‘Everything’s gone’: Canadians fleeing L.A. wildfires describe destruction

Multiple fires have engulfed communities around Los Angeles, destroying thousands of structures and forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate to safety.

The last time Lindsay Rupp saw her Los Angeles home, as flames from the devastating wildfires burning across the county quickly approached, her Brentwood neighbourhood looked like a war zone.

The Canadian-born mother of two, who has lived in California for over 20 years, had returned Wednesday morning to grab “anything I saw that I thought I might need or that my kids might need.” She stuffed it all into garbage bags before she knew the road in and out would be closed.

As she drove back down the hill from Mandeville Canyon, just a few kilometres north of the fire that was consuming the Pacific Palisades, “it was almost apocalyptic,” Rupp told Global News in an interview.

“The sky was black,” she said. “The flames were on the horizon, like one canyon away. So I knew time was of the essence to get out through that.”

Rupp also remembers how eerily quiet her street was.

“It was almost like a deserted town,” she said. “I almost felt like it was like the middle of the night, but it was 9 a.m. in the morning.”

Multiple fires have engulfed communities around Los Angeles, destroying thousands of structures and forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate to safety.

Rupp herself is staying with friends in California, and her kids, aged nine and seven, are with her ex-husband in a safe location nearby.