Altadena family of 4 braces for devastating wildfire loss: ‘Something I love is gone’

Despite losing everything in the Los Angeles County wildfires this week, the family of Desi Suarez Giles returned to survey the wreckage of their burned home. ruins.

Suarez-Giles, a three-time business owner, said they entered their Altadena, Calif., home in shock because they lived above a pharmacy during the COVID outbreak, where someone tried to burn down the building in the middle of the night. Land.

“Right after Covid, when there were a lot of protests and riots, we left the city of LA. The building we were staying in had Rite Aid in the basement, so we went out and the people, you know, tried to burn down Rite. Aid ran down and they tried to set the building on fire, so we put out the fire with a fire extinguisher. “And I had my little boy, Lucas. , he was just six months old, and I was like, ‘Here They will burn us alive’ so we had to leave.

“I said to my husband, ‘We have to find a way to get money and get a new house because we can’t stay here, they’re going to burn us here with our kids.’ And then we ran and burned out of our house to be here,” she said, fighting back tears.

Suarez-Giles said her home came from hard work, determination and a desire to protect her family.

The family learned about the devastating fire at midday Tuesday, but although they were on alert, they were initially unsure about evacuating, even though they saw neighbors coming out and moving horses and animals away from the area where Eaton was hit. Fire.

Finally, around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, Suarez-Giles decided it would be best to wake her sons, Henry and Lucas, grab a few essentials and sleep in the car.

“We woke them up at 1:30, so technically we didn’t leave until 2, because it took us a while to like, you know, pack anything and leave, and within three hours, the house was already there. She was gone,” she said.

When Suarez-Giles urged her family to leave, she said that’s when it upset the children to find out what was happening.

“Henry was very upset about it. He cried. Lucas was scared when the fire came. He was very nervous, especially with two small children. Lucas was crying,” she said. “When I took him off the trigger, he was shocked. I said, ‘Let’s go, son, the fire is coming.'”

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Speaking to reporters after the fire on Thursday, standing next to his mother, Henry recounted the terrifying moments of losing his home with the only two things he had left in this world.

“And the power went out, yeah, and then we, and then we were going to get our dad, but it was coming. Then the power, flashlights, they’re great, and I went and woke us up. Me and my brother went upstairs from our house,” said Henry. “And we didn’t realize that our house was going to burn down like this. And a lot of things that we left in our house, and they burned, and we had a 3D printer, and it was very special to me, and it’s going to make me a little sad, but I don’t know why, but this is what happened to our house.

“And many of the things that I loved are gone. And now everything is broken, and all the colors and things are gone. And these are the only things I have.”

Suarez-Giles lost power later on and that’s when some shocks started to set in. Her little son, Lucas, began to cry.

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“He started getting upset and then my husband went and got some flashlights and Henry was very brave, he was helping us, you know, things were loaded. I said let’s get everything ready so we can go, and you know.” she said “Around 11, we were still at home, and they were like, ‘Oh, we’re tired, we want to sleep.’ They were tired, and I said, ‘Okay, you guys can sleep.’

Suarez-Giles said her family wasn’t alone when the fire closed. Her son’s school teacher had rented a room in their house, and he didn’t leave until it was too late.

“He woke up in the fire. My husband tried to, you know, let him go, but the school knows everything because he’s involved with all the teachers and stuff,” she said. “He didn’t think anything of it, and he said it was going to burn because the fire was coming through the windows.”

A brave Henry, on the other hand, wanted to go back to their old home to check what was broken and see what was left.

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“I wanted to see if it wasn’t broken and my dad took a video to (show) it was broken,” he said. “We were gone, so that’s what happened and our chimney was where Santa would come, and now it’s gone. Now we can’t get presents here.”

According to LA County officials, the Eaton, Palisades, Kennett, Hurst Fire and Lydia fires have burned more than 35,000 acres, with at least 11 deaths in the Eaton and Palisades fires.