California Los Angeles wildfire: Survivors tell of seeing their homes burn down
- Zhara Simpson
- BBC reporter
A man from Devon, UK, who now lives and works in Los Angeles, told the BBC that everything he owns now "fits into just two cars" after his home was destroyed in the devastating wildfires in California.
Harry Butler was born and raised in the town of Manaton on the east side of Dartmoor in England and has lived in California for about 20 years. Mr Butler told the BBC he proposed to his girlfriend Vanessa in Devon over Christmas last year and only returned to their rental home in Altadena on January 4 this year, days before the Los Angeles wildfires began to burn towards the city on January 7.
Butler, who works for Disney, said: “It was such a rollercoaster ride – starting out in Devon with high spirits, having just got engaged, and then coming back just two days later to find the world starting to crumble around us.”
Butler said that the day the wildfire started was his fiancée's birthday, and they had planned to go out to celebrate: "We decided not to go out for dinner because of the wind, which was probably the best decision we made, because not long after, the wildfire started burning four miles east of us."
"We anxiously looked at the map of evacuation zones. Our area was not included in the evacuation, but we thought it would be wise to pack up some things, put the pets in the car, and go to my fiancée's parents' house, which was about a two-hour drive away," he said.
"It turned out to be the best decision we ever made!" he told the BBC.
He added that he was "absolutely shocked" that all their belongings now fit into just two cars.
On the morning of January 8, Butler said his neighbors sent them a video showing palm trees burning outside their home. But they couldn't see the house because of the smoke. "They left quickly. But we learned around 8 a.m. local time that our house was engulfed in fire during that time," he said.
"The whole block was destroyed. We heard that a neighbor had unfortunately lost a family member in the house behind them. They (the city unit) told us that our house was gone and sent us a screenshot from the surveillance camera across the street showing our house engulfed in flames."
Butler told the BBC the disaster, and the loss of life, put him in a different perspective: "It may sound cliché, but losing a house didn't seem so bad in the end; we took a few things, there were small items that had sentimental value to us, my fiancée took her father's entire vinyl record collection."
“I have some odds and ends too – these will represent everything we’ve lost,” he said.
The couple were able to be escorted back into the wreckage of their home and capture the devastation, and they are currently staying in an Airbnb owned by a friend.
The couple has only lived in the century-old rental house for four months, but they said they have many good memories there: "We are very lucky in this regard, and I don't think the severity of this situation has defeated us," Butler told reporters.
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