ALTADENA, Calif. (NEWS 15) — Jake Viator is a sound engineer in the music industry by day, but by night, he’s been working to renovate his family’s dream home in Altadena, California. The New Iberia native had just finished a day of work on his house last week when his wife texted about a fire in nearby Eaton Canyon.
"I got a sinking feeling in my stomach and I walked to the top of my driveway to look at the top of the mountain and I saw just the biggest, worst plume of smoke that I have ever seen," said Viator.
Sensing the danger, Viator grabbed a few personal belongings, got in the car, and drove away from his neighborhood.
"When I turned the corner on my street, I saw just the biggest wall of orange spiraling flames that I have ever seen. Just a nightmare in real life," he explained.
Viator recorded video of the harrowing drive away from his Altadena neighborhood. He could be heard honking his car horn and screaming 'fire!' out of the window to alert neighbors of the impending danger.
"I knocked on a few doors, told them, 'There’s a fire coming over the mountain. You gotta get out of here!'" he added.
Viator escaped danger and drove to his in-laws in Arizona, where his wife and young daughter had been staying while he worked on renovations at their house.
“A friend of mine, an absolute hero, tried to go to the house and wet it down. He said when he showed up, it was just a chimney and that the whole neighborhood looked like hell on earth. Within a couple of hours, our entire town was wiped off the map. It’s unthinkable," he expressed.
Viator and his family have been living in Altadena since 2021.
"It’s hard to describe the sense of community that we’re mourning. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of Louisiana. You see everyone you know at the hardware store. You run a simple errand and it takes two hours because you run into everyone you know," he noted.
Despite the challenges ahead, Viator and his family aren’t giving up on their California dream.
"That’s the beautiful thing about Altadena. We're all mourning and we want it back. We want our community back very much. I think the resilience of people in this town is going to shine and it’s going to build back," he said.
Viator’s family has started a GoFundMe account on his behalf.
CLICK HERE to donate.
