Los Angeles fires: 'Everything is gone' - Agony on a tight-knit street reduced to ash - Voice of Asia

Professional chef Darren Anderson always tells people he was "born in the kitchen"—and literally. The 45-year-old chef was born via home birth at his home at 295 Silas Flores Avenue, where he lived with his mother until this week.

On Thursday, he stood on the charred remains of what was once his kitchen in Altadena, a tight-knit community northeast of Los Angeles. He was searching for his cast iron pots, hoping they had survived the fire. The blaze was one of several historic fires in the region that has killed at least 16 people, destroyed multiple neighborhoods and left thousands homeless.

Across the street, at 296, his friend Rachel’s house was also reduced to ash. Next door, at 281, where he’d attended family gatherings, was also gone. About three blocks away, at Deveny Place, where his girlfriend lives, some neighbors had tried to stop the inferno engulfing their homes with garden hoses. Now, they too were searching the ruins for precious items, as the fire had decimated the entire community in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.

It all started on Tuesday night. The Santa Ana winds had been fierce for most of the day. Darren was in his front yard just after 6 p.m. local time, trying to secure things that might blow away. Across the street at 296 Silas Flores Avenue, Rachel Gillespie was taking down her Christmas decorations, worried about her plastic icicles and patio furniture. They exchanged worried glances. "It doesn't look good, does it?" she said. At the time, their only concern was the wind. They didn't know that one of the worst two wildfires in Los Angeles history had just ignited a few miles away, part of a multi-day nightmare that, at its peak, saw six fires simultaneously threatening America’s second-largest city.

The Eaton Fire, which engulfed Altadena, has raged across more than 14,000 acres, destroying thousands of homes and businesses, and has been responsible for 11 deaths. By the weekend, the Eaton Fire was only 15% contained. In western Los Angeles, the Palisades Fire, which started earlier that day, would go on to burn more than 23,000 acres, reduce much of a vibrant community to ash, and cause at least 5 deaths.

Darren’s neighbor at 281, Dylan Axt, was working at a donut stand at the Topanga Mall, about 40 miles away, when the smoke started to billow through their community. The 20-year-old rushed back after hearing the news, only to find his corner of northwest Altadena in the dark, with his family frantically evacuating their home. His uncle jumped over their white picket fence to stuff items into car trunks, saving precious time. For the next two hours, Dylan did the same, gathering food, medicine, clothes and toiletries. In the rush, he lost his keys, searching for 30 minutes in the smoky darkness with a flashlight until he found them blown up against the fence.

Throughout the desperate search, he kept telling himself that local authorities would be able to handle the fire roaring down from the hills toward the home he shared with his mother, grandmother, aunt and two young cousins. Dylan had experienced storms before, and seen smoke in the hills, but this felt different. This time, the orange glow in the sky was right overhead. “I was at a 10 out of 10 on the scared scale,” he said.

At 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Dylan said he and his mother were the last people to leave Silas Flores Avenue. They may have been the last to escape alive. The next day, authorities announced a neighbor’s body had been found on the side of the road. Rachel and Darren left the community about two hours before Dylan did. Rachel was forced to leave by a friend who drove up demanding, “You have to leave now.” Rachel said goodbye to the house they had just bought a year ago, with her wife, toddler, five cats and two days' worth of clothes.

Darren also grabbed what he could: a guitar he’d bought with money he made as an extra in a karate movie when he was 14, and a painting of his family crossing Abbey Road in London, looking like the iconic Beatles album cover. As the residents of Silas Flores Avenue evacuated, Darren’s neighbors a few blocks away were trying to fight the flames. At 417 Deveny Place, Hipolito Cisneros and his close friend and neighbor Larry Vellescas, who lived across the street at 416, grabbed garden hoses.

The scene outside looked like hell. A garage at one house was on fire. A car in front of another was also ablaze. They pulled hoses from multiple homes, drenching the houses with water—including the home of Darren’s girlfriend, Sachi. “The water was just bouncing off. It wasn’t even penetrating,” Hipolito said, referring to the dry earth and brush around the homes. Over time, they made progress, hosing down embers and spot fires. Larry thought they might win. Then their water ran dry—a result of water pressure issues, they later learned, that hampered firefighting efforts amid surging demand across Los Angeles County.

A nearby explosion was followed by another house bursting into flames. By 1 a.m., their families were packing to leave. “We tried. We really tried,” Hipolito said. At 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday, police cars drove down their street, using loudspeakers to tell everyone to leave immediately. As he turned the corner, Larry saw his garage on fire in his truck’s rearview mirror. By 3 a.m., the street was empty.

Much of the Los Angeles area is made up of small communities like Altadena. On any given morning, people would walk down rows of houses to grab a coffee at the Little Red Hen Cafe, stopping to chat on their way to work. Many described decades of tight-knit community, watching neighbors start families and watching the kids who once played in the streets grow up. But, driving through the area for the first time since his world was turned upside down, Darren barely recognized his neighborhood.

The big blue house that once marked a familiar turn was gone. All the landmarks that once guided him were gone. He pointed out each neighbor's property, gasping as he realized not one house was still standing. He took photos of where his and Rachel’s homes had been and the street he shared with Dylan. Outside his girlfriend's house—the one Larry and Hipolito had tried to save—he shot videos and chatted with their family before calling Sachi to describe the state of her home. “Oh my God, it’s all gone,” he said, his voice cracking.

But, in the ruins, some things remained. At his sister’s home on Silas Flores Avenue, he found colorful plastic lawn decorations stuck in her lawn, somehow spared by the fire. He pulled each stake out of the ground, knowing that while the floral decorations might seem insignificant in the face of disaster, they might make her smile. Across the street, where his home once stood, only a red brick chimney remained. Around it was a pile of pottery. His hands black with soot, he gathered as much as he could, but many pieces crumbled at his touch. A charred lemon tree stood in the yard, some of the fruit still warm to the touch. “If I can get a seed, we can plant a new one,” he said, grabbing a handful. “It’s like a way to start over.”