Three of the people who died in the fires raging around Los Angeles lived within a few blocks of one another, in a close-knit neighborhood in the eastern portion of the county.
The area abutted Angeles National Forest, and local residents said many people had lived there for generations, handing down homes they bought decades ago and that they had meticulously kept up.
One of the victims was found near a garden hose he had been using to spray his house as the fire bore down.
At least five people in total died across Los Angeles County, according to officials. three in the Eaton fire in the east, and two in the Palisades fire near the coast. On Thursday, the county sheriff, Robert G. Luna, said officials were investigating neighborhoods where hundreds of homes burned, “hopefully not discover too many fatalities. That’s our prayer.”
“But this is a crisis, and we don’t know what to expect,” he added.
Here is what we know about the victims:
VICTOR SHAW
Victor Shaw’s tiled-roof house sat on Monterosa Drive, a cul-de-sac near the edge of the forest.
After the evacuation call went out late Tuesday, one of Shaw’s neighbors, Willie Jackson, 81, packed his car, grabbing whatever belongings he could from the home where he had lived since the 1970s and left. So did other neighbors.
But not Shaw, 66, who had lived on Monterosa beginning in childhood. He remained behind, doing what his father before him had always done — maintaining the family home.
“The house had a whole lot of significance for him,” said Jackson, a retired county employee. “His parents had always had it.”
Jackson moved to Monterosa Drive in the 1970s. When he got there, Shaw’s parents, Frank and Freddye, were already in the neighborhood. “In those days, the homes were costing $50,000,” Jackson said. “Now they’re over a million, $2 million.”
Jackson said Shaw’s father had taken meticulous care of the family’s home. “He used to always encourage me, you know, ‘We got to keep our neighborhood looking good,’” he said.
“He and I focused on maintaining our house,” he added. “He’d be out there sweeping and cleaning up. I’d be out there too.”
When Shaw’s parents died, they left the home in a trust to him and his sister, Shari.
Shaw, who Jackson said never married, drove a bloodmobile and later made contract deliveries. “He was hardworking,” Jackson said. “He was a great neighbor, always, like his father, working, maintaining the yard.”
Shari Shaw evacuated and her brother stayed, saying he was determined to protect the house, according to news reports. She could not be reached Thursday.
After the fire passed, Jackson’s son, William Jackson Jr., came to help his father survey the damage, and found a relative of Shaw’s walking up to the house to look for him.
They started to call his name, “thinking maybe he’s injured, knocked unconscious from some debris, or something,” the younger Jackson said. They found him lying in his front yard clutching a garden hose, with a gutter pipe laid over his left arm. “He was out here trying to fight the fire by himself,” the younger Jackson said.
RODNEY NICKERSON
Rodney Nickerson, 82, also died, according to his family. He lived on a street that was just a short walk from Jackson’s home, although it is unclear if they knew each other.
Nickerson came from a multigenerational California family, said his son, Eric. His grandfather founded Golden State Mutual Life, an insurance company. A public-housing project in the southern Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts, Nickerson Gardens, was named for the grandfather.
Nickerson had retired as an aerospace engineer for Lockheed Martin and was an active deacon at his church, Eric Nickerson said, adding that his father “was an Angelenean from Day 1.”
“Everybody in that Pasadena Altadena community has been there for years — we’re talking, everybody knew everybody else,” he said. “Everyone bought their houses for [$30,000] and $35,000 in the early ’70s, and now they’re worth millions. But now, they’re all gone.”
Victor’s body was later found near the lot he had lovingly maintained. He had been stubbornly trying to fend off the encroaching fire with a water hose, according to his family.
ERLIENE KELLEY
Erliene Kelley, who lived a few blocks away from Shaw and Nickerson, died in her home, according to her family.
She was a retired pharmacy technician at Rite Aid and longtime resident of the neighborhood, according to Rita and Terry Pyburn, a couple who lived on her block.
“She was so, so, so sweet,” said Terry Pyburn. He often had brief chats with Kelley about gardening and local news, and often left small Christmas gifts for her and other neighbors in the tight-knit community.
“She was an angel,” he said. “That’s the perfect neighbor. When you see her, you have a smile.”
Pyburn added that “unfortunately, there was not good communication” about the threat to life. He and his wife had initially heard on his car radio that “everything east of Lake Street was evacuated, and over here on the west side, we were fine.”
“So we were in the house and just stayed there, thinking we were OK,” Pyburn said. “Until we started smelling smoke.” He and his wife prepared to leave, and then the emergency alert arrived.
“It was panic. Everyone took off and no one thought to check on anybody,” Pyburn said, adding, “I think the notice came too late.”
The search for other victims
The chief of the Los Angeles County Fire Department, Anthony Marrone, said “human remains detection teams” would be going house to house, searching for others who might have died in the Eaton fire. Earlier in the day, Luna said they might employ dogs to help.
Officials said two people died in the Palisades fire, on the other side of the county.
On Thursday, fire was still smoldering in the rubble of the Shaw home. Four burned cars were in the driveway, and a garden hose was pulled out into the front yard.
A filing cabinet and chimney still stood, and a water heater billowed smoke. Collapsed drywall and melted piles littered the property with debris, some in piles as high as 6 feet.
The cul-de-sac where the house once stood had burned completely, as had much of the neighborhood. Just one house stood intact down the street.
“The fire that came through this canyon wiped out the entire Altadena community that’s been standing for 50, 60 years,” said Jackson, a retired Los Angeles County employee.
On Thursday afternoon, Willie Jackson returned to see what remained of the home that he, like Victor Shaw and his parents before him, had nurtured through the decades.
Almost nothing was left.
He plans to rebuild, “this time with all metal studs and I-beams, and fill the I-beams with concrete, so no matter how hot it gets, what kind of fire comes, it won’t crumble,” he said.
The New York Times News Service