They moved into her home just before Christmas. Now, all that’s left is ashes.
Florence Kerns-Wilson and her wife moved into their home in the Altadena community of Los Angeles County just before Christmas. As the family unpacked and got settled with their two year-old daughter, they met neighbours who Kerns-Wilson said were “welcoming and kind.”
They were looking forward to building a life in Altadena. And then this week’s Eaton Fire came.
“We lost absolutely everything,” Kerns-Wilson told CNN’s Kate Bolduan on Friday morning. “We got out just in time with our baby and our two cats and my parents, who had actually evacuated to our house from their house.”
The family’s beautiful new home – with its teal front door and red porch steps – was reduced to smouldering ashes. Much of the neighbourhood, Kerns-Wilson said, has also been razed to the ground.
“It was so fast, a friend was able to go to the neighbourhood once it had completely burned down and send us a video. And that’s when we found out for sure,” she said, her voice breaking.
In the days since the destruction, Kerns-Wilson said she and her neighbours have leaned on each other for support. They haven’t even begun to wrap their heads around the prospect of rebuilding, but whatever they decide, she hopes they continue to work together, she said.
“I don’t know if I’ve fully processed it, to be honest with you,” she said. “Yesterday, we started talking about making plans to get together and cry … once it’s safe to go back.”
Palisades and Eaton fires now rank among the 5 most destructive in California history
The sun rises behind destruction from the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles on January 9.
Two of the fires raging in the Los Angeles area are now among the 5 most destructive in California state history, according to preliminary data from CalFire.
The Palisades Fire has destroyed more than 5,300 structures, the third-most in state history. The Eaton Fire has destroyed 4,000-plus structures, the fourth-most in state history. These figures could climb as more damage assessments are completed by officials.
Fifteen out of the 20 most destructive fires in state history have now occurred since 2015 as a world warming due to fossil fuel pollution more frequently creates larger and more severe fires in the Southwestern US.
The two fires are also the only ones out of the 20 most destructive in state history to have happened in January – a development possible because of an extreme swing from wet to dry conditions over the last two winters that first buoyed vegetation growth and then dried it all out, turning it to tinder. This so-called weather whiplash is also becoming more frequent due to climate change, scientists have found.
The state of play with the Kenneth Fire, the newest blaze to threaten the city
The newest blaze to break out in the wider Los Angeles area, the Kenneth Fire, is now burning across 960 acres northeast of the city of Calabasas.
None of the fire is contained, and its perimeters are threatening residential communities on the outskirts of Calabasas, a city about 30 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in the early hours of Friday that 900 additional firefighters were being deployed to battle the blaze.
Authorities earlier arrested a man near the vicinity of the fire on suspicion of arson, after receiving a call from a witness who saw the man “attempting to light a fire,” the Los Angeles Police Department told CNN over email.
The arrest was made in the 21700 block of Ybarra Road in Woodland Hills at 4:32 p.m. Thursday, police said, adding that they cannot confirm whether the detainee had any connection to the Kenneth Fire at this time.
“I was just in hell,” Altadena wildfire evacuee says
Raya Reynaga, a CPR instructor for first responders, recounted the terrifying experience of being trapped at her home in the Altadena community of Los Angeles County during the Eaton Fire, before losing the house she lived in for 28 years. “I lost everything you can imagine,” she told CNN’s Sara Sidner on Friday.
“I woke up and it was just pitch black. We had no power, and I was just in hell,” Reynaga said. “I was just surrounded by flames all around me, and all I could do is just hold my water hose, and just I dropped to my knees, and I just started praying, ‘Please, God, please, just save my house! Just save my house! This is, this is all I have.’”
Reynaga described the devastation of witnessing her garage, a neighboring house, and backyard fence engulfed in flames before being rescued by the fire department and escorted out of her engulfed neighborhood.
“The fire department had to come get me, and I begged them to let me drive my car, because I had my cats in there. And I had to follow behind them, and there was just ambers and pieces of houses just falling on top of my car, just smoke everywhere. I wasn’t even sure we were going to be able to drive out,” Reynaga recounted.
The overwhelming majority of homes and businesses in Pacific Palisades have been destroyed by the Palisades Fire, new exclusive satellite imagery from Airbus shows.
The fire that began just north of the community tore through the area on Tuesday and Wednesday, leaving significant destruction across the neighbourhood. Nearly every single building, on nearly every single street is now cinders.
Inexplicably, some homes along El Medio Ave, were spared. The roofs of homes apparently untouched by the flames stick out among the black and grey remains of the hundreds of others.
Most homes in this community, though, were not so lucky.
The tide is turning in the battle against the Palisades Fire, official says
Firefighters hope calmer winds Friday will help them gain the upper hand in battling the Palisades Fire, which has torched about 20,000 acres in Southern California. “Yesterday we were very hopeful that we could turn a corner on this fire, and we did,” said Brent Pascua, battalion chief for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection – also known as Cal Fire. “
It’s going to take a lot more work to see that (containment) grow,” he said. “But we’re headed in the right direction.”
As of early Friday morning, the Palisades Fire was about 6% contained. Pascua said he hopes that number will reach the double digits by the end of the day.
Wildfires pose a threat to mental health that can linger even years later
Dr. Jyoti Mishra personally knows how much stress can come with a wildfire. The associate director of the UC Climate Change and Mental Health Council and associate professor of psychiatry works at the University of California, San Diego. Her city isn’t currently experiencing wildfires, but her LA-based family has fled to her home.
“All our family from LA is here with us, and we’re happy they’ve made it,” Mishra said Thursday. “We’re hoping their home is safe up there, but we don’t know yet.”
Uncertainty about losing a home or a neighbourhood is one factor, studies have showed, that can contribute to an increase in mental health problems among people who experience wildfires.
Mishra’s research on the 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California showed that people who were personally affected by wildfires were significantly more likely to have anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress than members of communities that had not been exposed to a fire.
“It can also make you feel cognitively impacted, as well,” Mishra said. “Our work has shown that it’s hard to pay attention to a singular thing when everything around you feel like it’s threatening you.”
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