‘We barely made it out’: Californians desperately flee their homes amid raging wildfires

By: CNN

Posted: Nov 8, 2024 2:13 PM CST
Updated: Nov 11, 2024 2:30 AM CST

Etienne Laurent/AFP/Getty Images via CNN Newsource

By Karina Tsui, Camila Bernal and Norma Galeana

(CNN) — Terrie Morin, 60, and her husband, Dave, were at a barber shop when they heard about a raging wildfire making headway toward their Camarillo home on Wednesday morning.

The couple were hosting two guests at the time, but because their guests worked late, Morin suspected they slept through the residence’s fire alarms.

“I run in the house, and I’m banging on the door, and they did not hear me. They were knocked out,” Morin told CNN. “Get the dog. Get out of here. You don’t have time, just get out!” she recalled telling them.

Ten minutes later, Dave noticed sparks in their backyard. The temperature also was picking up.

“It was hot. It was so hot,” Morin recalled.

Dozens of homes in Southern California’s Ventura County were set alight in a sweeping wildfire that burned through thousands of acres of land in just a matter of hours midweek, prompting authorities to send more than 14,000 evacuation notices across the region.

The Mountain Fire began early Wednesday near the small community of Somis and, driven by winds gusting over 60 mph, soon damaged or destroyed homes in the nearby Camarillo area some 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles, Cal Fire said. The flames have seared through more than 20,630 acres of land, according to Cal Fire.

The families who evacuated at a moment’s notice, some who say they have now lost their homes, must deal with other losses that can also be devastating, from daily essentials like medications and shoes to meaningful possessions such as sculptures and artwork, to treasured keepsakes from the birth of a child or the life of a parent.

Ten people endured non-life-threatening injuries from the Mountain Fire, which are mostly related to smoke inhalation, Ventura County Sheriff Jim Fryhoff said.

At least 168 structures have been destroyed by the fire, while 67 have been left damaged, according to a Sunday evening update. Currently, 2,812 personnel are assigned to the fire and ten damage inspection teams have been deployed to inspect structures along the path of the blaze.

Firefighters have been working aggressively to gain control of the Mountain Fire by dropping water from helicopters. The fire, which had virtually no containment for more than 24 hours, was 31% contained Sunday evening, according to Cal Fire.

Fire activity died down Thursday night into Friday and firefighters are racing to take advantage of improved weather conditions before gusty Santa Ana winds – which helped drive the fire’s explosive growth – potentially arrive again next week, Capt. Thomas Shoots, a Cal Fire spokesperson, told CNN. Officials reported positive results Friday evening after gaining slightly more containment on the fire with no further growth.

Capt. William Hutton with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office said several areas previously under evacuation orders were transitioned to evacuation warnings but cautioned residents “reentering any area that’s been evacuated is potentially dangerous.”

“Fire-impacted areas may contain hazardous materials as well as smoldering debris, damage utilities and hot spots. We are working towards lifting evacuations as soon as it’s safe to do,” Hutton said.

Reining in the northeast side of the fire is a top priority but will be “time-consuming,” Shoots said Friday. The side abuts a stretch of rugged terrain without natural fire barriers such as roadways, requiring the firefighters to go directly to the fire’s edge, cut away vegetation and cool the area down.

Getting evacuees back to their homes also is a pressing concern, he said, but smoldering ground, debris and downed power lines are safety threats which will also affect when officials decide to let people back in, he said. “We’re making those plans (with law enforcement partners) to figure out which areas” can be opened, he said.

“The biggest challenge is that with a 20,000 acre fire, all it takes is one hot piece of material jumping across the line to get that fire going again,” Shoots said.

Making a run for it

By the time Morin, her husband and their friends got out of the house, the fire had caught on to the surrounding trees. Smoke was everywhere, she told CNN.

In a panic, the California native grabbed her husband’s diabetes medication, her laptop, and some dresses, but she couldn’t get hold of everything she wanted in time –– including clothes and other memorabilia from when her son was a baby.

The four adults made their escape through clouds of thick smoke.

“We couldn’t see anything. We were basically driving just in the smoke. (Dave) was freaking out. And I was telling him, ‘Dave, pull over. Let me take the wheel. I’m OK. Pull over,’” Morin said.

Residents just outside Camarillo, including Eugene Zaharov, were suddenly ordered to evacuate by firefighting crews on Wednesday. Zaharov only had time to grab his wallet, keys and a box of documents as the blaze advanced toward his neighborhood and filled the air with flying embers, he told CNN Friday.

Zaharov was devastated when he returned to the neighborhood to find almost all the homes – except his and two others – had been burned, he said. Firefighters had been able to halt the flames as they singed his property line.

“I just feel so sorry for all the neighbors that lost their homes,” Zaharov said. “It’s just unimaginable as to what it’s going to take to get their lives together and find places to live.

“Some are probably going to rebuild. Some won’t. Lives are upended.”

Stan Jensen and Dawn DaMart were more than 1,000 miles from home when flames began consuming their house in Camarillo.

“We were in Minnesota and our friends were texting us asking us if we were OK,” DaMart said Friday. “I think they didn’t want to tell us, but they knew that our house was on fire. Finally, we had a person working at the house doing remodeling and he said, ‘I don’t want to be the one to tell you this, but your house is burning down.’”

The couple sat helplessly and watched a news clip of their home in flames. Almost everything they own is gone, DaMart said, including supplies for her business and her father’s ring, which “meant the world to me.”

They hope receiving insurance payments won’t be challenging given the “monumental” destruction the community has faced, DaMart said.

Fire officials implored most residents to evacuate, but some stayed

According to the sheriff’s office, 400 homes were evacuated by officials, while 800 homes that were door-knocked appeared to have already been evacuated; 250 residents chose to stay, Fryhoff said.

“We see it over and over and over: People have the best intentions to stay and defend their home right up until the time the fire hits their home,” Ventura County Fire Chief Dustin Gardner said.

“And it gets hot, and it gets smoky. You can’t see, you can’t breathe, and you sure as hell can’t defend your home. And then you’re stuck, and then our firefighters have to get in, pull you out.”

Some, with fireproofing in the structures of their homes, were exceptions. Steven Snyder was one of them.

Synder, a resident of Camarillo, went to bed on Wednesday as the Mountain Fire raged around his fireproofed home.

“When I looked out the window it looked like little campfires that were sparking up,” Snyder told CNN, adding he watched the fire come over the hill in his direction.

When Snyder woke up on Thursday, the land around him was charred. Many of his neighbors’ homes were on fire.

Fire personnel in the area urged Snyder, his wife, daughter, and 7-week-old granddaughter to stay home. The family had lost power but had plenty of water and food –– which they shared with fire personnel.

Red flag warnings, which alert people to weather conditions favorable for fires, have expired for the Los Angeles area and the Los Angeles and Ventura County mountains.

The cause remains unknown

Though reasons for the Mountain Fire’s rapid spread are clear, its cause remains unknown, a Ventura County fire official said.

The county fire department’s investigation unit is working on several things, including determining whether power lines were involved in causing the fire, Johnson said when asked about power lines as a possible cause.

“I could tell you that there could be a million things that start a fire,” Johnson said. “When a fire like that breaks, we don’t initially go to ‘What started this?’ Our job is to bring stabilization, so we went immediately to work in that regard.”

Other devastating wildfires have previously been blamed on fallen power lines that remained energized, prompting power companies to plan for broad shut-offs before it can happen again.

As a precaution, Southern California Edison, Southern California’s main electric provider, cut off power intentionally overnight Wednesday to 69,931 customers – including 23,603 in Ventura County – as part of its Public Safety Power Shutoff plan.

Fall marks a critical inflection point for California’s fire season.

The combination of very windy and very dry conditions primes the landscape, turning it into tinder-dry fuel, which can easily catch fire with the smallest spark and then spread rapidly in high winds.

As the world warms due to fossil fuel pollution, scenarios like the Mountain Fire could play out more frequently.

The number of extreme fall fire-weather days in California has more than doubled since the early 1980s because of warmer and drier autumns as global temperatures rise, according to a study by a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

CNN’s Taylor Romine, Taylor Galgano, Emma Tucker, Rebekah Riess, Mary Gilbert, Robert Shackelford and Elizabeth Wolfe contributed to this report.