California Man Found Dead with Hose in Hand as Uncontained Wildfires Spread
One of the five confirmed deaths from the fires sweeping across southern California was that of 66-year-old Victor Shaw, who died trying to defend his family’s home from the Eaton fire.
Shaw’s body was found on Wednesday morning, charred and clutching a hose, KTLA reported.
He was reportedly trying to fend off the fire.
The home had been in the family for over five decades.
His younger sister, Shari Shaw, had unsuccessfully tried to convince him to evacuate on Tuesday.
She said, her older brother insisted on staying behind to fight the fire as she was running out of the home.
“When I went back in and yelled out his name, he didn’t reply back, and I had to get out because the embers were so big and flying like a firestorm — I had to save myself,” Shari Shaw told KTLA.
“And I looked behind me, and the house was starting to go up in flames, and I had to leave,” she continued.
Al Tanner, a family friend of the Shaws, added, “It looks like he was trying to save the home that his parents had for almost 55 years.”
Shari Shaw described to KTLA how she reacted to the death.
“I fell to the ground, and I didn’t know — I didn’t want to look at him,” she said. “They just told me that he was lying on the ground and that he looked serene, as if he was at peace.”
The death of Shaw comes as over 130,000 residents in Los Angeles County are under evacuation orders and numerous fires continue to rage: the Palisades, Sunset, Eaton, Hurst, and Lidia fires, according to the Los Angeles Times.
At least 1,000 structures have been destroyed by the Palisades fire, while another 1,000 were either destroyed or damaged by the Eaton fire, per officials with the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
There are roughly 2,500 firefighters assigned to those two blazes, which have been worsened by fast winds, dry plant life, and low humidity in recent days, as well as strained water resources.
Another fire broke out in Hollywood Hills on Wednesday evening, further stretching already limited emergency resources, according to the Times.
“What we saw here in the last 24 hours is unprecedented,” Los Angeles Police Department Chief Jim McDonnell said on Wednesday. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
The fires were entirely uncontained in the early hours of Thursday, with the exception of the Hurst and Lidia fires, which were 10 and 40 percent contained, respectively.
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