A former BC Lions football player has lost his childhood home in the devastating L.A. wildfires.
Daved Benefield grew up in Altadena, which is one of the many communities reduced to ashes by wildfires that have now been burning for more than a week.
“It’s so many memories,” Benefield told Global News.
“It was an entire childhood.”
A day after the Eaton fire roared through the neighbourhood, Benefield said the family got to go in and look at what remained of the neighbourhood and he was floored.
“There’s nothing you could say…. I mean, it was just, you’re just looking at so many memories. It’s just gone.”
He said the family lost a lifetime of memories, including photos, his sister’s artwork, his dad’s photo album from his military service and the palm trees outside that have been home to wild parrots for generations.
Benefield said his parents and his sister who lived with them are now staying with him in Orange County.
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“I’m trying to do what I can just to make them feel more comfortable because this is such a trying time for so many older people,” he said.
Benefield said his parents’ neighbourhood is now just a few chimneys left standing and some fruit trees.
“You’ll see these 100-year-old fruit trees that still managed to survive and a pomegranate tree is still standing with pomegranates. It’s just the strangest, oddest, saddest thing in the world.”
Benefield said the situation has been surreal and one that he never thought could happen.
“There was just the smoke,” he said. “There’s still ashes floating in the air. You can see ashes everywhere.”
Benefield has started a GoFundMe for his parents to try and help them rebuild their lives.