A week after vacationing Canadian firefighter Romeo Petit helped save several homes in a small community threatened by a California wildfire, those residences are still standing.
The 22-year veteran of the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service calls it “a miracle.”
“I honestly thought they were going to lose their homes, but for some reason, it didn’t burn,” he said describing a horseshoe-shaped area in the foothills of the San Gabriel Valley that has been spared the wrath of the ravenous Eaton fire.
As of midday Thursday, the blaze had destroyed more than 21 square miles (55 sq/km), per the state’s forestry and fire protection agency’s online map and dashboard.
But the 41 homes in the Pasadena mesa community where Petit was visiting with his girlfriend, Melissa Elias, along with dozens of other homes nearby, remain unscathed. In nearby Altadena and elsewhere in Pasadena, entire neighbourhoods have been reduced to smouldering rubble.
Volunteer firefighters used hoses to extinguish small fires, douse houses
Last Tuesday, the couple was dining out when their host and friend, Adam Stone, received an evacuation alert for his hillside home in North Kinneloa Ranch.
“As we’re going up the hill, we see this wall of flame just burning,” the 52-year-old recounted to the National Post. “It was just huge. I’d never seen anything like it.”
Wind gusts that day were clocked at 90 mph (145 km/h), equivalent to those experienced in a Category 4 hurricane.
Along the way, they encountered panic, chaos and anger in the streets as unprepared residents tried desperately to flee.
After retrieving some items from Stone’s home and making their way to safety down the hill, Elias and Stone wanted to go back and help other homeowners. Petit was ready to join them.
“At this point, we see just sheets of embers cascading from this hillside and it’s causing everything to ignite in its path,” he said of returning to the community not long after.
As the winds picked up and the glow of the approaching fire became brighter, the trio, with only face masks as protection, used garden hoses to put out spotfires and embers on dry foliage.
Acting on instinct and relying on his years of experience fighting structure fires, Petit acted as a de facto fire chief, instructing his brave brigade to “wet everything that is dry and at least give these houses a chance.”
They went from neighbour to neighbour, turning on sprinklers and offering what aid they could, for more than three hours before coming upon a house already half burned.
“I figured we had a chance to maybe save the unburnt part, so I jumped on the roof of this house and tried to extinguish this fire that was partly on the roof and on the side,” Petit said.
“I’m tearing off shingles and the smoke was getting pretty thick at this point.”
They soon had to make their own escape, but were delighted to find out the next day that the home and all the others they’d visited had survived.
No injuries, but mourning California residents’ loss
As for ill effects, Petit said he had dry eyes, raspiness and soreness the following day, but otherwise, he nor anyone else was hurt.
The whole experience was surreal, chaotic and “terrifying at times,” though he said if he felt they were in imminent danger, he’d have instructed everyone to retreat.
Back in Canada and reflecting on the experience, Petit is glad to have done his small part, but he sympathizes with the people whose lives have been irrevocably altered.
“A lot of these people don’t have insurance and they basically lost everything,” he said.
“So I’m thinking about these people and praying that they can figure out a way to continue living a good life.”
As of Thursday, the Palisades fire was 22 per cent contained, Eaton stood at 55. Combined, the wildfires have burned close to 60 square miles (155 sq/km), destroyed over 12,000 structures and claimed at least 24 lives.
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