California wildfires: Families flee with prized possessions and minutes to spare

With wildfires that exploded quickly and rapidly approached their homes, some California residents had only a few minutes to choose what possesions to save.

As smoke crept closer to Darrin Hurwitz’s Pacific Palisades home in California on Tuesday morning, he started packing up the most meaningful items in his house: a few family heirlooms; a couple of pieces of art; and his two daughters’ favorite stuffed animals. 

There wasn’t time to grab much else. The nearby Palisades Fire — one of several wind-whipped blazes raging across Southern California — suddenly surged, threatening Hurwitz’s most valued possession: his family’s lives.

“Within minutes, 10 to 20 minutes, there wasn’t one fire. There were multiple fires, as embers were sort of crisscrossing the area,” Hurwitz told MSNBC’s Chris Jansing on Wednesday. “The ferocity of the fire led us to think that we needed to get out of our house, and get out of our house very quickly.”

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The fires’ explosive growth across large swaths of Pasadena, Altadena, Sylmar and Pacific Palisades has taken many by surprise, stretching emergency services to capacity and leaving residents with little warning to evacuate. More than 80,000 residents were abruptly forced to evacuate, with some abandoning their cars on the Pacific Coast Highway and escaping on foot.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-wildfires-los-angeles-evacuations-rcna186762

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