The historic wildfires currently ripping across parts of Los Angeles County have claimed the lives of at least 10 people and led to the mandatory evacuation of more than 150,000 residents — including a growing list of celebrities who have seen their multi-million-dollar homes go down in flames.
Over the past four days, headlines about the devastating losses of A-listers like Paris Hilton, Billy Crystal and Eugene Levy have flooded social media timelines across the globe.
However, the destruction of thousands of homes and businesses in the L.A. area will likely have a far greater impact on the lives of ordinary residents, whose stories often go unnoticed compared to their famous neighbors.
Here are some of those stories:
On Thursday, Santa Monica Closeup photojournalist Fabian Lewkowicz shared on YouTube a video showing the apocalyptic aftermath of the Palisades Fire that engulfed the Tahitian Terrace mobile home community, where he said “approximately 250 manufactured homes were reduced to rubble.” Only two were left standing.
Rick McGeagh, a resident of another community destroyed by the Palisades Fire, told Reuters that only six out of 60 homes in his neighborhood near Will Rogers State Park weren’t destroyed by the blaze.
According to the 61-year-old real estate broker, the only thing left standing at his ranch house was a statue of the Virgin Mary that once belonged to his late grandmother — something he saw as an “amazing blessing” and “miraculous.”
Eileen Haniuk, a 41-year-old woman who lives in Altadena with her husband and their two young boys, evacuated their home late on Tuesday and drove to her parents’ house in Orange County, carrying only some changes of clothes and important documents.
When watching the news on Wednesday, Haniuk witnessed the destruction of a large part of her community, including her local grocery store, her favorite coffee shop and her son’s elementary school.
She later took to TikTok to express the difficulties of “trying to find a way to tell my little boy that his school burned down.”
“I am living a literal nightmare right now,” she said.
Speaking with People, Haniuk said her family was already suffering financial hardship due to recent layoffs — but now their situation is even worse.
“We’re just a working-class family,” she told the publication. “Well before this, we were already struggling to survive. Now with this, I don’t know how we’ll manage.”