A man and two of his lifelong surfer friends joined hands to save his mother's home in Pacific Palisades, where wildfires left a trail of devastation last week. On January 7, Chris Clinton, 49, received a frantic call. His mother's neighbourhood in Pacific Palisades was in flames, and Clinton was urged to check on her home. At first, it didn't concern him much as fires were a common occurrence in the area.
But as he made his way to the family home, Clinton found his mother, Kathy, 79, already packed and ready to evacuate. “She was ready to go. But I said no. We need to turn all the sprinklers and hoses on,” Clinton told The New York Post.
He quickly got to work, grabbing a garden hose and placing a sprinkler on the roof — a technique he learned from his late father. “I remember as a kid, my father watered down everything on the roof. We all evacuated and my father stayed back,” he recalled.
But after 15 minutes of spraying, the water ran out. Realising he didn't have much time, Clinton made plans to evacuate his mother. As they attempted to escape, hurricane-force winds fanned the flames, and embers flew wildly in all directions.
After taking shelter at his friend Nimai Keston's home that night, Clinton feared the worst — that his family home was lost to the flames. The following morning, his friends insisted they return to assess the damage.
Clinton and two other friends then set out. Navigating the wildfires, they saw entire neighbourhoods in flames, power lines down and telephone poles on fire. “Everything is so eerie. Power lines down. And we're just going up. And everything is either on fire or gone,” Clinton said. But when they reached his home, they found it was still intact, with fires in the backyard. Armed with pool water-filled coolers, the three men sprang into action to put out the flames.
“We were so close. So close. We made it just by the skin of our teeth. So close,” Clinton said. They quickly extinguished the fires in the backyard, even hopping a fence to help a neighbour whose property was also in danger.
Explaining why he took such a high-risk approach to save the family home, Clinton said, “There was nobody. I don't know where everybody was. There was no one.” Despite the immediate danger, the trio remained vigilant, keeping an eye out for potential looters.
After several days of uncertainty, the water supply was restored, and Clinton's friend provided a Starlink internet device to reconnect them to the outside world, although power remained down. As the National Guard arrived to secure the area, Clinton realised he could no longer leave due to the heavy presence of military vehicles and law enforcement.
“Most of the fires are out. Right now I don't see any smoke. But it's wild to walk around, the National Guard is here,” he said, adding that the scene resembled a warzone with tanks, hummers and cops everywhere.
Despite the devastation, Clinton's quick thinking, along with the support of his friends, saved a piece of his family's history — a home bought by his father in 1972 for just $90,000 (around Rs 78 lakh).
