‘We sat there watching our houses burn.’
Ethan White finally fled his Malibu home, which he’d stayed to try to save, hours after his wife Nikki had evacuated the Woolsey Fire with their two young children Friday, reported Malibu Surfside News.
He joined a group of neighbors as the flames swept into their neighborhood, White told the publication.
“We were talking about all the good times we had there, our kids learning to ride bikes, all the memories,” he said, reported the News. “We sat there watching our houses burn, almost like sitting around a campfire. It was surreal. Totally unworldly.”
‘The whole world was on fire.’
Brian Robertson of Magalia, north of Paradise, was asleep in his trailer when his pit bull, BB, alerted him to the oncoming Camp Fire, reported The New York Times.
“She woke me up and the whole world was on fire around us,” Robertson said, according to the publication. He escaped but believes his trailer was destroyed.
‘It’s a miracle.’
Amber Paton and her family escaped a tower of flames on foot in Paradise, all but destroyed by the Camp Fire, reported KTXL.
“Family upon family just running down the street. Running,” Paton said, according to the station. “Flames on both sides. It was crazy.”
Afterward, Paton discovered an urn containing her grandmother’s ashes intact on the mantle of a fireplace in her mother’s burned-out home a few blocks away, reported KTXL.
“It’s a miracle,” she said, according to the station. “It’s a sign. It’s a sign that it’s going to be OK.”