A Scots university graduate was forced to flee for his life from his Los Angeles neighbourhood due to ‘catastrophic’ wildfires – later losing all his belongings when the blaze swept through his street.
Gavin Donohue graduated from Edinburgh University in 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in astrophysics. The 24-year-old then returned to his family home in the Pacific Palisades, a neighbourhood west of Los Angeles that is currently experiencing one of California’s most destructive wildfires in history, reports Edinburgh Live.
Infernos broke out around the city on Tuesday, January 10 around 10.30am. What first seemed to Gavin like one of the area’s common fires soon grew into an uncontrollable wildfire.
He said: “We’ve had brush fires here before. We’ve even been on evacuation lists before, but firefighters always get it under control before it reaches any homes. Around 11am I could see plumes of smoke and I realised it was moving really fast. Then I saw a house go up [in flames]. It quickly dawned that it might actually be really bad.”
After receiving a mandatory evacuation alert, the family packed up a car and fled to a hotel in Manhattan Beach on the other side of the city.
He continued: “We loaded up the car around 12. It moved crazy fast, we had no time to react. All of a sudden the entire town had to evacuate. We saw dozens of fire trucks racing up the hills. Fire planes flew over us really low, sirens were blaring. It was really scary and chaotic.”
Weather conditions made for a perfect storm – between a dry autumn and 70mph wind gusts on Tuesday, the flames soon grew too large for officials to tackle. More than 1,000 firefighters and 260 fire engines have responded to the blaze, according to California governor Gavin Newsom. Since Tuesday the fire has consumed 5,300 homes in the Pacific Palisades and 30,000 people are under evacuation orders in the same area.
Gavin added: “The devastation of my town is catastrophic. Almost all the houses are gone. It looks like it got carpet bombed.”
Two days after the fires began, Gavin and his family discovered that their home was miraculously one of the only homes on their street to survive the blaze. However, Gavin’s room was entirely destroyed and their neighbour’s homes were reduced to rubble.
Gavin lost all the possessions he owned except for what he managed to bring during evacuation – his Edinburgh University diploma among a few other belongings. He spoke to the bitter-sweet feelings of the discovery, saying: “I’ve lost everything, but my family still has their house.
“I’m heartbroken and relieved at the same time. We are so unbelievably lucky, my house is the only one standing on the block. It looked like a war zone. Of the 20 houses on my street, ours is the only one standing. Most people I went to elementary school with have lost their homes.”
Images from Gavin’s neighbourhood show houses razed to the ground, cars melted in the street, and firefighters battling blazes just blocks from where Gavin lives. The family is now considering whether they will stay in Los Angeles or move to a new area.
Gavin concluded: “Even though the house survived, we probably couldn’t live there for months. My parents are talking about if we even want to stay there – the neighbourhood has been so utterly devastated. We are all really rattled.”
Don’t miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond – Sign up to our daily newsletterhere.