If your house was on fire and you only had time to grab a few things, what would you take with you? When you’re an adult, it’s a question you’ve most likely thought about — a list in the back of your mind of Social Security cards, photo albums, family heirlooms. When you’re a kid, it’s not your job to prepare for the possibility of that kind of loss.
But last month, as wildfires tore through Los Angeles, many children and teenagers had to decide, sometimes in just minutes, which of their own belongings to take with them in the chaos of evacuation. For some, the things they chose are now all they have left of home.
The New York Times for Kids asked eight young people to tell us about some of the items they saved from the fires, and what they lost.
Felicity Dale, 8, took her Mickey Mouse stuffed animal.
When the Palisades fire rolled down a hillside toward their house, Felicity’s family had about an hour to pack. So she grabbed her favorite stuffy: a Mickey Mouse she got at Disneyland. At night, when Felicity hears creaks and squeaks in the dark, she imagines that it’s the sound of rats; Mickey makes her feel safe. “I feel like he could just jump on the rats and sit on them,” she says.
Sleep has been a challenge since the fire burned down Felicity’s home. “It feels like I’ve lost everything,” she says. Mickey is comforting, but lying in bed is not the same without the giant stuffed tiger that she had had since she was 6 weeks old. It was as big as she was, so she had to leave it behind. “I just can’t go to sleep,” she says. “I keep reading books until 10 o’clock or 11.”
Xavier Vo, 11, took sneakers and clothes.
Xavier’s family evacuated their home in the Pacific Palisades just to be safe. “We were just like, Oh, don’t worry, we’ll be back the next day,” he says. “The wind was blowing in the other direction.” So he didn’t think too much about what he took with him — a few sets of clothes, sneakers, pajamas. Just “stuff,” he says.
Later, he learned that his house had completely burned. He lost a pet fish, and stuffies he had since he was a toddler. Now the sneakers and clothes he did bring with him “feel like more than stuff,” he says. They remind him of home. “I don’t know how to say it, but they’re just, like, precious to me.”
Nzoi N., 12, took her cosplay katana sword.
Nzoi has been into anime since she was 6 or 7. “It makes me feel happy,” she says. Last summer, she and a friend binge-watched “Demon Slayer,” and for her 12th birthday, Nzoi asked for a cosplay outfit of Shinobu, her favorite character. On the night that the fire neared her Altadena home, Nzoi and her little sister, Nzuri, saw strange pink clouds. Then a neighbor came and told them to evacuate.
“We all start to panic and rush to grab our stuff,” Nzoi says. While her parents were packing essentials, she sneaked her plastic katana sword into the car. “Because it’s super important to me,” she says. The family lost their home, but she’s just grateful that they’re all safe. At school, when friends offer to help her with anything, “I don’t really know what to say to that,” Nzoi says. “Because I don’t want to seem greedy.”
Nzuri N., 5, took her pet turtle.
Nzuri is Nzoi’s sister. Both girls have asthma, and when the family prepared to evacuate, it was as a precaution — their parents didn’t actually expect their home to burn down. So at first, they were going to leave their pet turtle, Turtlelicious, behind, thinking she’d be safe. But Nzuri, whose favorite super hero is Spiderman, got a “spidey-sense” that they should bring her. Her dad ran back inside and scooped up the turtle in a Tupperware container. Now the turtle has a new nickname: Lucky Hardback.
Caroline Donahue, 12, took her soccer gear.
The day the Palisades fire broke out, Caroline’s family was staying in an Airbnb while construction was being done on her childhood home. Caroline had a soccer game scheduled for later that day, so when her family had just minutes to evacuate their rental, she grabbed some clothes and her gear, still thinking she’d make it to her game. “I wish I could have grabbed other things instead,” she says. But there wasn’t much else at the rental to take: All the special things she cared about, like the ashes of her late dogs and photos with friends, were at her home, which was destroyed by the fire.
Now soccer is “the only thing that’s normal that’s still happening,” Caroline says. “It makes me feel like there’s still something left that I used to do that’s just fun.”
Maris Premvaree, 5, took her velvet dress.
Last Christmas, Maris’s next-door neighbor Fati gave her a red velvet dress. It was the perfect gift for Maris, who is, according to her 9-year-old sister, Sloan, “really fancy.” When the Eaton fire approached the family’s Altadena home, “it was so big,” Maris says. “I was so scared.” They packed up in about 30 minutes, and Maris immediately grabbed her favorite things: “My beautiful dresses and my beautiful sneakers,” including the dress from her neighbor. Now Fati is a former neighbor. Maris’s family’s house burned down, and so did Fati’s. “And also another neighbor,” Maris says. “And another neighbor,” Sloan adds, “and another neighbor, and another neighbor.”
Nico Chavez, 10, took his family’s turkey, Apricot.
Nico’s family runs a mobile petting zoo. When they had to evacuate from Altadena, it meant packing up an entire farm’s worth of animals: goats, ducks, chickens and Nico’s favorite, Apricot the turkey. Nico got her after meeting some turkeys on a friend’s ranch. “I would try to make their sounds, and they would gobble back to me,” he says. When it came time to evacuate, the family gathered all the pets into a van and a truck. “The animals were all confused,” he says. “The goats kept screaming.” They got out just in time, as flames were approaching. When Nico learned their home had burned down, “it took a while for the impact of the pain to hit.” For now, the animals are staying with family friends while Nico and his family are in San Diego. But everyone’s safe — and they hope to be reunited soon.
Charlotte Kamdar, 15, took her collection of Taylor Swift memorabilia.
When fire threatened her Palisades home, Charlotte packed as much Taylor Swift memorabilia as she could. “They aren’t just material items to me,” she says. “Taylor Swift is a big factor in what keeps me going every day.” As she drove to safety with her mom and brother, the road got jammed by traffic — so she left the car and ran, carrying her bags of mementos.
Charlotte has high-functioning autism, which makes big life changes hard. Now life is full of them: a new city, a new home, being away from her friends. Her house is still standing, but filled with toxic ash and uninhabitable. Listening to Swift gives her a reason to wake up in the morning, she says. When she listens to her favorite song, “So Long, London,” it has new meaning: “To me, it’s figurative of saying goodbye to the town as I knew it.”
Prop styling by Ali Gallagher
