Overview
- The 6 p.m. ceremony featured a moment of silence for the 19 residents who died in January’s fire.
- Organizers prepared for a record crowd of about 15,000, with Santa Rosa Avenue closed to traffic until 9 p.m. and parking pushed to nearby side streets.
- The 105th lighting brings back a near-mile canopy of deodar cedars near the burn scar after months of repairs.
- Longtime volunteer families flipped the switch with LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, while Disney’s VoluntEARS hosted a community village at Winterfest.
- Reports differ on the exact number of cedars—153 in one account, 135 in another—but coverage agrees the trees largely survived, with wind damage to branches and earlier light strings.