Professional chef Darren Anderson always tells people he was “born in the kitchen”—quite literally.

The 45-year-old man gave birth at home at 295 West Las Flores Avenue, where he lived with his mother until this week.

On Thursday, he stepped over the charred remains of what was once his kitchen in Altadena, a close-knit community northeast of Los Angeles.

He was looking for his cast-iron pans in hopes they might have survived the blaze, one of several historic fires in the region that has killed at least 16 people, devastated several communities and Leaving thousands homeless.

Across the street at No. 296, his friend Rachel’s house was also reduced to ashes. The house next door – 281 – where he once enjoyed family gatherings, is now gone.

About three blocks away, in Devillian Place, where his girlfriend lives, some neighbors tried to use garden hoses to fend off the raging flames that threatened to destroy their homes.

Now, after fires destroyed entire communities nestled in the shadow of the San Gabriel Mountains, they, too, are searching for precious items in the rubble.

It all started on Tuesday night.

Santa Ana was windy most of the day.

Just after 18:00 local time, Daron was in his front yard trying to prevent items from flying away.

Across the street at 296 Silas Flores Ave., Rachel Gillespie was taking down Christmas decorations and worried about her plastic icicles and patio furniture.

They exchanged worried looks. “That doesn’t look good, does it?” she said.

At the time, all they cared about was the wind.

Little did they know that one of the two worst wildfires in Los Angeles history had ignited just a few miles away, part of a days-long nightmare that, at its worst, they would see six flames Also threatening America’s second largest city

The Eaton Fire that has swept through Altadena has now burned more than 14,000 acres, destroyed thousands of homes and businesses, and killed 11 people. By the end of the week, Eaton was only 15% under control.

West of Los Angeles, the Palisades Fire started that morning and has since burned more than 23,000 acres, reducing a vibrant community reduced to ashes and killed at least five people.

Dillon Akers, a next-door neighbor at 281 Daron, was working at a donut stand at Topanga Mall, about 40 miles away, when smoke began to fill their neighborhood.

The 20-year-old man rushed back after hearing the news, only to find that his corner of northwest Altadena was dark and his family was frantically evacuating their home.

As he stuffed his belongings into the back seat of his car, his uncle jumped over the white picket fence to save precious seconds.

For the next two hours, Dillon did the same thing, gathering food, medicine, clothes and toiletries. In his rush, he forgot his keys and spent 30 minutes searching with a flashlight in the smoky darkness until he found them blown against the fence.

During his desperate search, he kept telling himself that local authorities were capable of extinguishing the fires that raged from the hills toward the home he shared with his mother, grandmother, aunt and two cousins.

Dillon has encountered storms before and seen smoke in the mountains, but this time the feeling was different. This time the orange light in the sky was directly overhead.

“My fear level is a 10,” he said.

At 00:30 Wednesday, Dillon said he and his mother were the last people to leave Silas Flores Avenue. They may be the last to make it out alive.

The next day, authorities announced the discovery of the neighbor’s body on the roadside.

Rachel and Darren left the neighborhood about two hours before Dillon. Rachel was kicked out by a friend, who drove up and demanded: “You have to leave now.”

Rachel, her wife, toddler, five cats and two days’ worth of clothes said goodbye to the house they bought a year ago.

Darren also grabbed what he could get his hands on: a guitar he bought when he was 14 with money he earned as an extra in karate films, and a painting of his family walking through London’s Abbey Road, Looks like the cover of The Beatles’ iconic album.

As people on Las Flores Boulevard evacuated, Darren’s neighbors a few blocks away tried to put out the blaze.

At 417 Devillian Plaza, Hipolito Cisneros and his close friend and neighbor Larry Villescas, who lived across the street at 416, seized Garden hose.

The scene outside looked hellish.

A fire broke out in a home’s garage. One car is in front of another car.

They ran hoses from several properties and poured water on the buildings, including the house of Darren’s girlfriend Sage.

“The water is just repelled. It doesn’t even penetrate, nothing,” Ippolito said, referring to the bone-dry soil and brush surrounding the house.

Over time, they made progress, hoses down the embers and extinguished the fire. Larry thinks they might win.

And then their hoses went dry – all because water pressure issues They later learned that firefighting efforts throughout Los Angeles County were being hampered by high demand.

An explosion was heard nearby and another house caught fire. At 1:00 in the morning, the two families packed their bags and prepared to leave.

“We tried. We really tried,” Ippolito said.

At 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, police cars rolled through the streets, using loudspeakers to tell everyone to leave immediately.

As Larry turned the corner, he saw in the truck’s rearview mirror that the garage was on fire.

At 3:00 in the morning, the streets were deserted.

Much of the Los Angeles area is made up of neighborhoods and small communities, like Altadena.

Every morning, people walk through the long lines of people going home to get a cup of coffee at the Little Red Hen Coffee Shop, stopping in for a coffee on their way to work in the morning.

Many described the tight-knit community here over the decades, where they saw neighbors start families and children who once played in the streets grew up.

But driving through the area for the first time since his world was turned upside down, Daron barely recognized his neighbors.

The big blue house marking a familiar turn has disappeared. All the landmarks that had guided him were gone. He pointed at each neighbor’s property and gasped when he realized that none of them were standing.

He took photos of his and Rachel’s home and the street he and Dillon shared. He filmed video and chatted with the family outside Larry and Ippolito’s attempt to save his girlfriend’s home, then called Sage to describe the condition of her home.

“Oh my God, it’s all gone,” he said hoarsely.

But there are still some items left in the ruins.

At his sister’s home on Silas Flores Avenue, he found multicolored plastic lawn ornaments stuck on her lawn that had somehow escaped the fire.

He pulled each stake from the ground because he knew that while these floral decorations might seem insignificant in the midst of disaster, they might also make her smile.

Across the street where his home once was, all that remains is a red brick chimney. Surrounded by a pile of pottery.

His hands were black with soot and he gathered everything he could, but many of the fragments disintegrated with his touch.

There was a charred lemon tree on the lawn, some of the fruit still warm to the touch.

“If I can get a seed, we can plant a new one,” he said, grabbing a handful.

“It’s like a way to start over.”