Families scramble for safety as houses in California burn

Later, finding safety in the homes of friends or mere acquaintances a couple of miles away, many — including myself — helplessly watched as their own houses either went up in flames that leapt into the blood-coloured sky or came close to being destroyed.

This reporter went out and stood on a hill and watched her own neighbourhood burn. I could make out our street but I don’t know what happened to my house, but some of my neighbour’s houses are gone.

San Diego County, hit by four major fires, was the hardest hit area of the inferno which killed at least 14 people and destroyed 900 homes over the weekend.

On Sunday, we realised the fire was close. We saw our neighbours hurriedly packing cars with papers, pets, jewellery, a fish, a hamster. I took my tap shoes, my grandmother’s jewellery, some clothes and my laptop.

There was a caravan of people pouring out of the neighbourhood, but it was like a parking lot and we were afraid we were not going to make it because flames were licking the highway. Some did not make it. Most of those who died were in cars whose escape route was overtaken by flames. My family ended up in the home of a neighbour’s aunt along with other people. Thousands of others spent the night at the city’s Balboa Park or in Qualcomm Stadium.

Most slept huddled around car radios for news and unsure if their homes were destroyed or miraculously unscathed by fires fanned by winds . Police said families would not be allowed into their neighbourhoods until Monday noon at the earliest.

On Monday, the Qualcomm Stadium and parking lot was brimming with blankets as fast food outlets distributed free meals while rescue workers handed out eye-drops and masks. A makeshift information centre struggled to coordinate the hunt for lost kin, direct the homeless to free hotels or into the homes of kind strangers.

Kindness was also on offer from church counsellors, and a group of highschoolboys parading with signs offering ‘‘Hugs’’.(Reuters)