With their Los Angeles-area homes still smoldering, families return to search the ruins for memories

LOS ANGELES — Many watched their houses burn on television in shock.

Since then, flames broke out in and around Los Angelesdozens of residents have returned to their still smoldering homes neighborhoods even as the threat of new fires continued and the country’s second-largest city remained unsettled. For some, it was a first look at the staggering reality of what was lost as the region of 13 million struggles with the monumental challenge of recovering from the disaster and rebuilding.

Calmer winds allowed firefighters to gain some control of the largest fires in metropolitan LA on Friday, before stormy weather returned over the weekend to an area that has not seen rain in the past. more than eight months. But new evacuations took place Friday evening in an area that includes the Getty museum as the east side of the Palisades Fire flared near Interstate 405.

Bridget Berg, who was at work when she saw her Altadena home burst into flames on TV, returned two days later for the first time with her family “just to make it happen.”

Their feet crunched over the broken pieces of what had been their home for sixteen years.

Her children sifted through the rubble on the sidewalk and found a clay pot and a few souvenirs as they searched for Japanese wood prints they hoped to recover. Her husband pulled his hand from the rubble near the still-standing fireplace and held up a piece of petrified wood handed down from his grandmother.

‘It’s okay. It’s okay,” Berg said as much to herself as to others as she took stock of the devastation, remembering the deck and pool from where her family watched the fireworks. “It’s not like we just lost our house; everyone lost their house.”

Since the fires first started popping up around a densely populated area 25 miles north of downtown LA, they have burned more than 25 miles. 12,000 structuresa term that includes homes, apartment buildings, businesses, outbuildings and vehicles. No cause has been identified for the largest fires to date.

Accusations of failed leadership and political culpability have begun, as have investigations. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday ordered state officials to determine why a 100-million-gallon reservoir was out of service and some fire hydrants went dry, calling it “very troubling.” Meanwhile, Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said the city government has failed her department by not providing enough money for firefighting. She also criticized the lack of water.

“When a firefighter comes to a hydrant, we expect there will be water,” she said.

At least 11 people have died, five from the Palisades Fire and six from the Eaton Fire, according to the LA County medical examiner’s office. Officials said they expected that number to rise as cadaver dogs go through leveled neighborhoods to assess the destruction in an area larger than San Francisco.

Officials set up a center on Friday for people to report missing persons. Tens of thousands of people remained under evacuation orders, and the fires have consumed about 90 square miles.

The disaster cost everyone homes – from waiters to movie stars. The government has not yet released figures on the cost of the damage, but private companies estimate it will be in the tens of billions. Walt Disney Co. announced Friday that it will donate $15 million to respond to the fires and help rebuild.

The flames hit schools, churches, a synagoguelibraries, boutiques, bars, restaurants, banks and local attractions such as Will Rogers’ Western Ranch House and a Queen Anne-style mansion in Altadena that dated to 1887 and was commissioned for wealthy mapmaker Andrew McNally.

Neighbors wandered around ruins Friday describing missing bedrooms, newly renovated kitchens and outdoor spaces. Some spoke of the beautiful views that drew them to their properties, their words contrasting sharply with the scene of soot and ash.

In the coastal community of Pacific Palisades, Greg Benton explored where he lived for 31 years, hoping to find his great-grandmother’s wedding ring in the wreckage.

“We just had Christmas morning here, right in front of that chimney. And this is what’s left,” he said, pointing to the blackened rubble that was once his living room. “It’s those little family heirlooms that hurt the most.”

Elsewhere in the city, people sifted through cardboard boxes of donated items at collection points to restart their lives.

Firefighters made their first progress Friday afternoon on the Eaton Fire north of Pasadena, which has burned more than 7,000 structures. Officials said Friday that most evacuation orders for the area had been lifted.

LA Mayor Karen Bass, who faces a critical test of her leadership While her city faces its biggest crisis in decades, several smaller fires have also stopped.

Crews earlier Friday gained ground on the Palisades Fire, which burned 5,300 buildings and is the most destructive in LA history.

California National Guard troops arrived on the streets of Altadena before dawn to help protect property in the fire evacuation zone, and curfews were in effect to prevent looting after several previous arrests.

The The level of destruction is shocking even in a state that regularly experiences massive forest fires.

Anna Yeager said she and her husband were worried about returning to their beloved Altadena neighborhood near Pasadena after fleeing with their 6-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son, their two dogs and some clothes. A neighbor told them their house was gone.

Now she regrets not taking her children’s artwork, her husband’s treasured cookbooks, family photos and jewelry from her mother, who died in 2012, and her husband’s grandmother, who survived Auschwitz.

When the couple returned, they saw blocks of just “chimney after chimney.”

‘Electric cables everywhere. Fires are still going everywhere,” she said, adding that when they walked to their house “it was just dust.”

Charred grapefruits littered their yard around a blackened tree, a few still hanging from the branches.

Yeager’s neighborhood of Tudor homes planned to celebrate its 100th anniversary in May.

“You build a world for yourself and your family, and you feel safe in that world and these things happen that you have no control over,” she said. “It’s devastating.”

There were remnants of the porch where Yeager had photographed her children almost daily since 2020 and planned to continue doing so until they reached high school. That gave her hope.

“The porch is still there and to me it’s a sign to rebuild and not leave,” she said. “You know, it’s like saying, ‘Hey, I’m still here. You can still do this. ”

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Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio, Watson from San Diego and Hollingsworth from Mission, Kansas. Associated Press journalists Eugene Garcia in Los Angeles and Olga Rodriguez in San Francisco contributed.