Caymanian producer and director Sean Rankine said he looked on in disbelief as news broke on Wednesday of deadly fires in Los Angeles, not knowing how close to his home that devastation would come.
Rankine spoke with the Cayman Compass via telephone on Friday in Grand Cayman where he is currently staying.
He recounted getting evacuation alerts on his US phone as his Nichols Canyon neighbourhood faced threat from fires raging in the Sunset area just north of Hollywood Boulevard.
It was one of several areas in LA battling raging infernos this week.
Media reports out of the US said at least 10 people have died in fires in LA and around 10,000 buildings have been razed.
The death toll is expected to rise and so too the damage as at least five fires had not been contained by Friday evening.
Rankine recounted watching the fires unfold and the news reports showing his community under threat.
“I mean, sadly, as an Angelino, you’re sort of used to hearing [about] wildfires, and you just hope that it’s not in your area. This was not something that we’d expected to be in the Nichols Canyon area at all. Obviously the Palisades fires [is] on the other side of town. It’s in West LA,” he said.
However, as the news progressed, the threat from that fire grew and so did Rankine’s fear.
“It was real close. The ridge for Runyon [Canyon], literally I could see it from my patio, and so that’s where the fire was … Nichols Canyon literally runs at the bottom of my ridge. So it was a little close for comfort,” he said.
He said with the Santa Ana winds, with gusts that surpassed hurricane strength, there was always a chance the fire could have moved closer to his community.
“You never know which way they’re going to shift,” he said.
Thankfully though, firefighters brought the Sunset fire under control Thursday, sparing Rankine’s home and those in his neighbourhood.
‘Hard, heartbreaking’
Many homes, however, including some belonging to his friends, were not as fortunate in the fires raging in the city.
“I have friends on both sides of these fires that have lost everything. You know, it’s hard, it’s heartbreaking. You work with these people every day. They’re people you went to college with, people you’ve known 20, 30 years. You’ve been to these places,” he said.
The reality of the devastation has hit Rankine hard as he said he is hurting for those who have suffered.
“To know that these people are putting in countless hours and months and years of sweat equity to have these really nice homes, and to have places to raise their family and for it to be gone 10 minutes after you get a text that says you have to be out – that’s just something really sort of hard to wrap your head around,” Rankine said.
He said one of the producers on the ‘Grand Cayman: Secrets in Paradise’ reality show, which he also produced, lost their home.
Anyone living in LA at the moment is dealing with a traumatic incident, he said.
“A city is literally burning down around them. Five to six concurrent blazes is unreal. It’s devastating,” he said.
He paid homage to the first responders and firefighters on the frontlines of the fire battle.
He said their actions have saved lives while they risked theirs.
Images from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Flickr account show some of the risks personnel face on the frontlines.
“They’re priceless. These people are putting themselves in harm’s way, to protect people, to save lives, to prevent any further disasters from happening, and trying to save these people’s belongings the best they can,” he said.
Lessons for Cayman
Rankine recalled seeing a firefighter in a news report pulling family photo albums out of homes in areas that had not been burnt yet so residents could at least have those memories.
He said the area of devastation is the about the size of Grand Cayman and he believes there are lessons that the community can take away from the LA fires.
“It’s a message for us here in Cayman too, for disaster preparedness, for climate change-related issues. Teams like Danielle Coleman’s [at Hazard Management Cayman Islands] are just priceless. We need to make sure they’re funded properly and to make sure that they have the resources they need to be able to protect us in any sort of natural disasters,” he said.
He said such things are what the community needs to be paying attention to “because these things can happen and life can change in a matter of seconds, and that’s what we need to be aware of”.
As for LA, he said, it is a resilient city and while the fires are the largest disaster it has experienced, he has faith that residents will rebuilt.
“Angelinos are resilient people, and they come together at a time when they need to pull together to get things back on track. So I’m optimistic that there will be regrowth and rebirth from this, but it’s going to take the community pulling together and putting aside differences,” he said.
He urged the community to consider donating to disaster-relief efforts as it will take lots of people coming together to help the city get back on its feet.
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