Fast-growing wildfires throughout Los Angeles, fanned by severe winds and fed by dry vegetation, started on Tuesday, Jan. 7, and soon sent tens of thousands of residents — including celebrities — scrambling for safety from the encroaching flames and plumes of smoke.
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PeopleTranscript
00:00I lost everything.
00:05Everything's gone.
00:06We just lost our house. Everybody lost their house.
00:09That is a living room.
00:10It just looked like a war zone here.
00:12I just drove by my house just to get some closure, and yeah, it's rubble.
00:17There's nothing there. My daughter said, Dad, get something. Just pick up something.
00:22And there's literally nothing.
00:25I have nothing.
00:28I'm just shattered.
00:30This is our retirement. This is our nest egg.
00:32This is where we moved in when we got married.
00:34This is where our son was born.
00:36This was our house.
00:38It's gone. It's gone. It's a total loss.
00:41Right over here is my kitchen, my living room.
00:45Oh, my God.
00:46Easy, 25. Gone.
00:50Less than three hours.
00:52There's nothing. There's nothing left.
00:54I literally just have the clothes on my back.
00:57There's nothing.
00:59Things that my grandmother gave me, my granddaughter.
01:02She's always making me something, and I put it in a frame, you know?
01:07I don't have those no more.
01:10As you can see, there's nothing left, and I've been here for about an hour and a half,
01:15and I don't want to leave.
01:18The magnitude of this fire is just, like, so overwhelming that it's hard to wrap your head around.
01:25I mean, not only is our home where our home's gone,
01:28but our entire community is gone, and our markets, and our banks, and our gas stations,
01:33and our yogurt shops, our restaurants, our schools.
01:36I mean, everything.
01:38Not just this house. My whole city gone, man. The whole thing.
01:41Like, everything, my whole neighborhood, everything that I grew up to love and know is burnt up.
01:47We lost our sense of security.
01:50We have no idea what's going to happen next.
01:52It's a difficult time, but the sense of community, the sense of rallying together, it really, it's inspiring.
02:01And even during this incredibly difficult time, folks are pulling together for each other.
02:06And I hear conversations where strangers are helping strangers, strangers are comforting strangers.
02:11I've seen remarkable recovery efforts.
02:14I've seen remarkable sense of community, purpose, resilience.
02:19So, you know, I'm not just playing the politician role of optimism.
02:23I really am long-term optimistic.