A search and rescue volunteer who lost everything in the Los Angeles wildfires has explained why firefighters can’t simply stop the flames in their tracks.
It goes without saying that ‘extinguishing a wildfire‘ is easier said than done. But with the Palisades and Eaton fires having ravaged a combined 37,734 acres, according to Cal Fire, it can be hard to comprehend just how the fires can cause so much destruction.
Someone who knows all too well about the impact of the fires is Collin Davis, a camera operator and volunteer with the Sierra Madre Search and Rescue Team.
His team has been providing help and support following the outbreak of multiple wildfires in Los Angeles, offering wellness checks and aiding in evacuation efforts, and it was during one volunteering stint that Collin’s world was turned upside down.
‘I should have been more scared’
In an interview with UNILAD, Collin recalled how he volunteered to do a late shift with the team because he didn’t have to work the next day, but he initially wasn’t too concerned about the fires in relation to his own home.
He explained: “The history of this area – there’s fires up in the mountains every couple years, and we can see them from the house. Sometimes we evacuate, not because of an order, but just for health reasons. My kids went went away during one fire, and I was telling my wife at the time ‘don’t worry about our place, because there’s thousands of houses between the wilderness and our house, there’s zero risk’.
“So that was kind of my same thinking [this time]. These fires happen and they generally take care of them.”
Firefighters have been working day and night to tackle the flames, but Collin pointed out it’s not as simple as extinguishing them before they manage to make their way any closer.
Instead, while responders are working on one section of fires, embers can get blown to a completely different area and start another blaze in a matter of minutes.
Collin explained: “It wasn’t like they [could] say, ‘here’s the wilderness, here’s the first row of houses, we’re going to put these fires out and save the town’.
“No, they would be working on that, and the embers would blow five blocks down and start those houses on fire, and then blow five blocks down, set those houses [on fire]. I don’t think there’s any municipal water system that can put out 5,000 homes on fire at the same time.”
‘It’s destruction and chaos’
But even knowing how quickly fires can spread, Collin still wasn’t too worried about his home after a night spent volunteering. Still, he felt it best to drive over to his neighborhood just to check it out – and that’s when he realized that ‘most of Altadena’, where he lived, had burned.
“I should have been more scared. I should have been more scared at the beginning,” he said.
As seen in footage caught by Collin, the rescue worker returned to complete destruction and devastation.
“All of a sudden I see the first house on fire… I had to take the sound off my video, because it’s ‘F’-bombs forever. You see like, house on fire, you look at the other side, house on fire, house on fire, house on fire, car on fire, car on fire.”
“It’s destruction and chaos,” Collin continued. “So I turn left onto my street, and immediately I can see all these homes – some of them are really large, beautiful homes, some of them are modest homes – but they’re all in flames and there’s power lines hanging down everywhere.
“I pull into my driveway and there were five different homes on that property, and they’re all just flattened. I mean, still burning, I think the gas was still coming through and burning and smoldering, and I’m still recording.
“I pulled into my driveway, it’s clear. There’s nothing. There’s nothing to the right and there’s nothing to the left. I’ve never lost a person that’s very close to me, so I don’t know exactly what that feels like, but… I would just say, like, I wasn’t in control.”
Collin remembers screaming and crying, and in that moment he saw a neighbor he’d never met before – one who had been previously separated from him by a large hedge. The neighbor gave Collin a hug, and it’s this kind of human reaction that’s stuck with Collin in the aftermath of the fires.
“It’s not just my house burned down, it’s like 7,000 other homes next to me. And so we’re all in it together,” he said.
“It’s hard to take help, especially if you’re a helper. But the people, I discovered, really want to do something.”
After losing his home, Collin is staying with a friend, but he hopes to remain in Los Angeles in the future. He’s got a GoFundMe page to help replace everything he lost in the fires, which you can donate to here.
