“Victor, we have to get out!” Shari Shaw screamed as orange flames and thick smoke billowed toward her older brother’s modest 1960s bungalow in Altadena. “We have to get out of here!”
Victor Shaw, 66, a former courier driver who suffers from diabetes and chronic kidney disease, didn’t stir.
She shook him, but he didn’t respond. She gently kicked his feet.
“Victor, the fire is coming close,” she said. “It’s not safe to stay.”
“OK, let me just sit here for a few minutes,” he said.
“There’s no time to sit here!” Shari pleaded. “We have to get out!”
She fled as embers rained down on her SUV.
Shari survived; her brother perished.
Officials have confirmed that at least ten people were killed in firestorms that burned down large swaths of Pacific Palisades, Altadena and surrounding communities this week. But that number is likely to climb considerably as investigators search the rubble of thousands of damaged or destroyed homes.
“Unfortunately, I think the death toll will rise,” Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said.
In Altadena on Thursday, chain saws whirred nearby as emergency crews hacked at toppled blackened trees and the charred remains of a house gutted by the Eaton fire crunched under the shoes of homicide detectives as they searched for human remains.
About a mile east, a county medical examiner van was parked on Monterosa Drive — a grim reminder that the official tally was unfinished.
And along the Malibu shore miles away, investigators searched a scorched foundation along Pacific Coast Highway for more remains.
The flames of the Palisades and Eaton fires forced thousands from their homes. Fleeing down streets that quickly became congested, some residents were forced to abandon their cars as fire trucks headed toward the flames.
In Pasadena and Altadena, officials ordered evacuations shortly after the Eaton fire broke out, but the strong winds helped the fire grow quickly out of control and kept firefighters from tackling it with air coverage.
One Pasadena resident told The Times when the evacuation order came, it took about 30 minutes to drive 10 blocks as people were “desperately trying to get out.”
Now officials are searching incinerated neighborhoods for those who never made it out.
“Our firefighters are out putting out the remnants of the fires in these structures when they’re coming across these victims,” Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said.
The speed of the fire made it particularly difficult to ensure people got out in time, but Marrone said there are other challenges, including people not getting — or responding to — warnings.
“Some people choose not to heed the evacuation order, so they’re staying,” he said. “And then some people don’t get the evacuation order. Some people are have disability challenges and mobility challenges that they need help evacuating.”
Dr. Odey Ukpo, chief medical examiner of Los Angeles County, said dental records or DNA will be used to identify people who died in the wildfires. Most fire victims are, “for lack of a better word, charred,” Ukpo told The Times.
Identifiers such as fingerprints or facial features are lost.
Details about how the victims died will emerge in the coming days and weeks.
Shari Shaw said she is still processing the last moments with her brother.
A 62-year-old graphic designer who lives in Pasadena, Shaw drove to Victor’s home at 7:30 pm Tuesday to try to get him to safety and help pack up some of their family belongings.
Victor, who lived in a tract home their parents bought on Monterosa Drive in the 1960s, had been suffering from balance and vision issues.
She found him watching local TV news and growing agitated as he saw footage of fires fanning across Los Angeles. She said he took a seizure medication that helped calm him down, and he started to feel groggy.
As Victor drifted off to asleep, Shari monitored the news and packed their parents’ wedding photos, important documents and Victor’s medication and overnight kit.
But about 2 a.m., when she went outside to load her SUV, she could see flames on the hillside and mostly orange smoke. A house about a block away started to catch fire. Embers descended on the cul de sac.
She ran back to the house and rapped on the front door.
“We have to get out of here!” she screamed. She did not hear him stir. Embers were falling on her SUV. If she didn’t get out of there, she figured, they both would end up dying.
Shari hopped in her SUV and drove to the bottom of the street, where she spotted a police officer driving around the neighborhood. She motioned to him and asked him to help get her brother out.
The police officer rebuffed her pleas and warned her, “Don’t go up there,” she said.
After the officer drove off, Shari decided she would try rousing her brother one more time.
But the smoke was so thick she made it only halfway up the street.
“I couldn’t do it,” she said. “At that point, I just prayed that he got out.”
All through the night, her calls to his cellphone went to voicemail.
On Wednesday morning, a neighbor told her via text message: “There’s nothing left.”
Shari asked whether her brother’s car was still in the driveway. The answer was yes.
About 11 a.m., Shari made her way back to her family home with a friend.
After pleading with law enforcement officers to let her through their barricades, she finally got through. Passing downed power lines, she found her neighborhood unrecognizable.
“It was utter, utter destruction, just like Armageddon. Everything was leveled,” she said. “There was no house that was still standing, except for one house. But other than that, everything was still smoldering, and there were burnt cars and trees, just chimneys standing. It was awful.”
The modest bungalow that had been in their family for more than half a century was gone.
She told her neighbor’s son about her brother, and he went walking into the debris. He found Victor’s body on the walkway outside the front door.
A garden hose was in his hand.
Shari saw her brother’s body, but she couldn’t go closer. She recognized his green sweatpants.
Ever since, she has wondered what happened after she left.
“He might have felt like he was trying to do the right thing and attempting to put out the flames,” she said. “I don’t know if he truly believed he could, but I know he tried.”
Victor had been dealing with breathing issues, and she wonders whether the heavy smoke might have asphyxiated him. He might have lost his balance, she wonders, and fallen.
“It plays in my head,” Shari said. “Had I been able to go back or stay five more minutes, would it have made a difference?”
She continues to go over the possibilities, wondering whether, maybe, things could have happened differently.
“Maybe I could have carried him?” she said. “Maybe some superpower hero power would overwhelm me — an adrenaline rush or something maybe would have kicked in?”
Still, Shari said she was glad she had grown closer to her brother after their mother passed in 2020.
Victor loved to drive the highway to different U.S. cities and was fascinated with Route 66. Together, they took little weekend trips to Reno, Lake Tahoe, San Diego and Palm Springs. They enjoyed each other’s company.
“You know, when you’re younger, you don’t really appreciate your sibling,” Shari said. “As we got older, our relationship developed. … He was a good guy.”
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