Clad in a mask, she returned to her home at dawn to retrieve a few cherished possessions that she had been unable to gather in her hurry to flee the night before.
“When I saw the glow of the fire coming over the mountain yesterday about eight o’clock, I took off,” she said.
The flames had “already jumped the coast highway nearby and some palm trees were catching on fire,” she recalled.
During the night that followed, at least two more substantial fires broke out to the north of the Los Angeles urban sprawl, in Altadena and the San Fernando Valley.
Two people are confirmed to have died so far. Tens of thousands have evacuated their homes. And authorities warn that the danger is far from over, with treacherous windy conditions set to remain until later in the week.
“This has been a shock that is still sinking in. But we’re in survival mode, so we’re just grabbing certain necessities and getting out,” said Stevens-Shippen.
‘Never imagined’
Carrying a large blue plastic bag stuffed full of clothes, Martin Sansing also emerges from the canyon. A television producer, he and his wife have just fled their four-bedroom villa.
When Sansing bought the home for $1.6 million 15 years ago, he thought this neighborhood below the mountains that surround Los Angeles would be safe.
