Nora Golling lives in Palisades Highlands, the community nearest the origin of the Palisades Fire, which began about 10 a.m. Monday. As the inferno grew, members of her family fought the flames and doused spot fires using water from the small pool in their backyard.
The fire burned the family’s patio furniture and outdoor umbrella, but they kept their house safe using a pool pump, water hoses and buckets of tap water.
“I can barely talk,” she told HuffPost via text message. “I’m really a nervous wreck.”
Golling’s husband and two sons joined other neighbors to battle fires at their houses on their own. At their home, they had a pool pump that fed into what she described as “like a mini fireman hose.”
But now the pools and pipes are running dry.
“The fire traveled so fast down to the [Pacific Palisades] village that it was horrifying,” she said. “We don’t have any big active fires [now], but there are small spot fires going on, and with the wind picking up, I’m afraid this will not go well.”
She shared a hand-drawn map of the neighborhood the group has been collaboratively maintaining to show which of the 100 or so of their neighborhood’s houses had burned — and which still stood. Dozens of large red circles dotted the map, each representing a confirmed loss of a home.
Golling seemed taken aback at the lack of public resources coming into her area to fight the flames. Neighbors are sending appeals for help on social media as they see their hopes diminishing while firetrucks are pulled to other locations.
“I guess they forgot about us, and we are being abandoned,” she said
Another neighbor, Andrew Hires, implored any private water tankers in Los Angeles to be dispatched to Palisades Highlands immediately.
“Residents have pumps and are protecting homes. But they are out of water,” he warned. “Winds ramping. Homes burning and fire spreading again. Pools empty. We are SITTING DUCKS unless we get water to refill the pools that residents have been pumping to supplement the fire response.”