At least ten people have lost their lives and the death toll is feared to rise in the fires raging in the Los Angeles area. About 10,000 homes and buildings have burned down in what has been described as the worst fires in California history.
Among those affected is the family of the Swedish media couple Sigge and Malin Eklund, who lost their home in Pacific Palisades to the flames.
In his podcast – which Sigge Eklund has together with Alex Schulman – he talks about the shock and sadness when the fires started to spread.
Eklund received fire alarms on the phone and left a restaurant to go home to get his dog. At the time, he found it difficult to take in how serious the situation was and initially thought it was mainly forest fires.
– I wanted to get the dog, not because the dog would burn inside at that stage, but because I think they will shut down the whole area, he says.
Black sky
Eklund tells about how he left his taxi and walked up a mountain, home to his house. Then he saw how a school was in flames. He describes a black sky and how he encountered residents leaving the area, with the belongings they had taken with them.
He fought against heavy smoke and managed to get home to the dog.
– I took a bag. It’s so crazy how you behave. I walked around the house without putting anything down. I saw the diaries and thought if you take them you should take the passports, if you take the passports you should take the contracts and important papers. I had a bit of a brain drop there, I was walking around with the damn bag.
Eklund repeatedly fights back tears as he talks about the shock inside and outside the house in Pacific Palisades.
He started walking down the mountain again and was picked up by a motorist who was coming down. He was later reunited with his family at a Santa Monica hotel.
“A sense of vertigo”
Until the end, Sigge Eklund hoped that the house would remain. Much pointed to the fact that it did not. On television, he saw how the entire area was covered in smoke.
– It was a dizzying feeling. You can imagine for yourself that you see the whole city burning, it’s something so damn intangible. It becomes existential in a quirky way. It’s like our world.
In the morning, Sigge and Malin cycled to Pacific Palisades to see if the home was still there but had to turn back after a while, as the smoke was too heavy. Sigge describes a “landscape of ruin, where only concrete structures remained”.
Clips showed the devastation
Once back at the hotel, he received a text message from the woman who drove him down the mountain the day before. Someone had cycled through the entire area and filmed – street after street – and published it all online. He tells about how the whole family gathered around the telephone.
– You recognize certain markers. You can hardly see where you are because there are no houses left. He comes over the crest and we see that where our house stood, only the chimney remains. Not even Trul’s (Sigge’s son) gym in the garage is left. He had lots of postures and weights and such. It is completely flat from the heat. It’s just air. It cannot be taken in that there is no house.
– The whole city is wiped out. There is not a single house left on the mountain. And Belle (Sigge’s daughter) screams straight out.
The Eklund family will remain in the United States. They are now looking for a new house to move to.
TV4 Nyheterna has applied for Sigge Eklund.