The testimonies of the desperate escape from the fires in Los Angeles

Flames and columns of smoke rose on both sides of the road as a woman screamed in panic and firefighters led a crowd of fleeing residents. Aaron Samson put his 83-year-old father-in-law behind his blue walker, and they started down the sidewalk.

“My father-in-law would say, ‘Aaron, if we’re ever in a situation where the flames are right there, you run and leave me here,'” Samson said Wednesday.

It didn’t get to that point. For the second time in a matter of hours, a good Samaritan picked them up and took them to safety in Santa Monica.

Their escape occurred as thousands of people fled wildfires in the Los Angeles area that turned picturesque neighborhoods into smoky wastelands, with chimneys or wrought-iron staircases the only vestige of the houses. Driven by powerful Santa Ana winds, the flames destroyed more than 1,000 structures, burned Hollywood landmarks and killed at least five people. One of the fires was the most destructive in the modern history of the city of Los Angeles.

The escapes were perhaps the most harrowing from a catastrophe ever seen in Los Angeles. People abandoned their cars and fled on foot as tree branches collapsed and thunderous winds sent flames everywhere.

Others asked friends or strangers for rides. With so many cars abandoned in the middle of Sunset Boulevard in Pacific Palisades, authorities had to use an excavator to move the vehicles aside and clear the way for emergency services.

More evacuations

Hard-hit Altadena was the scene of one of the most harrowing scenes: As the flames approached, about 100 elderly residents of nursing homes were rushed out in hospital beds and wheelchairs.

Many were wearing flimsy bedding in the frigid night air as they were wheeled to a parking lot a block away.

As wind-stirred embers swirled around them in the smoky air, they waited for help to arrive. Finally, everyone was taken to a shelter.

More evacuations were ordered Wednesday after a new fire broke out in the Hollywood Hills.

Losing your childhood home

Hundreds of evacuees gathered at the Pasadena Convention Center, many of them elderly people living in assisted living facilities. They sat in wheelchairs or on green cots, and some relatives gathered with tears in their eyes as ash rained down.

EJ Soto described how he left his childhood home in Altadena, where he lived for 30 years, with his mother, his two nieces, his sister and her husband, at 3:25 in the morning, after spending the night awake watching them approach the flames

“We had already decided: we are not going to sleep,” Soto explained.

She instructed her family to pack their bags with two days’ worth of clothing and put them in the car, along with food and supplies for their cat, Callie. They drove to the Rose Bowl stadium and waited two hours, then returned to check their neighborhood.

They watched as three houses on their block burned. And finally, they saw theirs: engulfed in flames two stories high.

Saved by strangers, twice

Samson, 48, was in Pacific Palisades at his father-in-law’s house taking care of him when it was time to flee Tuesday. However, they didn’t have a car and couldn’t get a ride through Uber or by calling 911. Samson stopped a neighbor, who agreed to give them a ride and their two bags.

After a little more than half an hour in traffic, the flames got closer. The tops of the palm trees burned like giant flares in the incessant wind.

With the vehicles stopped, police ordered people to get out and flee on foot. Samson and his father-in-law left their bags and headed to the sidewalk. The father-in-law, who was recovering from a medical procedure, leaned against a utility pole while Samson retrieved his walker and recorded the situation on his cell phone.

“That’s it, Dad, that’s it,” Samson said.

They walked for about 15 minutes before another good Samaritan saw them in distress, stopped and told them to get into his vehicle.

By Wednesday afternoon, Samson did not know if the house had survived. But he said they were indebted to the two strangers.

“They saved us,” he said. “They really helped us.”

About to take refuge in a pool

Another Pacific Palisades resident, Sheriece Wallace, didn’t find out about the fire until her sister called, just as a helicopter dropped a stream of water on her home.

“I told him, ‘It’s raining,'” Wallace said. “She told me, ‘No, it’s not raining. Your neighborhood is on fire. You have to get out.'”

He opened his door and saw the hillside behind his house in flames. The street below was clogged with abandoned cars and rocks that had rolled down the canyon.

He thought he might have to jump into a pool to save himself, but instead he walked to a street corner and was lucky enough to find a neighbor who offered him a ride.

“I had no other way out,” Wallace explained. “And if it hadn’t been for the grace of God, my neighbor’s son coming to look for his mother and me going to the corner just to try to flag someone down.”

Losing family memories and a community

Altadena resident Eddie Aparicio was stunned as he and his partner evacuated the building Tuesday night, wading through congested traffic as near-hurricane winds howled around them.

“Branches were falling everywhere. Huge trees were on top of the cars,” Aparicio said. “Seeing the embers and flames jump off the mountain, fly over 30 blocks and land on a house, it’s crazy.”

Finally they arrived at their partner’s mother’s house. The next morning, a neighbor sent a video showing that his house, like many others on his block, had burned. Only the chimney remained standing.

Although they lost some family memories, such as paintings by Aparicio’s grandmother and father, the saddest part was the loss of a beloved community.

“It makes me feel very existential,” Aparicio said. “You never know what’s going to happen.”

Among the symbolic places devoured by the fire are the historic ranch that belonged to Hollywood legend Will Rogers and the Topanga Ranch Motel, built by publicist William Randolph Hearst in 1929.

The Reel Inn, an iconic Malibu seafood restaurant located off the Pacific Coast Highway on Topanga Beach, a famous surf spot, also burned. The Reel Inn, with nearly a century-old surfboards hanging from it, opened in 1986.

The owner, Teddy Leonard, said she and her husband, Andy, watched it burn on television Tuesday night from their home a few kilometers (miles) away. They then drove their Kawasaki Mule, a four-wheeled utility vehicle that looks like a converted golf cart, to the top of a ridge overlooking the ocean. The sky was bright red, and the winds were so strong that she felt like she was about to be blown out of the vehicle.

“You could see sparks from fires,” Leonard said. “At one point, the entire ridge was burning.”

Far to the left, he saw another fire, and then, to the right, a flare. “You realize that the wind is picking up the embers and dropping them in different places, that there’s no way those firefighters could fight the fire,” Leonard said.

The couple evacuated to an Airbnb their son rented after their Malibu apartment burned down. Leonard still didn’t know if his house had survived, but they were grateful to be alive and to have each other and their family.

“You’re in this mess, and it’s nature,” he said. “There is no control over what is happening.”

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