The first rays of the sun revealed this Wednesday one of the worst tragedies in the history of Los Angeles, caused by three large fires. The devastation caused by Palisades It was almost total in Malibu, a coastal community popular with surfers and tourists. Most of the beachfront residences in this region northwest of the city were reduced to ashes during the night by the flames of what is already the worst fire in the city, which has already left at least five dead.
It was no time for smiles, but Bill, 64, was showing one. His concrete house seemed to have been touched by a miracle and stood alongside three others among a strip of land where everything was destruction. “No miracle, I spent the afternoon and part of the night spraying water on the façade and the side with the hose from my patio,” said the man, who used an aquatic visor so that the ashes would not get into his eyes.
“It was a hurricane of fire. Something completely apocalyptic,” recalls Bill, who has lived in Malibu since 2011. The media entrepreneur left the area around ten o’clock on Tuesday night, when the mountain had been burning for twelve hours. This morning not all the news was good. He lost what was going to be his other home, in Pacific Palisades, just a few miles away, and where he planned to move in February or March. “That one is gone, it no longer exists,” he added. The residence had cost him seven million dollars and he had invested the same amount in the renovation. “The insurance only covers three, so my pocket has taken a hit of seven million,” he says. Everyone in his family is fine.
A tour taken early Wednesday revealed miles of devastation along the Pacific Scenic Highway. Of the houses, mostly built of wood, only the brick chimneys remained standing. The rest was a mass of scrap metal and iron burned by the sea.
Malibu was a ghostly area. The only movement this morning was from fire trucks, many arriving from other counties to support the emergency. The strong wind, with gusts of up to 130 kilometers per hour, like those of a category one hurricane, prevented the hundreds of elements working in the area from fighting the flames. The power of the blizzard cut off the stream of water that was fired from the tanker trucks. It also kept helicopters and planes on the ground, which are key to fighting the spread of the accident.
The destruction was also felt in Pasadena, east of Los Angeles. The Eaton Fire has destroyed between 200 and 500 structures there. What at first glance may seem like walls full of soot and columns of smoke were homes full of personal stories, schools where students ran around, temples of prayer.
The Francis house is on Altadena Drive, a tree-lined avenue that separates Pasadena, the area on the right, from Altadena, on the left. On Wednesday morning, only the drum of the washing machine was left standing, completely charred, as well as what was once a bicycle, now black, also on the ground. Bob Francis, son of the owner, could see the ruin from the entrance, where the mailbox was still standing, surprisingly.
It is the house where Francis’s father lived, aged 82, in which he had been accumulating his memories, as well as old documents from his time as a lawyer, converted today into churruscado papers, or the cloth dolls that he liked to make so much. to his late wife. They have only been able to save one.
The house started burning early Wednesday morning. They had to run. They left alive, but their home and a smaller one they rented in the back have ceased to exist. Francis did not know if the overwhelmed firefighters came to put out the fire. He found out on television: “I saw the trees on the news and realized it was our house. “Nine years of our lives have gone.” His father tried to hide his tears, unable to speak.
A few meters down, on the same avenue, half a dozen worshipers gathered in front of what was the neighborhood synagogue. Its president, Jack Singer, seems reluctant to leave, despite the fact that the flames have consumed the three buildings that provide support and faith to 440 families. He assures that, like the temple of Israel, they will rise on its ashes.
Around a thousand residents of the cities of Pasadena and Altadena took refuge from a cruel night in the city’s Convention Center, set up as a shelter. The avalanche of volunteers and donations was great. Companies and individuals distributed water, drinks, bagels and other food.
Father Christopher, a Franciscan, had to leave the institute where he works at dawn, but decided to bring the van with which he normally feeds homeless people to the center’s door. “We evacuated at 4:30 this morning and, around eight, we were here. “We have brought chicken stews, pasta, salmon, couscous with chicken… They are going to bring more for the night,” he noted. He only has water and bags of chips left, but also many hands: “Normally, there are four or five people helping, but now there are more volunteers for this.”
In Pasadena, 37,000 people had to flee, forced to evacuate their homes. It happened to Hugo Zavala, a native of Guanajuato (Mexico), but he has spent 35 of his 45 years in California. Good-natured, smiling, at the reception table of the Pasadena Convention Center, he lives in Altadena. He got scared when his phone didn’t work in the morning. Having operated on his foot due to a traffic accident, he grabbed his backpack and his cane and took to the streets for three hours until a vehicle rescued him. “Every time the fire got closer. I arrived at 12:30 a.m. and signed, I grabbed things… At 630 I received a message that my house no longer exists. It was a house that the Government had helped me have, because I had been homelessseven years and I had been there for four years,” he says, without losing his smile. Are you sure?: “Two neighbors have sent me photos and the fire application tells me that 70% of my block is no longer there.” Now he wants to volunteer and help those who continue to arrive: “Nothing to remind me that I have nowhere to return.”
