Many things went wrong for Aaron Samson on Tuesday morning. But a few lucky breaks – and the kindness of two strangers – allowed him and his 83-year-old father-in-law, Ron, to escape the deadly Palisades fire as it swiftly closed in around them.
After getting an alert about the impending wildfire on his phone, Samson sprang into action at Ron’s home in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, where the retired cardiologist had lived for nearly 50 years. Samson grabbed clothes and medication for his father-in-law, who has Parkinson’s disease and was recovering from a recent surgery, and texted his own wife and kids, who were back home in Berkeley.
But the situation was surreal and chaotic, and Samson wasn’t sure what to do next.
“Your mind’s not thinking [correctly],” he said. “I’m thinking that we’re gonna be gone, and I haven’t fed him, he hadn’t eaten yet. So I fried two eggs. You know, there’s a fire going on, and I fried two eggs. I’m like, ‘You need to eat!’”
Samson then called 911 and an Uber, hoping someone could help them, without success. A neighbor happened to be leaving the empty neighborhood and gave them a ride, but they quickly met deadlocked traffic as other frantic people streamed out of their homes. As the fire neared the road – close enough that Samson could feel the heat from inside the car – police officers started telling drivers to abandon their vehicles and flee on foot.
Samson, Ron, and their neighbor got out and trekked down the steep hill, embers flying into their faces and thick black smoke choking the air. Ron pushed a walker unsteadily. At one point, Ron told Samson that if the fire caught up to them, he should leave him behind and save himself. But they hurried on, continuing along the apocalyptic-looking road for 10 or 15 minutes.
It was then that Andrew Lin, a stranger, spotted them trudging through the smoke. Behind them, burning palm trees were exploding. Samson and Ron seemed to be some of the very last people to come down the hill. Though Lin had been in the midst of trying to drive back to his own home in the Palisades to save his dog and two cats, it was a no-brainer to stop and take the duo the rest of the way to safety, he said.
“I was going that way, they were going this way,” Lin said. “But it was just like, ‘OK, everything just exploded around us, get in the car. I don’t know who you are, but just get in the car.’”
Across Los Angeles, as Lin was helping Samson and his father-in-law escape the flames, scores of other people, businesses and non-profits were gearing up to assist evacuees this week. The need has been overwhelming; as of Saturday, the string of fires raging across Los Angeles county have completely destroyed or damaged thousands of structures, forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes, and left at least 16 dead.
The Palisades fire, the largest blaze, has been called “one of the most destructive natural disasters in the history of Los Angeles”.
“I thought we were going to evacuate for maybe a day and then go back,” Samson said. “You don’t think that the whole town will burn up.”
‘It’s a marathon’
Meanwhile, when Rudy Beuve, the owner and head chef of Le Great Outdoor restaurant in Santa Monica, saw the wall of flames encircling LA, he decided to put his kitchen to good use.
“We were like, ‘OK, we have to find a solution,’” he said. “How can we help?”
Beuve’s team of cooks quickly started whipping up free food – thousands of breakfast burritos, sandwiches and bowls of rice with salmon and chicken – for firefighters and evacuees. Members of the public also pitched in and paid for first responders’ meals through the restaurant’s website.
The biggest obstacle was figuring out how to best distribute that food, Beuve said. On Wednesday, while many roads were still blocked off, Beuve and a few other people loaded their backpacks to the brim with food, hopped on mountain bikes, and rode several miles to Will Rogers Beach, where they handed out sandwiches and burritos to groups of firefighters who were assembling there. The next day, Beuve swapped the bicycles out for motorcycles to make their deliveries.
Starting this Tuesday, the restaurant will offer free meals to evacuees and first responders during lunch hours. The key, Beuve said, will be to keep the relief efforts alive beyond just the short term.
“It’s a marathon,” he said. “It will be a lot of work for many, many months. It’s a disaster, so we have to go slow.”
Near LA’s Mid-City neighborhood, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles stepped up in a different way: to make sure evacuated animals wouldn’t end up on the street.
With other shelters around the city inundated with animals from the fires, spcaLA took in a wave of those pets, including roughly 50 dogs and cats – and one parrot. To prepare for the influx, the non-profit temporarily moved its existing resident animals to other facilities, cleaned the kennels, brought in a fresh batch of volunteers and sifted through newly donated supplies.
For people who have just lost their homes and are trying to plan their next move, the animal shelter serves as a safe place for pets, said Ana Bustilloz, the organization’s communications and marketing director.
“We give them comfort in knowing that their animal will be cared for in the same way that they would care for them,” she said. “In other words, we’re going to provide them a safe space until they can come and be retrieved.”
As for Lin and Samson, in the days after their dramatic escape from the Palisades, they’ve been texting each other brief fire updates.
Lin and Samson’s father-in-law later learned that both of their homes had burned to the ground. But incredibly, Lin’s three pets survived; a fellow neighbor grabbed the dog first, and the two cats were rescued by a different neighbor within an hour of Lin’s house burning down.
On Friday, Lin texted Samson with the somber update that his home was gone – but he also sent a photo of his cats.
“The cats are safe and they’re alive,” Samson said. “Again, a glimmer of hope among the ashes.”