Los Angeles, surrounded by fire: “It’s what I imagined hell would be like”

The flames devastated thousands of hectares in various parts of the city and with great violence, with the fire departments overwhelmed by the multiple threat of the fire.

“The Los Angeles County Fire Department was prepared to face one or two large wildfires, but not four,” acknowledged Anthony Marrone, the chief of the fire department. At the time of going to press, the most devastating fire was in Eaton, near Pasadena, where the fire had burned more than 4,000 hectares and where two fatalities had been recorded, the only deaths recorded so far. According to the latest information from the authorities, “tens of thousands of houses” have been affected by the fire, against which 750 firefighters were fighting in endless shifts since the previous day.

One of those who trust in her work is Martina Valenzuela, a resident of Altadena, very close to that fire, Javier Palomo reports. Valenzuela explained to this newspaper that the situation in Los Angeles was “anarchic” due to the accumulation of fire threats: “I was returning from work and people were running traffic lights, there were trees falling on cars… It was apocalyptic, like something out of a movie, it seemed “that there was no one in charge.”

“We woke up and there was a new focus here nearby, we are praying that the wind does not bring the fire to our area,” he added. The key is in the strength of the wind. On Tuesday night it reached up to 160 kilometers per hour in some parts of the city and the authorities were confident that it would decrease by yesterday afternoon.

Before the fire in Eaton, the hills near Pacific Palisades had begun to burn, a town embedded in the iconic highway that runs from Santa Monica to Malibu, one of the jewels of the Californian coast. Hundreds of buildings burned there, in one of the privileged areas of Los Angeles, chosen by many celebrities. Among the almost 40,000 people who had to evacuate the area was actor James Woods. “The chaos was total,” the actor told CNN. “It was like hell, all the houses around us were on fire,” he added. Like so many others, he doesn’t know if his house will be standing after the fire. “One day you’re swimming in the pool and the next day there’s nothing left.”

Respiratory problems

Others knew that they will not find their homes when everything is over. This is the case of Israel, a boy who met a documentary filmmaker friend, Tanner Charles, while evacuating his home in Pacific Palisades with his family. She returned home with Charles and, after taking pictures of the disaster, tried to save her house with hoses. It was impossible. “It’s what I imagine hell must be like,” he told the Los Angeles Times.

A third fire, the Hurst fire, devastated Los Angeles on the other side and two other smaller ones had also been recorded. The fires caused road closures, an unbreathable atmosphere in much of the city and power outages for 400,000 homes in California. The forecasts indicate that these accumulated fires, due to their impact on urban areas, will be the ones with the highest economic cost in the history of the state.

Firefighters without water

In addition to the wind, the main problem was the scarcity of resources to combat the force of the fire. The firefighting teams could not cope yesterday, with the added difficulty of the water shortage. In the Pacific Palisades fire, for example, hydrants dried up. And the seaplanes could not participate in the extinguishing efforts due to the strong winds.

That lack of water sparked a political brawl between Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, and Donald Trump. The US president-elect blamed Newsom for the fires for “refusing to sign a water restoration declaration,” he said, referring to a hydrographic plan that limits water transfer for environmental reasons.