At least 130 homes have been destroyed by a wildfire raging outside Los Angeles, as a break in the weather Friday gave firefighters a chance to tame the blaze.
Hurricane-strength winds this week fueled an explosion in the Mountain Fire near Camarillo, which grew rapidly to over 20,000 acres (8,000 hectares).
Thousands of people in the path of the inferno were forced to flee, some with only minutes to gather possessions and pets as unpredictable flames leapt from home to home.
Robin Wallace told AFP the home she grew up in was destroyed minutes after everyone fled.
“We were expecting we’d be able to go back and get some things. But of course, that didn’t work out.
“It was completely gone by the afternoon. It went very quickly.”
Linda Fefferman said she knew she had to go when she smelled smoke.
“I’m trying to load the car with animals and important papers, my oxygen concentrator, and when it got too smoky for me, I knew I had to get out,” she told a local broadcaster.
A neighbor with a chainsaw helped remove a fallen tree that was blocking her path.
“I went down to the Goodwill parking lot, watched the smoke, you know, probably our own house burning.
“Nothing is left. It’s gone,” she said. “It’s all gone.”
Fefferman stated that she believed the fire had damaged 14 or 15 homes on her block.
At least 132 dwellings had been lost, according to preliminary inspections, and 88 more had been damaged, authorities reported Thursday.
