‘I had to save myself’: details emerge about Los Angeles wildfire victims
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Death toll rises to 10 as first identified victims were Altadena residents affected by ongoing Eaton fire. At least 10 people have been killed in the wildfires still surging across the Los Angeles area. Victor Shaw, 66, was the first of the fatalities to be named, after he died in the Eaton fire raging to the north-east of LA while attempting to extinguish flames at his home of 55 years in Altadena.
His younger sister Shari Shaw reportedly tried to get him to evacuate as the Eaton fire spread through their neighborhood, but she was forced to leave him behind when he refused to come with her. She fled just as the blaze engulfed their home. “When I went back in and yelled out his name, he didn’t reply back, and I had to get out because the embers were so big and flying like a firestorm – I had to save myself,” she told the local TV station KTLA.
Victor’s badly burned body was discovered by a family friend the next day lying on the road next to his home, still clutching a garden hose in his hand. “I fell to the ground, and I didn’t know – I didn’t want to look at him. They just told me that he was lying on the ground and that he looked serene, as if he was at peace,” she told KTLA.
Altadena is a diverse residential community near Pasadena that is home to working- and middle-class families, including many Black residents who have lived there for generations. The death toll rose to 10 late on Thursday after the first fire in a series across LA county erupted on Tuesday in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles.
