A resourceful California fire chief uses milk and a “couple of beers” to save his brother's house as deadly wildfires turn his childhood neighborhood into a “complete nightmare.” Two homes were saved, including one.
Orange County Fire Chief Brian Fennessy told his brother and friends in Altadena (the town where he grew up, 14 miles from downtown Los Angeles) that they would be “okay” when the Eaton Fire broke out Tuesday. . ABC7 reported.
But hours later, when all hell broke loose in the neighborhood, Fennessy feared the “worst” because when her brother tried to call, “the phone was dead.”
“I felt like I had to get up there,” he told the outlet.
After learning that his brother and his family had already been evacuated from the town, the fire chief, who has been in the fire service for nearly 50 years, was left stunned to discover that his former stomping ground had turned into a “complete nightmare”. And so.
Several nearby houses were engulfed in flames, but his brother's property and the house next door were not on fire.
When Fennessy went to cool down her neighbor's melted gas meter, she realized she didn't have water to put out the fire.
Fennessy said he then forced his way into the house to find something to cool the meter.
“I decided to look in the refrigerator and all it had was milk and a few bottles of beer,” the fire chief said.
“I went back, ran back there, cooled it down and brought it back a little bit.”
Fennessy said the meter was “not completely gone” and she “didn't know if it would flare up again” but it was “the only thing” she could do at this point to save her home.
However, the paper said his efforts were sufficient and only two houses remained in the black.
Mr Fennessy said if he did not take action and try to save the homes, it would be “unlikely” that firefighters would arrive in time to prevent them from burning down along with the neighbors.
“I urge everyone to call 911 and we'll be right there,” he said. “This was a 911 call situation, so it's unlikely we would arrive on scene.”
Fennessy believes the recent fires in Southern California changed everything, and that fires ravaging the Los Angeles area could now become “our new reality.”
“This house-to-house, these urban conflagrations, we're going to start seeing them more and more,” he told the outlet.
Wildfires have continued to rage in and around Los Angeles since the Palisades Fire was first reported on January 7th.
Dangerous Santa Ana winds have worsened fire conditions in Southern California since Wednesday.
More than 40,000 acres were burned, more than 12,300 buildings were destroyed, and thousands of people were forced to evacuate.
Palisades Fire, the most destructive fire to wipe out the star-studded coast Pacific Palisades Community Last week's fire was 27% contained, but the Eaton Fire, burning outside Pasadena, California, was announced as 55% contained as of early Friday morning. cal fire.
The deadly fire killed at least 27 people and gutted a residential area.
