‘I started packing and panicking.’ Residents flee monster fires above Azusa, Duarte
Rapidly growing fires above Azusa and Duarte – which together have burned more than 2,000 acres – left residents with little time to flee.
The Red Cross, L.A. County Fire Department and the city of Duarte have opened an evacuation center at a recreation center at 1600 Huntington Drive in Duarte.
Valerie Kiernicki, 59, arrived with her two cats just as the center was opening. She had been sewing at her home near Fish Canyon, a few houses down from the foot of the mountains, about 12:30 p.m., when she heard helicopters overhead and went outside to see what was happening.
“I saw flames about 25 feet in front of me,” she said. “I started packing and panicking.”
A worried Kiernicki tried calling her elderly neighbors. She called her husband, who was at work in downtown L.A. and immediately got on a train home. He told her to grab the computer and safe deposit box, but they were too heavy for her to carry. (He later arrived and managed to get them out, along with the couple’s important documents.)
No official called or came to Kiernicki’s door to order her to evacuate, as the area was not officially under evacuation orders, but Kiernicki was set on leaving. “The fire was just too close to me,” she said. “The flames were right there. Smoke was going up, and when the ash landed, I didn’t want to be standing there.”
She grabbed her cats, cat food and litter, some clothes, medicines, wedding pictures and her watercolor paintings. “I just packed up everything I could and started driving around,” she said.
As she headed out, cars and fire trucks were headed in. “I’m glad I left when I did because of the traffic,” she said.
Kiernicki and her husband have lived in their home for 13 years. This wasn’t the first time they had seen fires, but “I had never seen it that close,” she said. “It was pretty freaky.”
Two years ago, she and her neighbors watched from their houses as the Colby fire raged in nearby Glendora. That fire, she said, left soot in her house.
Asked if she was worried about losing her house to this fire, Kiernicki said she wasn’t because she trusted firefighters would be able to put out the fire before then. She was worried about the smoke and other damage from the fire, though. “Your house might not burn down, but it does affect you financially,” she said.
Twitter: AgrawalNina
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