'What I imagined hell would be like.' Two friends try to save Pacific Palisades home from raging fire

Summer Lin, Los Angeles Times on Jan 8, 2025

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Orly Israel was hanging out in his home in Pacific Palisades on Tuesday morning when he got a text message from a friend asking if he was OK.

"Why?" Israel asked. His friend said there was a fire in his neighborhood.

The 30-year-old looked outside and saw a smoke cloud taking up half the sky. He, his parents and his younger brother quickly packed everything that mattered from their home, including computers, hard drives and important paperwork, and rushed to evacuate.

As Israel was sitting in traffic, he spotted a familiar face walking down the street: Tanner Charles, his friend and seasoned storm chaser, who had been visiting Los Angeles from Minneapolis.

Even though Charles didn't have any equipment with him, he wanted to document the fire. And when he asked his friend if he wanted to come along, Israel immediately agreed.

They drove up the biggest hill in the neighborhood and spent about 45 minutes watching the inferno.

"It's like when you're sitting next to a bonfire and the wind picks up and all the smoke and ash gets blown into your face. It's like that except the entire world," Israel said. "It was like what I would imagine hell would be like."

Charles, who has been a storm chaser for nearly 16 years, said he's never experienced anything like the Palisades fire before.

"It was loud," he said. "We'd hear so many explosions in the neighborhood, propane tanks exploding. It was just insane."

Eventually, the smoke got so thick that the two decided to go back to Israel's house and try to protect it from the flames. Israel was spraying down the backyard, including bushes and trees, with a garden hose while Charles sprayed the front of the house. They pulled anything plastic indoors.

Palm trees caught on fire around them, exploding into columns of flames and showering the earth with sparks. Orly and Charles met inside the house just in time to see the entire backyard engulfed within 10 seconds.

"Let's get out of here. We tried our best," Charles said in a video later posted on his X account.

Israel grabbed his laptop and his collection of notebooks before taking one last look around his childhood home of nearly 20 years. The pair quickly zipped down the road to safety.

As of Wednesday morning, Israel still doesn't know if his family lost the house but heard that several houses on the street had been engulfed in flames. His house's chances for remaining unscathed seemed grim.

"I haven't been able to understand the kind of devastation we see all over the world with crises and natural disasters," Israel said. "There is this surreal concept of 'Home is where the heart is.' Since we're OK physically, we're going to be OK."

Israel said his family likely lost musical instruments and their collection of art that they'd been gathering for several years. Israel is staying with a friend in Culver City until they find out more information about their home.

"The most meaningful outcome of this is that so many people who have seen what I've gone through reached out to me and my family," he added. "It's giving me hope that not all is lost."