At least 10 people have been killed in the wildfires still surging across the Los Angeles area.
Victor Shaw, 66, was the first of the fatalities to be named, after he died in the Eaton fire raging to the north-east of LA while attempting to extinguish flames at his home of 55 years in Altadena.
His younger sister Shari Shaw reportedly tried to get him to evacuate as the Eaton fire spread through their neighborhood, but she was forced to leave him behind when he refused to come with her. She fled just as the blaze engulfed their home.
“When I went back in and yelled out his name, he didn’t reply back, and I had to get out because the embers were so big and flying like a firestorm – I had to save myself,” she told the local TV station KTLA.
Victor’s badly burned body was discovered by a family friend the next day lying on the road next to his home, still clutching a garden hose in his hand.
“I fell to the ground, and I didn’t know – I didn’t want to look at him. They just told me that he was lying on the ground and that he looked serene, as if he was at peace,” she told KTLA.
Altadena is a diverse residential community near Pasadena that is home to working- and middle-class families, including many Black residents who have lived there for generations.
The death toll rose to 10 late on Thursday after the first fire in a series across LA county erupted on Tuesday in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles county medical examiner’s department reported 10 fire-related deaths that the agency was dealing with by late Thursday, adding that the cases were pending identification of the victims and notification of next of kin.
The agency said that identifying the victims may take weeks because the huge Eaton and Palisades blazes are still raging and there are extreme safety concerns. The department added that traditional means of identification such as fingerprinting or visual identification may not be available.
The local publication LAist reported it was believed that five of the deaths were due to the Eaton fire and two deaths were confirmed by the Palisades fire. It is unclear where the other deaths occurred.
Anthony Mitchell, 67, who was an amputee, and his son Justin, who had cerebral palsy, were identified as two of the wildfire victims, also in Altadena, named by Mitchell’s daughter, Hajime White, as they were waiting for an ambulance to rescue them.
“They didn’t make it out,” said White, the Associated Press reported.
“He was not going to leave his son behind. No matter what,” added White, who lives in Arkansas.
She said authorities told the family Mitchell was found by the side of his son’s bed. The Washington Post reported the family believes Mitchell was trying to save his son, who was in his early 20s.
Rodney Nickerson, 82, also of Altadena, died in his home, according to his daughter, Kimiko Nickerson, who said he thought he would be OK waiting the fire out in his house.
Erliene Kelley, a retired pharmacy technician in Altadena who lived very close to the victims Shaw and Nickerson, also died at home in the Eaton fire, the New York Times reported, citing relatives.
Rita and Terry Pyburn, who lived on the same block as Kelley, described her to the newspaper as an angel, saying the longtime resident in the close community was “so, so, so sweet”.
Pyburn said he often had brief chats with Kelley about gardening and local news, and often left small Christmas gifts for her and other neighbors in the tight-knit community.
They described a frenzy as residents thought they had dodged the fire until it suddenly descended on the neighborhood and people fled under possibly belated emergency alerts and evacuation orders, without a chance to check on others.
The Palisades fire has been described as the worst in the city’s history, beginning a catastrophe that is one of the most destructive ever witnessed in southern California as several other huge and fierce wildfires ignited across LA county, the most populous in the US, fanned by hurricane-strength dry winds.
With evacuation orders in place for about 180,000 people across the region, about 10,000 homes and buildings gutted by fire so far and emergency services stretched to the limit, the names of those who have died will be slow to emerge.
The largest fires are burning about 25 miles west and north of downtown Los Angeles, plunging the second-largest city in the US into shock and fear.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
