BBCProfessional chef Daron Anderson always tells people that he was “born in the kitchen” – literally.
The suspect, 45, was delivered at home at 295 West Las Flores Drive, where he lived with his mother until this week.
On Thursday, he walked over the burned debris where his kitchen once stood in Altadena, a suburb northeast of Los Angeles.
He was looking for his iron pans in the hope they might have survived the blaze, one of the historic blazes in the area that have killed at least 16 people and destroyed many communities and left thousands homeless.
Across the street – at number 296 – her friend Rachel’s house also sits in ashes. The house next door – 281 – where he used to enjoy family parties, is gone.
About three blocks away, on Deviran Place, where his girlfriend lived, other neighbors tried to contain the flames that were about to burn their homes with garden hoses.
Now they too are searching for valuables in the rubble, after a fire destroyed an entire community that had built in the shadow of the San Gabriel Mountains.
It all started on Tuesday night.
Santa Ana winds have been brutal all day.
Daron was in his yard just after 18:00 local time trying to get things to stop flying.
Across the street at 296 West Las Flores Drive, Rachel Gillespie was taking down Christmas decorations, worrying about her plastic snow and patio furniture.
They looked at each other worriedly. “This doesn’t look good, does it?” he commented.
At that time, it was only the wind that worried them.
Little did they know that one of the worst wildfires in LA history had just burned a few miles away, part of the nightmare of days that would unfold when it reached the surface. six flames simultaneously threatening America’s second largest city
The Eaton fire that tore through Altadena has now burned more than 14,000 acres, destroyed thousands of homes and businesses, and left 11 dead. Over the weekend, Eaton remained only 15% contained.
West of LA, the Palisades fire, which had started that morning, would continue to burn more than 23,000 hectares, reducing. most of the living community ashes, and killing at least five people.
Daron’s next door neighbor in house 281, Dillon Akers, was at work at the Topanga mall – 40 miles away – when smoke began to fill their area.
The 20-year-old rushed back when he heard the news, only to find the northwest Altadena area completely dark and his family members leaving their homes.
His uncle jumped over their white picket fence to save precious seconds as he loaded things into the back of his car.
For the next two hours, Dillon did the same, gathering food, medicine, clothing and toiletries. In the confusion, he misplaced his keys, spent 30 minutes searching the smoky darkness with flashlights until he found them blown off the fence.
While he was searching, he kept telling himself that the local authorities would be able to withstand the fire that was raging on the mountain towards the house where he lives with his mother, grandmother, aunt and two younger cousins.
Dillon had experienced storms before, and seen smoke in the mountains, but this time he felt different. This time the orange light in the sky was overhead.
“I was a full 10 on the fear level,” he said.
At 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, Dillon said he and his mother were the last people out of West Las Flores Drive. They might have been the last ones to get out alive.
The next day authorities would announce that the remains of a neighbor had been found down the street.
Rachel and Daron had left the area about two hours before Dillon. Rachel was forced out by her friend who drove by saying: “You have to go now.”
Rachel – with her wife, young child, five cats, and two days’ worth of clothes – said goodbye to the house they had bought just one year earlier.
Daron also took what he could: a guitar he bought at the age of 14 with money he earned working as an extra in a martial arts film and a painting of his family crossing Abbey Road in London, made to look like the cover of a famous Beatles album. .
As those on Las Flores Drive were evacuating, Daron’s neighbors a block away tried to fight the flames.
At 417 Deviran Place, Hipolito Cisneros and his close friend and neighbor Larry Villescas, who lived across the street at home number 416, held the garden hoses.
The place outside looked like hell.
The garage of another house was on fire. One car in front of another.
They laid pipes in many houses and flooded buildings – including the house of Daron’s girlfriend, Sachi.
“The water was just pushing it away. It wasn’t even getting in,” Hipolito said, talking about the bone-dry land and washing away homes.
Over time, they developed, displacing coal and wildfires. Larry thought they might succeed.
Then their pipes are dry – all because water pressure problems they would later learn that it hampered firefighting efforts across Los Angeles County in the midst of a high demand.
An explosion was heard nearby, another house burst into flames. At 01:00 both their families gathered their belongings to leave.
“We tried. We really tried,” Hipolito said.
At 02:30 on Wednesday morning, police cars came down their street with a loudspeaker, telling everyone to leave quickly.
As he turned the corner of his driveway, Larry looked in his truck’s rearview mirror as his garage caught fire.
At 03:00, the street was empty.
Most of Los Angeles County is made up of neighborhoods and small communities like Altadena.
On any given morning, people would line their homes to get a cup of coffee at the Little Red Hen Coffee Shop, stopping to catch up on their way to work in the morning.
Many described decades of close-knit community here, where they watched neighbors start families and children who once played in the streets grow up.
But driving through the area for the first time since his land was uprooted, Daron didn’t see his neighborhood at all.
The big blue house that marks one normal turn is gone. All the landmarks that once guided him have disappeared. He points to each neighbor’s property, gasping to see that no one is standing.
He takes pictures of his home with Rachel and the street he shares with Dillon. Outside his girlfriend’s house – which Larry and Hipolito tried to save – he takes videos and chats with their families before calling Sachi to explain the situation at his house.
“God, it’s all gone,” he said, his voice cracking.
But a few things remain among the ruins.
At her sister’s home back on West Las Flores Drive, she found colorful plastic lawn ornaments stuck on her lawn, somehow untouched by the fire.
She plucks each post from the ground, knowing that even though these garlands may sound insignificant in the midst of this devastation, they may make her smile.
Across the street from what used to be his house, the red brick chimney still stands. It is surrounded by lots of pottery.
With his black hands on the enemy, he gathers what he can, but many pieces scatter at his touch.
A charred lemon tree sits on the lawn, another fruit still warm to the touch.
“If I can find seeds, we can replant them,” he said, holding his hand.
“It’s like a way to start over.”
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