Orly Israel
Appearances
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
My name is Orly Israel. I live with my family in the Pacific Bosphorus. I found out about the fire about, must have been like 10 a.m. when someone texted me, is everything okay? To which I said, about what? And they said, the fire. And I looked out the window and there's this huge flume of smoke just coming over the mountains. And it's big.
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
You know, I'm thinking about my family. I'm thinking about any future plans I had or totally out the window. You know, it really makes me think about that's when I packed my valuables. I thought, well, these are the most important things to me. And Now I get to live with knowing that I chose those things and I don't think I'm aware enough of the consequences of this to be heartbroken yet.
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
But I think it's just wait for the bad news that the house is completely gone and then wait until they let us come pick through the rubble.
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
And, you know, lifting in Los Angeles, there are fires around fairly often. And, you know, seeing smoke is not an unusual thing. But this was really close. And we start getting automatic evacuation warning. And the fire was getting closer and closer. And you could see it from the bedroom window. You could see the... the flames of water fall down this hill towards the town.
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
The embers were just flying to the sky like a rain of fire. And the sound of a fire, I never would have thought the sound of. You know, it sounds like an airport. It's busy and blazing. We have these two garden hoses and You know, a bush would catch on fire and we'd spray the bush and then another bush would catch on fire.
The Daily
L.A. on Fire
And, you know, eventually the fence caught on fire, the wooden fence between our house and the next house. And it was just too hot and too many embers and couldn't get close enough to it to spray it with the hose without getting burned. And I went, you know, should we fight this? We were wearing swimming trunks. pool goggles and N95 masks. And we just couldn't do it. So we got out of there.