Neighbor Randy Stoklos pointed to the area of the fire that he helped to put out that saved his neighbor’s home.
Photo: ROSALIE HUNTINGTON
(Editor’s note: Rosalie and her husband Dan evacuated from the Castellammare neighborhood on January 7.)
By ROSALIE HUNTINGTON
Both Watch Duty and our neighborhood sent alerts on Tuesday afternoon, January 21, announcing that residents could visit their homes or where homes had been, for the first time since the fire began.
Dan [my husband] and I each dropped what we were doing and headed to Parking Lot 3 on PCH, just north (or west) of the Santa Monica Pier.
While waiting for our police escort, representatives from the Red Cross, FEMA, the mayor’s office and others, approached each car in the line to offer assistance, answer questions and hand out N95 masks.
Once in our neighborhood, we both were shocked by the ghosts of homes that burned. And we were stunned at how close the flames got to our home. We knew we were lucky. Now we realize just how lucky we really are.
We have our neighbor, Randy Stoklos, to thank. (Stoklos is a retired American beach volleyball player and the five-time winner of the Manhattan Open.)
Despite the evacuation order on Tuesday, January 7, Randy had chosen to stay in his home for several days, watering down his house and the foliage between our homes.
He told us that by doing so, he put out or pushed back spot fires near our homes.
Randy told us that an even closer call came around 4 o’clock one morning when he awoke to seeing high flames close to our house. He said he attacked them with water as much as he could. While getting that firefight started, a fire crew from Ventura County showed up just in time to finish the job.
Heading out of the neighborhood after talking with Randy and getting more things out of our home, we drove back to PCH, passing by the Palisades Bowl and Tahitian Terrace mobile home parks. On our drive up to our neighborhood, my husband said he had averted his eyes, because he thought seeing the parks would be too tragic. On this drive back down PCH, we both looked. It’s beyond tragic.
Many homes burned in the Castellammare area of Pacific Palisades that overlooks the Pacific Ocean
Photo: DAN HUNTINGTON