Written by Chad Terhune and Fred Graves
ALTADENA, Calif. (Reuters) – Flames were licking his fence and he was choking on smoke, bullets whizzing near his leg. Despite all that, Tristen Perez never left his home in Altadena during the fatal crash Eaton (NYSE:) Fire.
The 34-year-old carpenter felt he had no choice but to stay despite the life-threatening conditions. A police officer asked him and his neighbors to evacuate early Wednesday morning, as flames raged in the hills above them.
Instead, Perez insisted on trying to save his property and the homes of his neighbors along El Molino Avenue. But he didn't even have a garden hose. He ripped the filters off two water jugs and doused the ground, his picket fence, and every ember he could reach.
“The fire was burning in your front yard and the palm trees were lit up. It looked like something out of a movie,” Perez told Reuters in an interview at his home. “I did everything I could to stop the line and save my house, and help save their homes.”
His one-story yellow duplex survived. So did two other nearby homes. On the other side of the street, entire homes burned to the ground. There was a single brick chimney standing alone in the ruins.
“When you look across the street… if I hadn't been here, this would have happened,” he said. “I felt bad for them. It's so terrible.”
Perez mourned the losses here. He moved to Altadena three years ago and rented his two-bedroom unit. He fell in love with the quiet, close-knit community of about 40,000 people north of Los Angeles, where the neighbors are friendly and care about each other.
As of late Saturday, officials said the Eaton Fire was 15% contained, and the fire threat remained high throughout the Los Angeles area. In all, six simultaneous fires that have torn through Los Angeles County neighborhoods since Tuesday have killed at least 16 people and destroyed or damaged 12,000 structures.
Eleven of them were killed in the Eaton fire here. The death toll is expected to rise when firefighters are able to conduct house-to-house searches.
In Altadena, fire crews were going house to house with shovels, searching for hot spots that were still burning. Sheriff's deputies patrolled the streets and prevented residents from returning to their homes at checkpoints.
Fast-moving fire
Perez gave a harrowing description of how the Eaton Fire quickly intensified early Wednesday. The first sign that something was wrong came Tuesday evening. His neighbors outside stared in a faint, distant glow.
“To be honest, I didn't see him as much of a threat just because he was so far away,” he said.
Then the wind started howling and blowing towards them. The flames were moving toward them with alarming speed. “It looked like he was running fast on a football field. He was flying,” Perez said.
Then he and his neighbors escaped the flames. Perez said that was the most nerve-wracking part of the night.
That soon changed. Looking down his street 200 yards away, entire homes and businesses were engulfed in flames. Perez asked his neighbors to leave. “I was ready to keep going until the end. I saw the firefighters, and everyone was already shorthanded, so I wanted to do my part,” he said.
Fire and law enforcement officials discourage people from staying home during wildfires because doing so may put residents and first responders at risk.
But Perez felt he had a chance to resist the fire because there was an empty space, mostly dirt, between him and the advancing fire. The downside is that his north side neighbors also stored ammunition boxes on their property.
Soon explosions began to erupt. Breathing became unbearable. Perez felt something pass through his leg while standing in his yard. The fire ignited bullets stored in the neighboring house, posing a new danger.
“Bullets are flying, gas tanks are exploding, embers are raining down, and you can't see anything,” Perez said.
He kept washing his belongings for hours into the night. His house is still standing. Many others were not so lucky as thousands of buildings were destroyed around it.
“How to rebuild”
Around the corner, Pablo Scarpellini stared at the smoldering ruins of his wife's Spanish school, Raihuela. The entire building had collapsed, and a small, almost melted slide of the playground remained behind.
“It's devastating,” Scarpellini told Reuters. “But I've cried a lot these past few days, and now my vision is full of hope and I'm trying to envision how to rebuild it.”
He said his wife, Liliana Martinez, the preschool's founder and principal, was scrambling to find a replacement for her 15 students. “We are doing our best to transport the children,” he said.
Perez, wearing a black T-shirt and shorts, swept tree limbs out of his driveway Saturday as flames engulfed the front corner of his yard. Its white picket fence has melted in several places. Two palm trees in his front yard bore black scars at the top.
Perez has no electricity or running water. Firefighters stationed at a nearby hardware store allowed him to use their equipment to charge his phone so he could tell a few family members and friends that he survived. A fallen power line was suspended across his street while utility workers surveyed the widespread damage.
While firefighters made progress containing the Eaton Fire over the weekend, Perez said he is preparing for the threat to return if the winds change.
“Lord, God forbid anything happens, I'll be ready,” he said. Perez also plans to volunteer for a community cleanup in the coming months to help local restaurants and businesses reopen.
“This is not the end of Altadena. This is just a turning point for the next chapter.”
