The last time Lindsay Rupp saw her Los Angeles house, like the flames of devastating forest fires Fires across the county were rapidly approaching, his Brentwood neighborhood resembled a war zone.
The Canadian-born mother of two, who has lived in California for more than 20 years, had returned Wednesday morning to collect “everything I saw that I thought I needed or that my kids might need.” She put everything in trash bags before knowing the road in and out would be closed.
As she walked back down the hill from Mandeville Canyon, a few miles north of the fire consuming the Pacific Palisades, “it was almost apocalyptic,” Rupp told Global News in an interview.
“The sky was black,” she said. “The flames were on the horizon, like a canyon away. So I knew it was time to get out.
Rupp also remembers how eerily quiet his street was.
“It was almost like a deserted town,” she said. “It almost felt like the middle of the night, but it was 9 a.m. »
Multiple fires have ravaged communities around Los Angeles, destroying thousands of structures and forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate to safety.
Rupp herself is living with friends in California and her children, ages nine and seven, are with her ex-husband in a safe place nearby.
Extremely strong winds spread the flames, which were further fanned by extreme dry conditions, making it difficult for fire crews to contain the blazes.
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Rupp says “countless friends” have lost their homes. On Wednesday alone, she learned that six houses in the neighborhood had burned and was receiving photos from neighbors and friends showing the flames “a few meters from our house.”
“The last few days have been quite difficult,” she said through tears.
She also has friends who live in Palisades, whose community has been “pretty much wiped out,” she said.
“I have friends who have come back and walked the grounds, and it’s just devastating,” she said, with homes, schools and the sports fields her children played on all destroyed.
“It’s all gone,” she said.
Dr. Martha Gulati, a cardiologist at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles, of London, Ontario, was evacuated from her home near Runyon Canyon in the Hollywood Hills, located between the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Range to the east.
“If you can see out my window right now, it’s not sunny Los Angeles, it’s smoky Los Angeles,” she told Global News from a hotel she is staying at with her family.
“It’s pretty scary.”
At Vancouver International Airport on Thursday, people arriving from Los Angeles said they fled similar scenes.
“When we arrived (at Los Angeles International Airport), it was very Armageddon, very dark,” said Dawn Marie Stager, an Upland, Calif., resident whose son plays hockey in Vancouver.
“The whole airport is covered in smoke,” said her husband Tim Stager. “We’ve lived there all our lives and it’s the worst we’ve ever seen.”
Ilana Gory, who was visiting California from Australia, said her family’s vacation started with “beautiful, sunny skies, and now the sky is black.”
“The lobby (of our hotel in Santa Monica) was packed,” she said. “Hundreds of people were trying to escape from the Palisades. Rather, they were devastated, scared and worried.
“Ashes were falling all over the airport. … When we took off from Los Angeles, you could see the fires burning.
Rupp says she is comforted by the strength of her community and that of others supporting each other, with neighbors and strangers extending help to those who have lost everything.
“Friends from school asked me for clothes for my children, the neighborhood organized a camp for the children,” she said. “Even pharmacies offer people to fill their medications, prescriptions, etc.
“It’s so impactful and it really made things a little less horrible in a dark time.”
She also praised the firefighters and rescue workers who put themselves in harm’s way to try to save as many homes as possible, including hers.
“It’s their hardest job,” she said. “I can’t thank them enough.”
—with additional files from Shallima Maharaj of Global
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