Los Angeles area residents are returning to their homes to find nothing but ash and rubble as wildfires devastate Southern California.
The Palisades and Eaton fires, along with other smaller blazes, have burned more than 36,000 acres of land throughout the Los Angeles area. At least ten people are dead and more than 10,000 structures have been destroyed by the flames as of Friday afternoon.
The deadly fires prompted some 200,000 people across Southern California to evacuate their homes. As evacuation orders are lifted for certain neighborhoods, many residents are returning to find their homes and belongings reduced to rubble.
Thomas Korn, who lived in Altadena, teared up as he spoke about his now-destroyed home.
“There’s nothing left. I’ve been here about an hour and a half and I don’t want to leave,” Korn told the Associated Press. “I really can’t put it into words.”
Patrick Williams, an Altadena resident who lost his home, told the AP, “Everything that we know and love is gone.”
“This house, my whole city is gone,” Williams said. “The whole thing…everything, my whole neighborhood, everything that I grew up to love and know is burnt up.”
Palisades resident Rick McGeagh returned home to find only a Virgin Mary statue standing at his ranch house, according to Reuters. He described it as an “amazing blessing” that the statue his grandmother once owned remained standing.
His neighborhood had been leveled with only six homes, out of 60, still standing.
“Everything else is ash and rubble,” McGeagh told Reuters on Friday.
Jimmy Dunne lived in the Palisades and told USA Today he was one of the lucky ones as his home was still standing. Two of his children were not as fortunate.
“Everybody at this point is just numb,” he told the outlet
Police had helped some people hope for about 15 minutes, allowing them to get whatever possessions they could before taking them back to safety, USA Today noted.
How you can help victims of the Los Angeles fires
Lucy Sherriff, a BBC journalist and Palisades resident, published the details of her harrowing evacuation and the eventual discovery that her house was destroyed.
“It took a while to get out,” Sherriff wrote. “There were thousands of cars trying to leave, all desperate to flee the flames. The frustration and fear was palpable.”
“We returned on Wednesday afternoon and were allowed to drive in because of my press credentials,” she continued. “When we reached Sunset Blvd, our road, we saw flames and fire engines in front of our block of condos. My heart sank.”
“We drove past and saw our entire cluster of condos had been leveled.”
Sherriff recounted how she decided what to take from her now-destroyed home before evacuating. The journalist at first scrambled to collect her clothes, jewelry and shoes — but soon realized she needed none of it.
“I grabbed my grandmother’s ring, passports, birth certificates, and left everything else to burn,” she wrote.
Evacuation orders remain in place for more than 100,000 Los Angeles residents as the fires reach their fourth day. But as firefighters begin to contain some of the blazes, they should be eased in the coming days. That will allow more people to return home, but it will be to find their homes and possessions gone.
The blazes have been driven by the Santa Ana winds: dry, warm and gusty northeast winds that blow from Nevada and Utah to Southern California toward the coast.
While gusts calmed on Thursday, aiding firefighting efforts, another bout of Santa Ana winds could hit California early next week.
