Like the fire roared down a hill toward their home in AltadenaVanessa Prata and her parents rushed to pack their car. They focused on saving irreplaceable items, such as family photos and a baby doll from Vanessa’s childhood.
But they didn’t leave.
Instead, for 27 years, the Pratas have remained in their family home, which is somehow still standing amid widespread destruction of the Los Angeles wildfires, even as houses burned just over a block away. And because residents who have fled are kept away by police or military barricades, Prata and her father have taken it upon themselves to check their neighbors’ homes.
“They’re in these shelters. They are not sure whether their house survived or not,” Prata said. “Once you know what the situation is, you can regroup and see what to do in the future.”
The fires raging around Los Angeles have consumed an area larger than San Francisco. Tens of thousands of people are under evacuation orders. Since the fires first started on Tuesday, more than have burned 12,000 structuresa term that includes homes, apartment buildings, businesses, outbuildings and some vehicles, killing at least 16 people. The White House said Saturday that the Defense Department is making its nearby bases available for emergency shelter, including more than 1,000 available beds.
Prata, a 25-year-old nursing student, had stopped at a hardware store on her way home from dinner on Tuesday evening when she saw the flames approaching the home she shares with her parents, two cats and a dog. She called her father and then rushed home, while many other people headed in the other direction to evacuate.
At the house, the Pratas packed frantically in the dark as the power went out. But Vanessa’s father, Aluizio Prata, who teaches electrical and computer engineering at the University of Southern California, didn’t want to go. He didn’t think the fire would reach them, but if it did, he wanted to stay and help fight the fire.
They spent much of the night in a house down the street. They carried buckets of water, watered the garden with a hose and stamped out the embers before scattering them in the strong gusts of wind.
As the toll of the wildfires became clear, Vanessa Prata saw many people doing what they could to help those who had lost their homes. They donated food, clothing, household items and pet supplies. Los Angeles taco trucks offered free meals.
Prata stayed home, while her family occasionally turned on a borrowed generator to check the news and keep the freezer cold. She wanted to help too. But there was little she could do from behind the barricade. If she left her neighborhood, she wouldn’t be allowed back.
So on Friday morning, Prata posted to an Altadena community group on Facebook, offering the only thing she could think of that would help.
“We’re happy to drive around and take a picture for anyone who wants to see his house, or, God forbid, what’s left of his house,” she wrote.
The requests poured in: by Saturday morning there were already 45. She and her father went out on Friday and checked the addresses written in a small notebook. They slowly make their way past fallen trees, downed wires and the husks of burnt-out cars.
Of the more than twenty houses they visited on Friday and Saturday, less than half were still standing. At the end of a dead end road, which you can only reach after getting out of the car and walking past fallen trees and electricity poles; the ruins of one house still smoldered. One person whose house burned down sent her a photo of what it looked like before the fire.
“Those are devastating when you get to the person’s house and it’s gone and you know you’re the one who’s going to break the news,” she said. “You look at the burned ashes and then they send (a photo of) the house, how beautiful it used to be. And it’s, there’s no, there’s no words. You just say, you know, ‘I’m sorry. I wish I could do more for you. ”
But her training as a nurse made her a good candidate for that job, she said.
“It’s not new to me that people are crying, that people are dying in front of my eyes,” she said. “I have the ability to deal with it.”
And she’s happy to be part of the community effort. So many volunteers showed up to help at nearby donation centers on Saturday that some were turned away.
“Everyone pitches in and does what they can,” Prata said. “It is overwhelmingly beautiful to see.”