Monterey County Unified School District announced that all schools and offices would be closed Friday due to the fire.

FILE – Los Angeles Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani (17) is honored for being first MLB player to achieve 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in a single season during the first inning of a baseball game against the Colorado Rockies in Los Angeles, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, File)

ALTADENA, Calif. — The warnings began on Saturday, Jan. 4.

Our neighbor, a volunteer at the local sheriff’s station, texted that we should “batten down the hatches” for a “big windstorm.” From there, things moved fast.

On Sunday, I put on a bowtie and tux to cover the red carpet at the Golden Globes. Tuesday morning, I drove from my home in Altadena toward the massive Pacific Palisades wildfire to shoot video for our coverage. I asked my wife, Meg, to ready the two cat carriers and shoot video of our home for insurance purposes.

Just in case.

___

EDITOR’S NOTE — Ryan Pearson, a Los Angeles-based entertainment video editor for The Associated Press, lost his home to the California wildfires last week.

___

On my way home, I saw orange glowing smoke. A colleague texted that there was another fire in Altadena. To get a closer look, I parked at a gas station across the street from a place called the Bunny Museum. Our favorite new pizza place, Side Pie, was on the other side of the intersection. A cafe called Fox’s, open since 1955, was just down the street.

Less than an hour after the fire had started, flames were ripping strong along the mountain above Eaton Canyon. I wore a KN95 mask and ski goggles. The fire was probably still three miles from our home. But the Santa Anas were blowing at a level I’d never felt before.

I went home and gave Meg the news: We needed to pack and get out.

Our daughter, Reese, was away on a school trip. We took maybe an hour, which felt like both five minutes and an entire day. I picked out an Ozomatli sweatshirt I’d just gotten for Christmas from my closet, some jeans, vitamins, a portable speaker. Meg packed up her stuff and Reese’s essential items — school backpack, a few stuffed animals. I started packing wine bottles, thought, “What am I doing?” and put them back. We got passports and birth certificates. A litter box and some wet food for the cats. We loaded both cars.

Did anybody else on the street need our help? I asked our neighbor. Her next-door neighbor did, so we went over and I helped Donna get her husband, Phil, from his wheelchair into their Subaru.

I snapped one last picture from our driveway — our house with a reddish-orange haze behind it. With that, we headed off into the night — into a future of flames and smoke and loss that would change us forever.

This was our home:

We first encountered Altadena when Reese attended the Summerkids camp there. I felt the city’s hustle-bustle melt away each morning that I drove her past the towering pines, deodar cedars and maple trees that lined the calm streets. When Reese was 5, we found a three-bedroom, two-bath home that had a backyard view of the San Gabriel Mountains and a tree out front with thick branches perfect for hanging a swing.

Built in 1958, it had been owned for years by our new next-door neighbor. Megan and I both loved the clerestory windows, hardwood floors and wood beams that crossed the ceiling; they’d been painted brown, but we stripped the paint to expose the natural wood.

We loved the mixture of people around us, nods and greetings from neighbors when we walked down our sidewalk-less street. Along with a deep-rooted Black community, the hush and space and trees and birds and relatively affordable homes have long drawn musicians, artists and artisans from the LA area’s more-blue-collar-than-you-think creative community.

When the weather was right, I walked down the driveway and hiked uphill to the trail leading up to Echo Mountain and eventually to Inspiration Point. It was so accessible, I called it “my mountain.” On Echo Mountain you could find the remains of a resort and hotel that burned in fires in the early 1900s. Once, when I hiked up with Reese, she and a friend dug in the dirt and uncovered pieces of a pot that we carried down, cleaned up and tried to piece back together.

Two years ago, a family moved in next door to us with two daughters. They all became like sisters, and the girls would climb atop our garage to watch fireworks on the Fourth of July, play ping-pong in the back yard or sit in Reese’s room and play Roblox. We adopted Luke and Archie, our two orange tabby cats. The cats, with us before the pandemic, helped get us through that hard time (including a few weeks of lockdown with nearby fires on the mountain keeping us indoors for days on end). Meg envisioned eventually building a “catio” for them outside.

After Meg’s father died, we used her inheritance to remodel. Meg modernized and styled every corner while retaining the house’s midcentury character. She curated the artwork, paintings, photographs, wood sculptures and trinkets from places we’d visited in the before times.

One Christmas, Meg surprised me by converting the garage into a man cave/study with a TV, elliptical and spin bike and her dad’s old roll-top desk. We put sheds in the back for storage: photo albums from the time before digital photos, holiday ornaments, scrapbooks with my earliest newspaper clippings and Meg’s elementary school class photos and report cards. All now gone.

I ended up working from home a lot and walked a three-mile loop through the neighborhood that gave me a regular view of the community’s variety: yards filled with cars in various states of disrepair. People in cowboy hats riding horses down the pavement. Ultra-modern new homes with glass walls. Coyotes — and dog walkers who carried thick sticks to fend them off. Rainbow flags and “In this house …” signs and Black Lives Matter signs and Harris signs and a couple Trump signs. A cul-de-sac on a hillside with a house where a motion-activated robot voice told me I was being recorded every time I walked past.

Works of humans and works of nature. The predictable and the unexpected. The entire tapestry. All of these things, and more, made it our home.

The night we left last week, we went to stay the night with friends in northeast LA’s San Rafael Hills. I woke up at about 6 a.m. and headed back to Altadena.

From the freeway, it resembled the scene in “Fury Road” where there’s a swirling wall of orange as the vehicles enter the sandstorm. But I drove into an all-black cloud of smoke instead.

Homes were on fire just down from the always busy McDonald’s. I stopped to send in live video from my iPhone because I knew I couldn’t get a cell signal up by my house.

My house. Our house. What had become of it?

I tried to drive up to check. I turned back when the smoke got too thick to see the street and I was encircled by flames.

After a while, I headed over to the evacuation site at Pasadena Convention Center. It was fascinating to watch the center evolve: at first just people wandering in and sitting against the wall, then Red Cross volunteers arriving, paramedics pushing folks from nursing homes on hospital beds, people giving out free food from World Central Kitchen and Chick-fil-A.

We interviewed evacuees for a bit. When enough time had passed, I drove back up Marengo to check on our house.

I swerved to avoid burning trees in the road. Debris and destruction surrounded me. Our street was blocked by a burning downed electrical pole.

I didn’t even get out of my car. I just looked long enough to absorb it: Like nearly the entire community, our whole block had burned. Reese’s tree swing and the backyard ping-pong table were still there, plus our chimney and fireplace, with brick painted white. Everything else — everything in this place where we had chosen to live our lives and raise our child — was simply gone, as if it had never been there in the first place. But I knew better. I had lived it.

Driving back down the hill, I cried.

When the Palisades Fire broke out in Los Angeles last Tuesday, Hollywood’s awards season was in full swing. The Golden Globes had transpired less than 48 hours earlier and a series of splashy awards banquets followed in the days after.

But the enormity of the destruction in Southern California has quickly snuffed out all festiveness in the movie industry’s high season of celebration. At one point, the flames even encroached on the hillside above the Dolby Theatre, the home of the Academy Awards.

The fires have struck at the very heart of a movie industry still trying to stabilize itself after years of pandemic, labor turmoil and technological upheaval. Not for the first time this decade, the Oscars are facing the question of: Should the show go on? And if it does, what do they mean now?

“With ALL due respect during Hollywood’s season of celebration, I hope any of the networks televising the upcoming awards will seriously consider NOT televising them and donating the revenue they would have gathered to victims of the fires and the firefighters,” “Hacks” star Jean Smart, a recent Globe winner, wrote on Instagram.

The Oscars remain as scheduled, but it’s certain that they will be transformed due to the wildfires, and that most of the red-carpet pomp that typically stretches between now and then will be curtailed if not altogether canceled. With so many left without a home by the fires, there’s scant appetite for the usual self-congratulatory parades of the season.

Focus has turned, instead, to what the Oscars might symbolize for a traumatized Los Angeles. The Oscars have never meant less, but, at the same time, they might be more important than ever as a beacon of perseverance for the reeling movie capital.

The film academy on Monday for the second time delayed its nominations announcement. Nominations will now be announced virtually on Feb. 23. The academy also canceled its annual nominees luncheon and said it’s planning to honor frontline workers and to support relief efforts.

“We will get through this together and bring a sense of healing to our global film community,” vowed Bill Kramer, academy chief executive, and Janet Yang, academy president.

The fires, one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history, continue. The ongoing nature of the crisis, which has killed at least 25 people, has made remaking well-laid plans a moving target. The Critics Choice Awards have been postponed. Nominations to the Producers Guild Awards have been delayed twice with no new date set. On Tuesday, the guild established a fund to support producers affected by the fires.

The 67th Grammy Awards, scheduled to be held Feb. 2 in downtown Los Angeles, are going forward, albeit with significant changes. Harvey Mason jr., Recording Academy chief executive and Board of Trustees chair Tammy Hurt said this year’s Grammys “will carry a renewed sense of purpose: raising additional funds to support wildfire relief efforts and honoring the bravery and dedication of first responders who risk their lives to protect ours.”

Some telethon-like element also seems sure to accompany the Oscars. In recent days, many throughout the industry have voiced suggestions for how the broadcast could be reconsidered. A not dissimilar process happened during the 2021 Oscars, which were postponed to late April because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Oscars have been moved a few times throughout history, including in 1938, when the show was delayed a week due to historic flooding in Los Angeles.

For the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, the wildfires have been acutely personal. Four of the academy’s 55-person board of governors lost their homes, according to The Hollywood Reporter, including producer Lynette Howell Taylor, visual effects governor Brooke Breton, sound branch governor Mark P. Stoeckinger and animation branch governor Jinko Gotoh. The Pacific Palisades, which was largely destroyed by the fires, was home to many stars and executives.

For potential nominees, this would normally be when they’d be at their most active, campaigning in Q&As and other events tied to the all-important nominations voting period. All of that has ground to a halt. Isabella Rossellini, who’s favored to be nominated for best supporting actress for her performance in “Conclave,” on Instagram posted a photograph of an Oscar lying in ashes. The photo turned out to be fake, but it accurately captured Hollywood’s current mood.

Several high-profile TV series were forced to pause production because of the fires but notably few movie shoots were affected. That, in itself, is a reflection of a Hollywood that has seen the majority of film production seek tax incentives in other states.

Work throughout the film and TV industry hasn’t rebounded following the 2023 strikes, leaving large numbers of crew members unemployed. So quiet are studio lots that actress Natalie Morales (“Grey’s Anatomy”) has advocated for studios, in the wake of the fires, to turn empty soundstages into temporary classrooms, erected by out-of-work craftspeople, for children whose schools burned down.

It’s a reminder that many in the film business need all the work they can find, including all the jobs that accompany the Oscars. Not only are the Academy Awards a vital spotlight on a wide swath of movies that otherwise might struggle to find audiences, the awards provide a lot of jobs to an awards season industrial complex of workers, stylists and vendors.

With so many out of work before the fires hit, Silvina Knight, an Emmy-winning makeup artist, calls this latest crisis “another setback – a big one.” She is currently working on “Suits LA,” one of the series that stopped filming due to the fires.

“I’m not sure how people are going to feel about getting dressed up and when they just lost everything,” said Knight of the Oscars. “But I don’t know, it might be a show of force when we come back. Yeah, this is tragic, but we are all coming together. Even driving home the other night, motorists were being very considerate of each other, which is unusual for Los Angeles.”