Strong winds forecast for Los Angeles threaten area's fight against fires

Our cats are ready to go, we have their carriers by the door prepped with their little stuffed animals and things like that,

Trosen said,

Everything just felt like, ‘Oh man, the world’s ending,

said Kang, who's staying with his girlfriend in Pasadena

We’re absolutely better prepared,

LA County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said when asked what will be different from a week ago, when hurricane-force winds propelled multiple fires across the parched, brush-filled region that hasn’t seen rain in more than eight months

For years I've been telling people this canyon, it's been decades since we last had a wildfire, and the fuels are abundant,

he said

I reached for a couple of old albums, just really old pictures, and then a couple of newer frames,

Zar said

I was thinking about all the things that I didn’t get and that I could have gotten really quickly but didn’t because it was literally like, I thought the house was going to burn. I’ve never been in a situation like that,

said Auroux, his voice filled with emotion

I thought, well, maybe we’ll write, you know, as we go through the next few days, we’ll just kind of write what we’re going through,

said Zar, who’s now staying with her family in Redondo Beach

Your life is at risk. You have to leave.’

Reynaga, a CPR instructor, recalled a firefighter telling her

I just grabbed like the dumbest stuff and now I’m sitting here wondering why I didn’t take all the other stuff,

she told CNN Thursday

All I heard was just – clack, clack, clack – the clatter of all of these red hot embers hitting my helmet and hitting my body and my face and my hands,

said Auroux, who’s staying with relatives on the Westside of Los Angeles

You’re just kind of on autopilot,

said Zar, former chair of the Pacific Palisades Community Council, who knew her hillside California neighborhood has long been vulnerable to wildfires

I’m wearing other people’s clothes right now,

she told CNN Thursday

We got nothing. I got no pictures… It is a really incomprehensible thing to imagine not only everything you own, everything you’ve worked for, everything you’ve created, but everyone you know, every memory you made in the town that you’ve lived In, that all of it is gone. I’m getting mad about it, you know, because it’s so much more than just the stuff.”

She added

I don’t care about stuff. Stuff is just stuff. But what I can’t get back are the family photos. What I can’t get back is the family heirlooms that my mother passed down… I can’t get back the pillows she made me. I can’t get back the little sewing and knitting kits she passed down from her mother to me.”

She added

The question now will be, how do we live in a town that doesn’t really exist,

she said

I ran and grabbed a hard drive that our family photos were on. I grabbed a couple of our family heirlooms,

he said

I lost the building of my business, but I am my business,

she said

I tried to save my house because that’s all I have,

she said