'Nightmare Fuel': Video from Inside as 2 Men, Dog Watch Fire Whirl Around Their Home in Palisades Blaze
With wildfires roaring in Los Angeles County, videos making the rounds on social media are capturing the horror in ways where raw numbers fall short.
More than 30,000 residents have been forced to evacuate, and at least 3,000 acres have been burned.
But one clip posted to social media where two men and a dog were surrounded by flames in a residence brings the scale of the disaster home.
Nightmare Fuel
Two men and a dog trapped in a home surrounded by the Palisades fire. pic.twitter.com/YDCkFmLNbH— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) January 8, 2025
“Nightmare fuel,” wrote social media user Kevin Dalton, a former contender for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
The post had garnered more than 2 million views by early Wednesday morning, with some users pointing out that it showed the importance of heeding evacuation warnings:
This is scary. This a great example of why following evacuation orders immediately is very important!
— Jonathan Newburg (@realjohnnewburg) January 8, 2025
Be the first to leave when disaster strikes, not last.
— Philip Bergen 🇺🇸 (@philipbergen) January 8, 2025
Most Americans would probably agree with Dalton’s description of the scene — watching towering walls of flame raging only just outside the windows is the stuff of nightmares, and the prospect of a blazing, painful death can terrorize even the most secure.
The men in this video — and their pet — managed to safely evacuate, Dalton wrote in a follow-up post. But the danger remains very real in Southern California.
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency, according to Reuters, as three separate fires raged, pushed by California’s Santa Ana winds. One fire is scorching the coastal Pacific Palisades area, two others are burning inland, according to Reuters.
More than 1,400 firefighters are working to control the infernos, according to ABC News.
“Firefighting aircraft scooped water from the sea to drop it on the flames as they engulfed homes,” Reuters reported. “Bulldozers cleared abandoned vehicles from roads so emergency vehicles could pass, television images showed.”
Weather conditions aren’t helping the situation.
Besides the terrain being dry providing potential fuel for the flames — the county experienced its sixth dryest September to December period last year, according to ABC — wind “gusts of up to 99 mph were recorded in the eastern San Gabriel Mountains, 98 mph in the Santa Monica Mountains and 84 mph at Hollywood Burbank Airport,” the network reported.
Conditions are “about as bad as it gets in terms of fire weather,” the National Weather Service declared, according to Reuters.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
