'It’s so surreal': Cork natives speak of their experiences during LA wildfires

A Cork man living in Los Angeles has said he and his partner have “lost everything” due to the ongoing wildfires that have caused widespread devastation.

Andrew Duggan, who is originally from Cork, featured on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland in recent days to discuss his experience with the fires, saying that in just five hours, he and his partner Renata’s home and design studio in Altadena had “completely burned to the ground”.

Mr Duggan said he and Renata left their home an hour after his area received a final evacuation notice at around 2am on Thursday morning.

“When we came back, there was literally the hedges in the front yard and a couple of fruit trees [left] — it was absolutely levelled.

“There were a couple of broken walls standing, the chimney stacks still standing, but other than that, absolutely everything else was unrecognisable — our studio was non-existent, it’s insane how it just disintegrates to dust.

“It’s pretty intense, just to see it all gone, it’s kind of crazy,” he added.

“It’s so surreal, it’s worse than being in a movie because you’re living it — to see the total devastation of thousands of homes.

“There might be one house standing for every 100 houses burned — the entire neighbourhood and community is just gone.

“It’s just sad to see to be honest — it’s going to be a year at least until we’re properly able to rebuild our home and studio.

“We’re definitely moving forward because at the end of the day we’re alive, we’re healthy, our dogs made it out, our neighbours made it out and we can work from there.”

Meanwhile, Irish Eurovision finalist Bambie Thug has spoken of how they nearly got caught up in the LA fires this week.

The Macroom-born artist told the Opinion Line on Cork’s 96FM of their narrow escape from the Runyon Canyon fire.

Bambie received the warning alert and couldn’t get an Uber.

They told PJ Coogan: “I was watching the news, but I had turned it on mute and when I unmuted it immediately said ‘Hollywood Hills evacuate now’.

“I was one of the many residents who received an urgent evacuation notice,” they said.

“So I went up to the roof and behind the house by this restaurant called Yamashiro, which is like this old Japanese, like historic restaurant. There was this big fire next to it.

“There were eight of us on the roof.

“I’ve never experienced a natural disaster. Obviously in Ireland we’re lucky.

“I was trying to book an Uber and they were cancelling on me and then a friend of mine actually came back into the building, gave me a lift down. So I was lucky. I’m in downtown LA now.”

Bambie is due to return home to Ireland at the end of the month.

The death toll from the wildfires ravaging the Los Angeles area rose to 16 as crews continued to battle the blazes at the weekend.

The previous number of confirmed deaths before Saturday was 11 but officials said they expected that figure to rise as teams with dogs conduct systematic grid searches in levelled neighborhoods.