Stories of 'a nightmare' emerge from rubble of LA fires

Nearly a full week has passed since Alex Shekarchian and Moogega Cooper hastily packed a few belongings and fled from the second natural disaster to upturn their lives in three months.

In October, the couple survived Hurricane Milton, which slammed the Florida coast. Now, they are among thousands of residents to lose their homes in the unprecedented firestorm continuing to burn across Los Angeles County.

"We've seen weather events get more and more extreme. That Category 5 was unprecedented," Cooper told ABC News of experiencing back-to-back natural disasters on both coasts. "This firestorm was unprecedented."

Shekarchian recalled driving home last Tuesday evening and seeing a "lightning strike of fire" in the hills near their home in Altadena. He said that when he got to his house, there was no electricity and he found Cooper sitting inside next to candles "like the candles we had from when we survived Hurricane Milton."

Fueled by hurricane-strength winds, the Eaton Fire ravaged the communities of Altadena and Pasadena, destroying at least 7,000 structures, including homes and businesses, officials said. On Monday, the fire was 33% contained after consuming more than 14,000 acres.

The Eaton Fire is one of several blazes to break out during Tuesday and Wednesday's Santa Ana windstorm, which struck during a severe drought, authorities said. At one point, seven wildfires were burning all at once across a 45-square-mile area of Los Angeles County.

The Palisades Fire in the oceanside community of Pacific Palisades remains the largest of the fires. The Palisades Fire has destroyed more than 5,000 homes and scorched nearly 24,000 acres. The inferno was 14% contained Monday as firefighters braced for a new Santa Ana wind event forecast to buffet the area through Wednesday.

At least 24 fire-related deaths occurred in the Eaton and Palisades fires, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Offices confirmed. Nearly two dozen people remain unaccounted for, according to the Los Angeles County sheriff. Many of those who died in the fires were elderly or disabled, officials said.

A third major fire, the Hurst Fire near Sylmar in the San Fernando Valley, was stopped by firefighters at 799 acres and was 95% contained on Monday.

Planning to rebuild

Cooper said the blaze that destroyed her home swarmed her neighborhood with incredible speed.

"I actually didn't realize I was going to lose my home until we saw the news of the fire spreading far beyond where mentally I was prepared for them even to go," Cooper told ABC News.

Even after evacuating, Cooper said she believed they would find their home still intact only to learn she and Shekarchian suffered a complete loss.

The couple said that unlike a lot of homeowners, they have home insurance to rebuild and have already decided to do so.

"I think of it as not necessarily losing a physical structure, but we lost a home, we temporarily lost that sense of community," Cooper said. "And that's why I want to rebuild."

Shekarchian added, "It was an easy decision when we knew that we wanted to be part of that rebuild with restaurants we lost, the stores we lost."

On top of everything, Shekarchian said he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer just days before the fires struck.

Shekarchian, an entertainment lawyer, said the movie "Wicked" is helping him get through the horror, which he said was choreographed by one of his clients, Christopher Scott.

"We're just dancing through life kind of," Shekarchian said of how he and Cooper are trying to maintain a positive attitude. "Dancing through cancer, dancing through homelessness."

'It was a nightmare'

Jeffrey and Cheryl Ku also of Altadena told ABC News they believe they were among the first people to see the Eaton Fire ignite at the base of an electrical transmission tower in the hills near their home at 6:19 p.m. on Tuesday.

"My husband had come home from work, and he ran in the house and just started screaming, 'There's a fire on the hill. We need to get out,'" Cheryl Ku said. "I ran out back, saw the fire at the poles and I immediately called 911."

A Ring doorbell camera on their home captured the scary moments after the couple spotted the fire charging into their neighborhood. The Ring video recorded Jeffrey frantically hosing down the exterior of his home while constantly trying to keep an eye on flames advancing toward him.

"It was a nightmare," Jeffrey Ku said. "And I think the worst part was every time I checked on the fire, it got worse."

The couple said their home was left standing.

Neighbors of the couple told ABC News they also saw the Eaton Fire apparently ignite near the transmission tower and rapidly explode.

"There was no other fire, no flames anywhere around," said neighbor Pedro Rojas, who recorded video of the flames near the transmission tower at 6:24 p.m. on Tuesday. "Because it was so dark that if there were flames in any other places we would have noticed it."

Fire officials trying to determine the cause of the Eaton Fire and the other blazes told ABC News they were aware of the videos showing flames near the transmission tower at the onset of the firestorm.

The Southern California Edison company issued a statement to ABC News, saying that while the Eaton Fire started in its service area, a preliminary analysis shows "no interruptions or electrical or operational anomalies until more than one hour after the reported start of the fire." The utility company also said no fire agency has suggested its equipment caused the Eaton Fire.

But Pedro Pizarro, president and CEO of Edison International, the parent company of Southern California Edison, told ABC News on Monday that the company cannot yet rule out the possibility that its energy infrastructure played a role in sparking the wildfires.

'My guardian angel'

After losing their Altadena home of 25 years in the Eaton Fire, Ivan and Robyn Migel said the only thing to survive was a ceramic angel they had in their garden.

"That was my guardian angel in my garden," Robyn Migel told ABC News.

She said that while her stove, refrigerator and furniture "vaporized" along with their house, the angel survived without even cracking.

"It was just marked by smoke from the flames. I thought that was a beautiful sign," Robyn Migel said.

Ivan Migel said that when he saw the angel amid the rubble, he burst into tears.

"It also just gave me hope to move forward and to rebuild from this experience," Ivan Migel said.

The Migels said their daughter was injured while evacuating their home when an ember fell from the sky and hit her in the face.

Robyn Migel said she now regrets not grabbing more family heirlooms and photos in the half-hour they were given to evacuate.

"I've just had to let go of that sadness of what we didn't do in those moments because my family and my pets got out safely and that was the most important," Robyn Migel said.

Learning his home and business were lost

Mike Geller of Pacific Palisades told ABC News that he not only lost his home but also the jewelry store his family has owned in Palisades Village for almost three generations.

Now at age 48, Geller said he has to start over.

"Thank God I was able to retrieve my birth certificate. But every possession my children have accumulated … gone, decimated,” Geller said. "I'm in shock. I'm not even sure how I'm talking to you. I'm absolutely in shock. I'm just going through the motions. It hasn't really set in yet.”

Geller said he has filed a personal insurance claim, but doesn't know when it will be processed. He said he and many of his neighbors, especially older residents who bought their homes decades ago for $50,000 to $75,000, will not have the means to rebuild.

"Those people will not be able to come back. And if they do and they have insurance, will they rebuild?" Geller said. "Look, if I'm 75, 80 years old, you know, how much time do I have?”

Geller said he and his wife are considering not rebuilding.

"It's about quality of life," he said. "If it takes me three years to rebuild, how much time do I actually have left at that point?"

'Nobody stood a chance'

They are used to saving lives and property, but on Monday veteran Los Angeles Fire Department members Capt. Jerry Puga, Capt. Al Hugo and firefighter George Baxter told ABC News that the Eaton Fire has left them all homeless.

"I never thought I'd be a victim. But now I am, along with my colleagues," Baxter said.

Baxter said that when the Eaton Fire swept into his Altadena neighborhood, he tried to defend his home and his neighbor's residence with just a water hose.

"Nobody stood a chance. Nobody could prepare for it. It's just a natural disaster," said Baxter, who has been a member of the LAFD for 30 years.

Hugo recalled that as a rookie firefighter, he had helped battle a large fire that struck Altadena in 1994, but he said he's never seen a fire as ferocious as the one that destroyed his home.

"As prepared as you can be, nobody expected the fire to do what it did," Hugo said. "It caught everybody off guard. It really did."

When the Eaton Fire started just after 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Puga said he didn't expect it to grow into a monster inferno.

"I went to sleep that night knowing that there was a fire, but never thinking that it was going to get to me," Puga said.

When Puga awoke the next morning and started to drive into the city, he said he realized the erratic behavior of the fire was something he had never witnessed before and that the blaze was headed to his neighborhood. He said he turned around and headed back home, calling his family from his vehicle to warn them.

"As soon as I got home, we were able to get out. An hour later, we managed to go back and the house was fully engulfed," Puga said. "We lost the house, the property, the materials -- but the family is safe, and that's the most important thing."