Despite losing everything in Los Angeles wildfires, residents say they're thankful to be alive

Among the tens of thousands of people who fled their homes as multiple wildfires ripped through Los Angeles County this week, residents like Nikki Rifkin said all they have left are the clothes on their backs and a few belongings they grabbed as they ran for their lives.

"You wake up one morning and everything is normal. And you go to bed that night and you have nothing," said Rifkin, whose home in the community of Pacific Palisades was destroyed.

In the Palisades Bowl neighborhood, a distraught resident named Shaun went Thursday to assess damage to his residence in the waterfront mobile home park. Staring at the rubble and the row after row of his neighbors' decimated homes, he told ABC News, "There's absolutely nothing."

“Mars would be more habitable than this place right now. So it’s crazy," said Shaun, bursting into tears.

"I'm sorry, this is really hard," he said. "I mean people lost everything."

Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said at a news conference Thursday morning that a preliminary damage assessment in Pacific Palisades indicates that destroyed structures, including homes, are likely to number in the thousands.

The Palisades Fire is the largest and most devastating of six wildfires that ignited on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to Marrone, having grown to more than 19,000 acres as of Thursday evening. Area homes still standing remain under threat as blustery Santa Ana winds continued to buffet the oceanside community about 20 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.

Cameron Mathison, an actor on the ABC daytime drama "General Hospital," posted a video on Instagram showing his once "beautiful home" of 13 years in Pacific Palisades reduced to rubble and charred debris.

During an interview Thursday morning on ABC's "Good Morning America," Mathison said that while he and his family are distraught over the loss of their home, he was thankful to be alive.

"Everybody is OK," Mathison told "GMA" co-host Robin Roberts. "My daughter and son are in school overseas. My son is still in Europe but my daughter is in LA right now. Their mom, Vanessa, and I are separated but I'm staying with Vanessa. We're all going through this together."

Mathison said he evacuated Tuesday night and when he returned to his home Wednesday morning, he recorded and posted to Instagram a video of his home completely leveled by the fire.

"The video is muted because I'm crying uncontrollably. I didn't even know those sounds could come out of me," Mathison said. "I was struggling to breathe because of the smoke and ash. It was so surreal."

Mathison added, "Right now, all I have in my possession is a T-shirt, a hoodie, two pairs of pants, one of which is a workout pair, two pairs of sneakers and my toiletries."

At least six fires were burning simultaneously Wednesday over a 42-square-mile area of Los Angeles County. On Thursday, aerial video footage showed block after block of destroyed homes in Pacific Palisades, with little other than brick chimneys left standing.

In Pasadena and Altadena, both about 11 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, similar scenes of damage played out. The Hurst Fire, the second-largest blaze of the unprecedented firestorm, leveled at least 1,000 structures, including homes, and burned more than 10,600 acres total in both communities.

"All the stuff here is replaceable; people are not," Altadena resident Mark Simington, who lost his home, told ABC News.

Simington said he and his wife and children returned to their home on Wednesday and found it in ruins.

"Having the family is the most important thing," Simington said as he and his family joined for an emotional group hug amid the rubble of their home.

At least five people are known to have died in the fires. Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said Thursday that the death toll from the fires could rise.

Looters were making matters worse for residents whose homes were destroyed, Luna said at a Thursday morning news conference, adding arrests had been made for looting homes in the multiple fire zones.

“I’m going to make this crystal clear to everybody out there. We are up to 20 individuals who chose to go into our areas and deprive these poor people, who have been through so much, of their property," Luna said, adding that anyone not authorized to be in an evacuated fire zone would be arrested, regardless of whether they're caught looting.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman echoed Luna's outrage.

"These acts are despicable and we will prosecute them with maximal punishment," Hochman said.