March 24, 2025 • 15 mins
Journalist Mimi Brown recounts her experience evacuating during the fire and learning about its devastation in Altadena, a historic Black middle-class community. We explore the scope of destruction - over 9,000 structures lost, with Black families disproportionately affected.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I've lived in Los Angeles for over fifteen years, and
in all that time, I've never seen anything like what
unfolded in just a few days.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Los Angeles is.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
A place of beauty, glamour, and endless possibility. But what
transformed before my eyes looked like a war zone for me.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
It began on a Wednesday night. The sunset.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Fire was all over the news, raging dangerously close. I
was glued to the updates, but then I heard the
news another fire had sparked in Studio City, the place
where I call home.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
My heart sank. Minutes later, my phone buzzed.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
A friend, her voice shaky, told me there was a
fire at the end of my block. In that moment,
panic set in. How do you decide what to take
when you may never return? Of course, I remembered the
three p these people, paperwork and passports. But what about
(01:03):
my son's kindergarten cap and gown, photo albums, things I'd
stuck on the fridge. I couldn't think clearly my hands
they moved on autopilot. We left without the sentimental things.
Tears stinging my eyes as I forced a brave face
for my son. He's only eleven, and he was terrified.
(01:25):
I mean beyond terrified, he cried, clinging to me, asking
me over and.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Over will we be okay?
Speaker 1 (01:34):
I wanted to promise him we would, but I wasn't
even sure. That night, we evacuated to a friend's home,
thinking we'd be safe, but by dawn the Kendith fire
had sparked near her neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Once again, we were forced to pack up and leave.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Exhausted, frightened, and out of options, we roamed around trying
to stay ahead of the flames. It felt like the
city itself was on fire. Eventually, the sunset fire was
contained and the fires and studio city were out, but
it wasn't as simple as relief washing over me. The
(02:11):
drive back home was filled with dread, and yet we
were among the lucky ones. Our house was still standing,
but others weren't so lucky. Twenty minutes away in Altadena,
devastation painted an entirely different picture.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
The Eaten Fire, one.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Of several wildfires ravaging Los Angeles County, ripped through Altadena
and Pasadena, fueled by unrelenting Santa Anta winds. In just
two days, it had consumed over ten thousand acres, destroyed
nearly one thousand structures and left several people dead. But
(02:48):
what it left behind wasn't just ash and rubble. It
was a destruction of a thriving, historic Black community. Altadena
isn't just a place, It's a living, breathing legacy. I've
walked through those streets countless times. My sorority once held
their chapter meetings there, and just a few months ago,
my best friend gave me a personal tour of her
(03:11):
childhood neighborhood. I remember her pride, pointing out landmarks, stories
attached to every corner of every street. But little did
we know it would be her last tour of the
city as she knew it. Altadena is a sanctuary that
dates back to the Great Migration, a haven for Black
(03:32):
families escaping the oppression of the Jim Crow South. By
the nineteen twenties and thirties, it had become a thriving
center for black professionals and creatives. People like Octavia Butler,
the science fiction icon and Sydney Portier, the first Black
actor to win an Academy Award for Best Actor. These
(03:54):
were the roots of Altadena. Generations built their lives there,
carving out a space for pride and resilience, and now
much of that history is gone. The ETN fire didn't
just destroy buildings. It took homes, churches, businesses, and pieces
of cultural tapestry that can't be replaced. Families who had
(04:19):
already fought systemic racism and housing discrimination now faced the
monumental task of rebuilding with fewer resources than their wealthier
neighbors in Malibu and the Palisades. This isn't a story
of celebrity laws. This is a story of working families,
Black families who built something out of nothing, only to
(04:40):
watch it burn. Yet, even in the face of tragedy,
the spirit of Altadena hasn't been extinguished. Local churches have
opened their doors to provide shelter and supplies. Neighbors are
rallying to support one another, offering.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
What little they have left.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Leaders are documenting the damage, ensuring the stories of this
community are preserved for future generations. Alta Dina has weather
storms before, storms of racism, inequality, and now nature's fury.
It's people have always fought back, and as I sit
in my home, untouched by the flames, I think of
(05:19):
those families and their unyielding spirits. This is not a
story of loss. It's a story of resilience, of community,
determination to rise again, to rebuild, and to hold on
to its legacy because Alta Dina is not just a
place on a map. It's a testament to the strength
of its people. I'm Mimi Brown, and in this series
(05:43):
you'll hear stories told firsthand by the people who live them.
These are their voices, their memories, and their truth to
Alta Dina With love.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Meet Edgar Johnson.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
I just got a call and alert about seven o'clock
that night, and uh, my neighbor says, Hey, Edgar, there's
an alert. There's a fast moving fire. We're leaving now.
And I was in shock. I was way in Fontana.
I'm like, what you know? So I I didn't believe
that it would move that fast. Within hours from Eaton Canyon,
(06:22):
it was all the way in out to Dina and
from Mount to Dinner, went across the out to then
and drive from Mount to Dent, drive across the lake,
and it just fast moving. I stayed. I went back
to that Fontana, came back and I stayed til almost four
in the mornings. I was hoping that the wind would
die down for just a minute and I'll take a
water holes and just water everything down, keep watering it
(06:43):
until I saved the house. But the winds were going
like a hundred miles an hour, and then the houses
around me started to explode. Boom, down, hear another boom.
I said, Okay, I know, uh uh, I take a risk,
but this might be the time I.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Need to pull out.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
Cause you could see you you look, you put your
hand about four feet in front of you came see,
so I was like, I couldn't see and just to
see all my neighbor's houses going. It was like somebody
took a bomb in outta Dina and dropped it. All
the houses were cleared out when you when you left, Yes,
what did you take?
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Nothing?
Speaker 4 (07:17):
I couldn't you know. I got I got a few
things out. I was when I first went in. I said,
I come right back. When I got back that I
couldn't get nothing, nothing, nothing, just.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
To close on my back. That's it. In my car,
all four four vehicles that are all burnt.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Work van burned, two work vans burned, everything burned, a
little hundred burnt every Most of the people were sitting
in their driveway hoping help was on the way.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
So they were.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
They had packed what they could in the car that
I'd seen when I drove up. So they were sitting
in the car with the stuff packed, lights on, engine on.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Just people. We were holding on.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
We were holding on for a fire truck to show up, something,
a plane or drop some water something. Then come the
fire hydrants were dry. You know when when some of
the firemen were show up and hooked to a fire
n no water came out. And then the fire jines
we had if you had a little fire over there
that they could put it out. They couldn't put it out.
(08:10):
They just watched the house burner like you could take
a bucket of water and put some of these fires out.
The help wasn't there. I don't know what's going on,
and I don't think it's their far. I think it's
above them, because, uh, how do we not have fire
hydrants with water?
Speaker 3 (08:25):
How?
Speaker 4 (08:26):
How how do we have one fire truck for a
whole community just going up and down the street.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
I I do.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
I don't understand that that. That's baffling to me. Somebody
dropped the ball. People were I I've seen one guy
he was on top of that brother on one roof
here on the other side of the rough, sweating bricks,
trying to put the the house out.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
And they they saved the house, but there was.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
A fire on one side of the house, another fire
on the other side. Of fire in the front of 'em,
fire in the back. And they were they they were
up there saving the house. I mean, we put everything
into a home. What's the American dream on a home?
White pigy fence. I mean, people were trying to save.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Their properties, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
And there's another aspect of that because these were this
is a black community, this is a bla and how
hard it is for black people.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
To own homes and to get homes and to keep.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Homes or just to get alan.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
And so we're trying to save our community and not
to have that back up from uh, the folks in
charge that we pay not to have water, not have
our basins filled with water, all the rain that came
down here a year ago, and.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
They let it go to the ocean. I that's to me,
it's unbelievable. So they gotta help us put it back together.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
We had we've had the house and the family since
the seventies, and we're gonna rebuild. You don't Pasadena. Ain't
no joke. You know, we know them throughout the country.
You know, we put athletes all through the country here,
from Pasadena out to Deena. You know, uh, we we
we serve a powerful God, an abundant God. We got abundance.
So this is what's happening here. It's gonna turn into good.
(09:55):
We gonna make sure it turns into good. Well, we
practiced something out here called Diana love.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Well.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
We love on each other. We have I mean mutual
respect and care for one another. You's just have seen
all the love and in the communion in the last
few days. Water food, We always check on each other.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
You know. To go to high school here was life changing.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
The pepperality, the girls and the ladies here so beautiful.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
We first moved out, said we're not going to nowhere
else ever.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
And when you go to our house somebody's house party,
the houses were beautiful inside. And now the parents who
meet you at the door, we have a good time.
You know, you always just remember where you grew up
and uh, and in which way we grew up. And
to know that like to feel that maybe the the
(10:45):
passion and the love that's here has been knocked out
of here.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
I hope not. I hope not. I just hope not.
I hope people are.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
I want to see people come back and rebuilding on
my blocking in my neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Yeah, that's what we're gonna do.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
What we calling were calling Alta Dina Eating Care Passadena Strong,
we shall rebuild.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Next meet eighty one year old Willie Johnson, who made
a heartbreaking discovery after the fire the body of his neighbor.
Speaker 5 (11:15):
Yesterday he's gone, and Tomorrowrow may never be mine.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
One day a time.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
I did not think at the time that that fire
we're really gonna jump from Eating Canyon. You know, I
just didn't anticipate because I in fifty years, there's never
been anything like that. In fact that even in sixty years,
it hasn't been that kind of fire up there.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
In Alta Dina.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
So when I hung around trying to honestly, I was
outside trying to water down the house and didn't want
to leave.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Embers started to fall.
Speaker 5 (11:52):
You could see him hitting the ground, and I looked
at my house and I said, well, there's no more,
nothing more I can do. I've watered it down the sides.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
I've wanted the back. Here's what's left.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
I didn't put my passport in my suitcase because I
did not think that the fire was going to hit.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
You know.
Speaker 5 (12:17):
I grabbed some papers out of my office insurance papers.
I thought about that, and I I in my car
insurance papers, so I put those in my bag. But
I left my check book. I left, you know, all
my printers. I left everything like that, left all the clothes.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
His name is Victor Shaw. He is sixty six years old.
Speaker 6 (12:38):
He lived with his younger sister, Sherry, and they lived
in the family home where they had been for years.
When the fire started to move through yesterday and burning everything,
Sherry said to him that we've got to go, and
she ran out the door and fled herself. But she
said that he responded by saying, I'm gonna stay behind
and try to fight the fire.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
I know him very well well to tell you about him,
I got also to tell you about his parents, if
that's okay.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
All his cars over here.
Speaker 5 (13:09):
So when I came there, his parents was there, and
they were growing up. You know, I guess in eighty
one years you see a lot. I he was younger
than I, Victure was, but him and his sister was
living in the house. They grew up there, his father
Freddie and uh sh Uh Shaw and Frank Shaw. Frank
w was the father and f he gr took great
(13:30):
pride in maintaining his house. And my son was with me,
and he kept looking, and he looked down and he
saw Victure lying in front of his house. That's where
he made his last stand, holding his water holes, fighting
(13:51):
for his house.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Right here.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
Every house that's creating.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
And I've lost every day.
Speaker 5 (14:13):
There's a scripture in the Bible that tells you to
put your faith not.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
On things on this or on temporal things.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
And if you believe and trust in God, whatever is
taken from you, he will restore. I've learned trust in
Jesus and depend.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
My phone is word.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
To Outta Dina with Love was recorded, produced and edited
by me Mimi Brown. For more content, including behind the
scenes videos, photos, and exclusive interviews, follow us on social media.
You can find me at Mimi Brown TV on all
platforms and follow to Alta Dina with Love for more
(15:00):
stories from the people who live them.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
I Mimi Brown. This is to out Ta Dina with Love.
See you next time.
I've lived in Los Angeles for over fifteen years, and
in all that time, I've never seen anything like what
unfolded in just a few days.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Los Angeles is.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
A place of beauty, glamour, and endless possibility. But what
transformed before my eyes looked like a war zone for me.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
It began on a Wednesday night. The sunset.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Fire was all over the news, raging dangerously close. I
was glued to the updates, but then I heard the
news another fire had sparked in Studio City, the place
where I call home.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
My heart sank. Minutes later, my phone buzzed.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
A friend, her voice shaky, told me there was a
fire at the end of my block. In that moment,
panic set in. How do you decide what to take
when you may never return? Of course, I remembered the
three p these people, paperwork and passports. But what about
(01:03):
my son's kindergarten cap and gown, photo albums, things I'd
stuck on the fridge. I couldn't think clearly my hands
they moved on autopilot. We left without the sentimental things.
Tears stinging my eyes as I forced a brave face
for my son. He's only eleven, and he was terrified.
(01:25):
I mean beyond terrified, he cried, clinging to me, asking
me over and.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Over will we be okay?
Speaker 1 (01:34):
I wanted to promise him we would, but I wasn't
even sure. That night, we evacuated to a friend's home,
thinking we'd be safe, but by dawn the Kendith fire
had sparked near her neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Once again, we were forced to pack up and leave.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Exhausted, frightened, and out of options, we roamed around trying
to stay ahead of the flames. It felt like the
city itself was on fire. Eventually, the sunset fire was
contained and the fires and studio city were out, but
it wasn't as simple as relief washing over me. The
(02:11):
drive back home was filled with dread, and yet we
were among the lucky ones. Our house was still standing,
but others weren't so lucky. Twenty minutes away in Altadena,
devastation painted an entirely different picture.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
The Eaten Fire, one.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Of several wildfires ravaging Los Angeles County, ripped through Altadena
and Pasadena, fueled by unrelenting Santa Anta winds. In just
two days, it had consumed over ten thousand acres, destroyed
nearly one thousand structures and left several people dead. But
(02:48):
what it left behind wasn't just ash and rubble. It
was a destruction of a thriving, historic Black community. Altadena
isn't just a place, It's a living, breathing legacy. I've
walked through those streets countless times. My sorority once held
their chapter meetings there, and just a few months ago,
my best friend gave me a personal tour of her
(03:11):
childhood neighborhood. I remember her pride, pointing out landmarks, stories
attached to every corner of every street. But little did
we know it would be her last tour of the
city as she knew it. Altadena is a sanctuary that
dates back to the Great Migration, a haven for Black
(03:32):
families escaping the oppression of the Jim Crow South. By
the nineteen twenties and thirties, it had become a thriving
center for black professionals and creatives. People like Octavia Butler,
the science fiction icon and Sydney Portier, the first Black
actor to win an Academy Award for Best Actor. These
(03:54):
were the roots of Altadena. Generations built their lives there,
carving out a space for pride and resilience, and now
much of that history is gone. The ETN fire didn't
just destroy buildings. It took homes, churches, businesses, and pieces
of cultural tapestry that can't be replaced. Families who had
(04:19):
already fought systemic racism and housing discrimination now faced the
monumental task of rebuilding with fewer resources than their wealthier
neighbors in Malibu and the Palisades. This isn't a story
of celebrity laws. This is a story of working families,
Black families who built something out of nothing, only to
(04:40):
watch it burn. Yet, even in the face of tragedy,
the spirit of Altadena hasn't been extinguished. Local churches have
opened their doors to provide shelter and supplies. Neighbors are
rallying to support one another, offering.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
What little they have left.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Leaders are documenting the damage, ensuring the stories of this
community are preserved for future generations. Alta Dina has weather
storms before, storms of racism, inequality, and now nature's fury.
It's people have always fought back, and as I sit
in my home, untouched by the flames, I think of
(05:19):
those families and their unyielding spirits. This is not a
story of loss. It's a story of resilience, of community,
determination to rise again, to rebuild, and to hold on
to its legacy because Alta Dina is not just a
place on a map. It's a testament to the strength
of its people. I'm Mimi Brown, and in this series
(05:43):
you'll hear stories told firsthand by the people who live them.
These are their voices, their memories, and their truth to
Alta Dina With love.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Meet Edgar Johnson.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
I just got a call and alert about seven o'clock
that night, and uh, my neighbor says, Hey, Edgar, there's
an alert. There's a fast moving fire. We're leaving now.
And I was in shock. I was way in Fontana.
I'm like, what you know? So I I didn't believe
that it would move that fast. Within hours from Eaton Canyon,
(06:22):
it was all the way in out to Dina and
from Mount to Dinner, went across the out to then
and drive from Mount to Dent, drive across the lake,
and it just fast moving. I stayed. I went back
to that Fontana, came back and I stayed til almost four
in the mornings. I was hoping that the wind would
die down for just a minute and I'll take a
water holes and just water everything down, keep watering it
(06:43):
until I saved the house. But the winds were going
like a hundred miles an hour, and then the houses
around me started to explode. Boom, down, hear another boom.
I said, Okay, I know, uh uh, I take a risk,
but this might be the time I.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Need to pull out.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
Cause you could see you you look, you put your
hand about four feet in front of you came see,
so I was like, I couldn't see and just to
see all my neighbor's houses going. It was like somebody
took a bomb in outta Dina and dropped it. All
the houses were cleared out when you when you left, Yes,
what did you take?
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Nothing?
Speaker 4 (07:17):
I couldn't you know. I got I got a few
things out. I was when I first went in. I said,
I come right back. When I got back that I
couldn't get nothing, nothing, nothing, just.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
To close on my back. That's it. In my car,
all four four vehicles that are all burnt.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
Work van burned, two work vans burned, everything burned, a
little hundred burnt every Most of the people were sitting
in their driveway hoping help was on the way.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
So they were.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
They had packed what they could in the car that
I'd seen when I drove up. So they were sitting
in the car with the stuff packed, lights on, engine on.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Just people. We were holding on.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
We were holding on for a fire truck to show up, something,
a plane or drop some water something. Then come the
fire hydrants were dry. You know when when some of
the firemen were show up and hooked to a fire
n no water came out. And then the fire jines
we had if you had a little fire over there
that they could put it out. They couldn't put it out.
(08:10):
They just watched the house burner like you could take
a bucket of water and put some of these fires out.
The help wasn't there. I don't know what's going on,
and I don't think it's their far. I think it's
above them, because, uh, how do we not have fire
hydrants with water?
Speaker 3 (08:25):
How?
Speaker 4 (08:26):
How how do we have one fire truck for a
whole community just going up and down the street.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
I I do.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
I don't understand that that. That's baffling to me. Somebody
dropped the ball. People were I I've seen one guy
he was on top of that brother on one roof
here on the other side of the rough, sweating bricks,
trying to put the the house out.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
And they they saved the house, but there was.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
A fire on one side of the house, another fire
on the other side. Of fire in the front of 'em,
fire in the back. And they were they they were
up there saving the house. I mean, we put everything
into a home. What's the American dream on a home?
White pigy fence. I mean, people were trying to save.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Their properties, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
And there's another aspect of that because these were this
is a black community, this is a bla and how
hard it is for black people.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
To own homes and to get homes and to keep.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Homes or just to get alan.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
And so we're trying to save our community and not
to have that back up from uh, the folks in
charge that we pay not to have water, not have
our basins filled with water, all the rain that came
down here a year ago, and.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
They let it go to the ocean. I that's to me,
it's unbelievable. So they gotta help us put it back together.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
We had we've had the house and the family since
the seventies, and we're gonna rebuild. You don't Pasadena. Ain't
no joke. You know, we know them throughout the country.
You know, we put athletes all through the country here,
from Pasadena out to Deena. You know, uh, we we
we serve a powerful God, an abundant God. We got abundance.
So this is what's happening here. It's gonna turn into good.
(09:55):
We gonna make sure it turns into good. Well, we
practiced something out here called Diana love.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Well.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
We love on each other. We have I mean mutual
respect and care for one another. You's just have seen
all the love and in the communion in the last
few days. Water food, We always check on each other.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
You know. To go to high school here was life changing.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
The pepperality, the girls and the ladies here so beautiful.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
We first moved out, said we're not going to nowhere
else ever.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
And when you go to our house somebody's house party,
the houses were beautiful inside. And now the parents who
meet you at the door, we have a good time.
You know, you always just remember where you grew up
and uh, and in which way we grew up. And
to know that like to feel that maybe the the
(10:45):
passion and the love that's here has been knocked out
of here.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
I hope not. I hope not. I just hope not.
I hope people are.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
I want to see people come back and rebuilding on
my blocking in my neighborhood.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Yeah, that's what we're gonna do.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
What we calling were calling Alta Dina Eating Care Passadena Strong,
we shall rebuild.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Next meet eighty one year old Willie Johnson, who made
a heartbreaking discovery after the fire the body of his neighbor.
Speaker 5 (11:15):
Yesterday he's gone, and Tomorrowrow may never be mine.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
One day a time.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
I did not think at the time that that fire
we're really gonna jump from Eating Canyon. You know, I
just didn't anticipate because I in fifty years, there's never
been anything like that. In fact that even in sixty years,
it hasn't been that kind of fire up there.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
In Alta Dina.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
So when I hung around trying to honestly, I was
outside trying to water down the house and didn't want
to leave.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Embers started to fall.
Speaker 5 (11:52):
You could see him hitting the ground, and I looked
at my house and I said, well, there's no more,
nothing more I can do. I've watered it down the sides.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
I've wanted the back. Here's what's left.
Speaker 5 (12:10):
I didn't put my passport in my suitcase because I
did not think that the fire was going to hit.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
You know.
Speaker 5 (12:17):
I grabbed some papers out of my office insurance papers.
I thought about that, and I I in my car
insurance papers, so I put those in my bag. But
I left my check book. I left, you know, all
my printers. I left everything like that, left all the clothes.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
His name is Victor Shaw. He is sixty six years old.
Speaker 6 (12:38):
He lived with his younger sister, Sherry, and they lived
in the family home where they had been for years.
When the fire started to move through yesterday and burning everything,
Sherry said to him that we've got to go, and
she ran out the door and fled herself. But she
said that he responded by saying, I'm gonna stay behind
and try to fight the fire.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
I know him very well well to tell you about him,
I got also to tell you about his parents, if
that's okay.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
All his cars over here.
Speaker 5 (13:09):
So when I came there, his parents was there, and
they were growing up. You know, I guess in eighty
one years you see a lot. I he was younger
than I, Victure was, but him and his sister was
living in the house. They grew up there, his father
Freddie and uh sh Uh Shaw and Frank Shaw. Frank
w was the father and f he gr took great
(13:30):
pride in maintaining his house. And my son was with me,
and he kept looking, and he looked down and he
saw Victure lying in front of his house. That's where
he made his last stand, holding his water holes, fighting
(13:51):
for his house.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Right here.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
Every house that's creating.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
And I've lost every day.
Speaker 5 (14:13):
There's a scripture in the Bible that tells you to
put your faith not.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
On things on this or on temporal things.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
And if you believe and trust in God, whatever is
taken from you, he will restore. I've learned trust in
Jesus and depend.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
My phone is word.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
To Outta Dina with Love was recorded, produced and edited
by me Mimi Brown. For more content, including behind the
scenes videos, photos, and exclusive interviews, follow us on social media.
You can find me at Mimi Brown TV on all
platforms and follow to Alta Dina with Love for more
(15:00):
stories from the people who live them.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
I Mimi Brown. This is to out Ta Dina with Love.
See you next time.
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