Los Angeles may be about 2,500 kilometers from Calgary, but for some Albertans, the wildfires ravaging Southern California are too close to home.
Global News spoke with several Albertans living in the City of Angels.
Although the inferno bears similarities to the fire that ravaged the town of Jasper last summer, expat Albertans we spoke with say they’ve never experienced anything like it.
Water is dropped by helicopter on the Sunset Fire burning in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, Wednesday, January 8, 2025.
AP Photo/Ethan Swope
Jaxon Smith, who lives just off Hollywood Boulevard, received an alert on his phone after a fire broke out in the Hollywood Hills, just 10 minutes from his apartment, creating moments of anxiety for his parents in Calgary.
Calgarian Jaxon Smith lives just off Hollywood Boulevard, just 10 minutes from the inferno ravaging the Hollywood Hills.
Courtesy: Kevin Smith
“He got the alert on the phone, he called a friend, ran into the street – it was chaos, cars and everyone with luggage, it was very intense,” said his father Kevin Smith.
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“Jaxon is fine now. He’s in Laguna. We are still tense because what happened in this region is simply horrible. »
Calgarian Sameena Saddiqui, who is studying a semester at California State University, describes apocalyptic scenes in the Los Angeles area.
Courtesy of Sarin Saddiqui
Sameena Siddiqui, a student at the University of Calgary, arrived in Los Angeles to start a semester at California State University the night before the first fire.
For now, she remains outside the evacuation zone, but describes the city as thick with smoke, empty streets and large objects blown around by the relentless winds that are fueling the fires.
“My apartment stinks of smoke,” Siddiquit said.
“It’s like an apocalypse here: it’s everywhere, you can’t escape it.”
At least six people have been killed and the death toll is expected to rise, 200,000 homes have been evacuated and unlike those still living in Calgary, thousands of Californians have no home to return to.
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