Grace Isaacs and her brother Brian had planned their flight from Los Angeles to Philadelphia for their grandfather’s 90th birthday, well before the flames began to tear through Southern California. As they boarded their flight on Wednesday afternoon, the pair fled several catastrophic forest fires.
“It looked like a movie. It looked creepy. The sky was black,” said Grace Isaacs, a Burbank resident. “Driving to LAX was incredible: the sun looked like a fireball.”
Brian Isaacs, who lives in West Hollywood, admitted he wasn’t sure if their flight would even depart.
“Honestly, I didn’t think there was any chance,” he said. “When we took off through the air, it was very scary. Everything smelled like a bonfire.”
Grace Isaacs’ home is less than 10 miles from the Eaton Fire, which is still burning in Pasadena. On Tuesday night, Brian Isaacs captured the distant glow of flames from his balcony in West Hollywood.
“You could see the flames billowing up the hill,” he said.
The destruction left many residents behind staggeringincluding Lisa Leone, a South Philadelphia native who has lived in Studio City, California for nine years. Leone works as a nanny for a family in Pacific Palisades, where she says the fire destroyed their home just hours after evacuation orders were issued.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it. Someday,” Leone said. “We just don’t believe it, like the Palisades are done. As bad as this is and so many people are safe, I think it’s a miracle.”
Leone said she feels conflicted.
“It’s this weird thing where I feel like I don’t know how to feel,” she said.
The Isaacs shared a similar uncertainty and struggled with the decision to leave Los Angeles during such a difficult time.
“It felt very awkward to leave,” Grace Isaacs said. “We were texting our dad, who also lives there, like, ‘Should we go?’ It just felt like we had a responsibility to be there.”
Brian Isaacs echoed the sentiment.
“Yes, there was a sense of guilt,” he said. “The whole city felt heavy. It felt apocalyptic. Even on the plane you could feel the sense of fear.”
