In less than a week, the fires ravaging the surroundings of Los Angeles, California, have left at least 24 dead, according to the latest information communicated by the county forensic medicine service on Sunday January 12. Since the first fires broke out on Tuesday January 7, the toll has continued to rise. And it will probably continue: at least 16 people are still missing, according to the Los Angeles County sheriff, who does not expect “good news”. Search operations are continuing, in particular with the help of dog brigades.
It took several days to identify the victims. The Los Angeles County Forensic Services Department released a list of people Sunday, including 16 who died from the Eaton Fire, the second largest fire, and eight from the ongoing fire in the hills of the upscale neighborhood. from Pacific Palisades. To date, more than 12,000 homes and various buildings have been destroyed or damaged by fire, according to initial estimates from the authorities.
Several victims “appear to have died after refusing to abandon their home”according to the Los Angeles Times. The daily cites, among the victims of the Eaton fire, Rodney Kent Nickerson, 82, and Erliene Kelley, 83. The latter refused to leave her house. However, her granddaughter and her husband, who lived with her, left the place on January 7, seeing “through the kitchen window smoke rising in the distance.” According to the Los Angeles Timeswhich sought to trace the lives of each victim, Erliene Kelley sent a final text message to her granddaughter on January 8. She wanted to take a photo of the fire. The photo was never received. The day after, “Police informed the family that a body had been discovered in the rubble of where the house once stood”.
The newspaper also reports that Charles Mortimer, 84, of Pacific Palisades, died at the hospital “from a heart attack, smoke inhalation and burns”. For its part, CNN reports that Annette Rossilli, another octogenarian, “insisted on staying in his Pacific Palisades home with his dog Greetly, his canary Pepper, his two parrots and his turtle”, citing information provided by the home care company that visited him three times a week. CNN lists another female victim, aged 95, as well as a father, “found at his son’s bedside”.
-Among the victims, some are younger, like Australian actor Rory Sykes. Child star who hosted the reality TV show “Kiddy Kapers”, he died at age 32 on January 8 in the family home in Malibu. The young man, who lived with cerebral palsy in his own chalet on his family's estate, remained trapped in the flames. In a message on the social network “was able to put out the ashes on his roof with a hose because the water was cut off” by the local supplier. According to her, her son died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
American media reveals other identities: Victor Shaw, 66“died of smoke inhalation and burns at his home in Altadena”, Arthur Simoneau, “hang gliding enthusiast” aged 69, or even Randall Miod, “Malibu surfer” 55 years old.
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