At 4.30pm last Tuesday afternoon, a dark grey smoke cloud loomed over North Mount Holyoke Avenue in Pacific Palisades, obscuring the setting sun. The blazes which would become the deadliest wildfire in California's history were racing up a nearby canyon.The streets were almost deserted, the air choking, and most people had already evacuated. My team and I spotted an elderly woman at the end of a driveway."I don't drive, I don't have any relatives," she said. "What do I do?"It was 84-year-old Liz Lerner. She grasped my arm as the wind almost blew her off her feet. A neighbour showed up shortly afterwards, loading his Tesla with bags, and agreed to give Liz a ride to safety.
LA wildfires latest updatesA week on, she's in hospital in Los Angeles and wants to tell the dramatic story of her escape and what came next. "I thought I would die right there on the sidewalk," she says. "I thought that was the end of my little life. I really thought that there's nobody coming by here and I'll just be a skeleton they find.".
As Liz was being driven by her neighbour, down the hill from Pacific Palisades to the coast, all around the neighbourhood, trees and buildings were catching fire. "As we drove through the windy streets to get out, it was greyer and blacker and darker," she says. "I felt a great heaviness pushing on my chest at that time. I'm gasping and gasping just trying to get some air. I was having a heart attack, I found out at the hospital.".
