Pacific Palisades residents return to wreckage: 'Everybody at this point is just numb'

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. - Residents of a storied Los Angeles neighborhood devastated by raging wildfires returned home briefly Thursday to find much of their houses and possessions in cinders.

Wildfires have ravaged the Pacific Palisades neighborhood west of downtown amid powerful winds and an overtaxed water supply. The eponymously named fire — one of five in the county — has become the largest since igniting Tuesday.

Authorities granted Palisades residents who fled under mandatory evacuation orders the chance to briefly return on Thursday to survey the wreckage in the community and search for precious valuables.

"It’s a wasteland, man," said Will Falzarano, a 22-year-old who grew up in the area and returned to check on his old neighbors’ houses with friends he knew from Palisades High School.

The five friends hiked up to the neighborhood at 6:30 a.m. as roads remained closed. At their old high school, they found one large building, the football team clubhouse, and the weight room all burned down.

Another in the group, Tomas Huttepain, 23, said that his dad’s condominium made it through the inferno but that of the 10 homes he came to check on, just three were so lucky.

“It’s a Biblical fire,” Waka White, 22, told the Ventura County Star, part of the USA TODAY Network.

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'Everybody at this point is just numb'

Jimmy Dunne, a longtime Palisades resident who raised his children in the area, was one of the lucky ones. Dunne walked and hitchhiked back to the neighborhood before grabbing his bicycle from his unburnt home to see the damage.

Many places he’s known for years didn’t make it. Two of his children lost their homes.

"Everybody at this point is just numb," he said, pausing in front of the charred remains of his grocery store, a Gelson’s Market. Staff at the store knew Dunne, his family, and his dogs by name.

Police helped ferry some Palisades residents back to their homes to look through the wreckage for 15 minutes before taking them back to safety, some told local TV outlets. Among the items they went back for were essential documents and electronic devices.

Many stood waiting their turn wearing KN95 masks and ski goggles to help with the fumes.

California infernos: Before and after images reveal destruction of Los Angeles fires

A childhood home gone

Brian Lallement returned to the Palisades to check on the house where he grew up and where his mother still lives.

The 71-year-old remembers his father standing on the roof of the house during the 1961 Bel Air fire, watering the house down with a hose.

"We’ve always known there was a huge fire danger here. We’ve packed up six, maybe seven, times," he said, standing on the sidewalk.

This time, it was for good. His mother, in her 90s, had evacuated with the help of her caretaker. Her house did not make it, Lallement said.

Michael Loria is a national reporter on the USA TODAY breaking news desk; Isaiah Murtaugh covers education for the Ventura County Star in partnership with Report for America.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Pacific Palisades fire victims return to houses in cinders