Father and daughter stay behind to offer help

SEATTLE — As the fire roared down a hillside toward their Altadena home, Vanessa Prata and her parents hurried to pack their car. They focused on saving irreplaceable items, like family photographs and a baby doll from Vanessa's childhood.

But they didn't leave.

Instead, the Pratas have remained in their family home of 27 years, which is somehow still standing amid widespread devastation from the Los Angeles wildfires, even as homes just over a block away burned. As residents who did flee were kept away by police or military barricades, Vanessa and her dad took it upon themselves to check on their neighbors' homes.

"They're sitting in these shelters. They're not sure whether their house survived or didn't survive," Vanessa said. "Once you know what the situation is, you have (the) ability to regroup and see what you're going to do moving forward."

The fires raging around Los Angeles have consumed an area larger than San Francisco.

Vanessa, a 25-year-old nursing student, had stopped at a hardware store on her way home from dinner on Tuesday night when she saw the flames approaching the home she shares with her parents, two cats and a dog. She called her dad.

However, Vanessa's father, Aluizio Prata, who teaches electrical and computer engineering at the University of Southern California, didn't want to leave. He didn't think the fire would reach them, but if it did, he wanted to stay and help fight it.

As the toll from the wildfires became clear, Vanessa saw many people doing what they could to help those who lost their homes.

Vanessa remained at home, with her family occasionally running a borrowed generator to check the news and keep the freezer cold. She wanted to help, too.

So, on Friday morning, she posted to an Altadena community group on Facebook, offering the one thing she could think of that would help.

"We are more than happy to drive around and take a picture for any person who would like to see their home or, God forbid, what is left of their home," Vanessa wrote.

The requests came pouring in — as many as 45 by Saturday morning. She and her dad set out on Friday, checking addresses written in a small notebook. They slowly made their way past fallen trees, downed wires and the husks of burned-out cars.

Of more than two dozen homes they visited on Friday and Saturday, fewer than half were still standing. At the end of a cul-de-sac, reached only after getting out of the car and walking past fallen trees and utility poles, the ruins of one home were still smoldering.

"Those are devastating when you get to the person's house and it's gone, and you know that you're the one who's going to break the news," Vanessa said. "You're looking at the burnt ashes and then they send (a photo of) the house, how beautiful it was prior. And it's, there are no, there are no words. You just say, you know, 'I'm sorry. I wish there was more that I could do for you.'"

Agencies via Xinhua