Palm trees on fire crackle at Riverside’s The Cheech art museum

Tall, spindly palm trees with their crowns on fire were a familiar sight during the Pacific Palisades and Eaton fires . Burning palms became a somber visual shorthand for the fires or simply for life in L.A. in 2025.

Inside Riverside’s Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture , two walls in a quiet corner are devoted to paintings of palm trees on fire.

Painted in 2021, “Three Studies of Palm Trees” by Perry Vasquez is a triptych: three tall, skinny paintings, each depicting a nearly identical palm, alight like a flare.

On the adjacent wall, “Premonition” and “2nd Premonition” by Margaret Garcia, from 2017, likewise depict the tops of two palms in flames, embers flying.

The images inspire a hushed awe, in me and in many visitors, who often remark upon what the staff calls “