Days before the end of winter break, two University of Colorado-Boulder students had to fight to save their Pacific Palisades homes from a raging California wildfire with nothing more than pool water and a mug.
Nearly everything they knew is gone, the students said. The library where they hung out in high school, the neighborhood taco stand they visited every night during breaks, and the place where they invented their trackable vape pen company. UAVA – all up in flames.
Amid a sea of wreckage, their homes still stand.
At least 11 people have died in the Palisades fire, which has charred about 23,448 acres over the past two weeks and is 68% contained. according to California officials. That is at least seven people still missing.
According to fire officials, 6,662 structures – including both homes and businesses – were destroyed. Another 890 were damaged.
“What hit me was not just the loss of our city, because we will get through it,” said Emmett Reiner, a 21-year-old from California and business major at CU Boulder. “What touched me most was how we have lost the ability to share our childhood with our children, with future generations.”
When the Palisades Fire broke out on Jan. 7, Reiner and his Boulder classmate and business partner, 22-year-old Jackson Wootton, were sitting on the beach and making plans for their last semester of college. Suddenly, Wootton saw a plume of smoke curling into the sky.
“We’d been through this a million times before,” Wootton said. “All through high school, living in Los Angeles, there were wildfires all the time… but they were never in the Palisades.”
But when Reiner went home, reality set in.
Police barricades blocked the road and cars flew past Reiner in the opposite direction, fleeing the now evacuated area. He parked his car on a side street and started running.
“The whole mountain behind me was on fire,” he said. “I ran to my house and had to make that phone call that every SoCal resident and homeowner dreads. It’s like, ‘You have thirty seconds – where are the passports, where are the watches, where is your jewelry? What should I do? ”
Reiner said he packed everything he could into a bag — including a set of firefighting gear from volunteer work with the Los Angeles Fire Department — and fled the house, but traffic was already at a standstill. When a group of construction workers passed him and headed up the mountain to battle as many flames as possible, he donned his gear and jumped in their truck to help.
Hours later, Wootton’s family was eating and watching the news when Reiner burst through the door, covered from head to toe in thick, ashy soot.
“This was much more serious than any of us could have ever imagined,” Wootton said.
The “post-apocalyptic” fire continued to grow, and after a sleepless night at a friend’s house outside the evacuation zone, Wootton and Reiner headed back to the Palisades to see what they could salvage. They told the police officers that they were freelance photographers trying to get past the barricades.
They first stopped at Wootton’s house, grabbed what they could and searched through bags of ski equipment for goggles or protective equipment they could use to protect their faces. Then they went around the neighborhood.
“As kids who grew up there for the last 22 years, I could tell you where every speed bump, where every twist and turn is in the Palisades,” Reiner said. Now, driving through back streets and navigating rubble and abandoned cars, it felt strange.
Entire sections of the neighborhood were gone, Reiner said. After several empty streets, the relief was palpable in the car as they turned the corner and saw Reiner’s house still standing.
The two worked quickly, grabbing clothing, the ashes of Reiner’s dog, a lifetime of camera film, and their company’s first prototype. Then a fire started in the backyard.
Wootton said he frantically searched for a bowl or glass before grabbing a ceramic graduation mug from the counter to scoop water from the outdoor pool onto the flames.
When a second fire broke out in a neighbor’s yard, Wootton jumped the fence and started throwing dirt on it with his hands. He said he didn’t know what else to do and as he scooped up piles of dirt and ash, he kept accidentally grabbing hidden embers, burning his hands.
Embers flying through the air continued to spark fires around Reiner’s home throughout the day and night, at one point setting another neighbor’s roof on fire. Wootton and Reiner kicked dirt over fires on the ground and threw bags of single-use drinking water at others, which exploded when they encountered the flames.
During the firefight, Reiner found a pre-filled five-gallon can that they began using to put out the small fires.
After three exhausting days of little to no sleep and constant fear about their houses burning down, the fight was suddenly broken up for the two CU Boulder students. With classes starting Monday, they were forced to board a plane back to Colorado and take the weekend to grieve.
“I felt like I was letting my city down,” Wootton said. “But in another way, what else was I supposed to do? We have to move on.”
Reiner said he wanted to quit, but his father made him “go back to school and live.”
Their homes are still standing after the fire, but it will be a while before anyone can return home. Wootton said his father went back to visit the house, but the air quality was so bad it made him physically ill and there will be no power or gas for weeks. Reiner said his father will not be allowed back in the area for the next six months.
“Everything is gone,” Reiner said. “There won’t be, ‘Hey, daddy started UAVA here, daddy got food here before he went camping with his friends.’ It doesn’t exist, it’s gone. It’s just ash and rubble and a photo shoot.”
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