L.A APOCALYPSE

AFTER HISTORIC BLAZES ‘OBLITERATED’ HUGE SWATHS OF THE COUNTRY’S SECOND-LARGEST CITY, SURVIVORS SHARE STORIES OF PAIN AND PERSEVERANCE FROM INSIDE THE FLAMES

- By ADAM CARLSON,With EILEEN FINAN, TINA JOHNSON and PATRICK ROGERS. Reporting by DANIELLE BACHER, DAVID CHIU, JOHNNY DODD, ALEXANDRA ROCKEY FLEMING, JORDAN GREENE, LIZZIE HYMAN, WENDY GROSSMAN KANTOR and SUSAN YOUNG

Rodney Nickerson checked in with his son Eric almost every day, trading easy banter about the latest football game, his blood pressure and the sunny Southern California weather. But the 82-year-old retired project engineer ended their last call, early on Jan. 7, with a note of alarm. “He said, ‘Son, the wind is getting really bad out here,’” Eric recalls. “I told him, ‘Dad, be careful, be safe.’”

The next day Rodney, a widower and grandfather, was found dead in bed at his home in Altadena, Calif., making him one of the first victims in what is now the worst series of wildfires in Los Angeles’s history. Vicious drafts of desert-hot Santa Ana winds fed the fast-moving firestorm, which in mere hours roared over mountaintops, through canyons and into city neighborhoods. “I couldn’t believe it,” Rodney’s son says. “It’s bad. It’s bad.”

The blazes that began the morning of Jan. 7 have, as of press time, devoured more than 40,000 acres (approximately three times the size of Manhattan) across the country’s second-largest city. More than 150,000 people were forced to evacuate, and there have been at least 24 deaths and 23 people reported missing, though those numbers are expected to grow.

In the show-business capital of the world, celebrities, too, have been affected and have pledged to lead charity efforts. “It’s mind-boggling,” says Dr. Sara Trepanier, an ER physician who, until the fires started, lived in Pacific Palisades, one of the most devastated areas. “The churches are gone. All our restaurants, all of the grocery stores. It’s all ashes.”