Porter Ranch family returns to house damaged by Saddleridge fire — is frustrated but safe

Christine Demiral watched the feed from her porch security camera as firefighters broke down the door to her own home.

From the safety of a family member’s house, she witnessed the firefighters responding as the Saddleridge fire burned through her Porter Ranch neighborhood late Thursday night into Friday morning. It also burned in Granada Hills and Sylmar and sent smoke and ash around the region.

To save the structure from burning down, the firefighters shot an immense amount of water into Demiral’s attic. All that water drained through walls and ceilings, settling for days and leaving behind extensive water damage.

Demiral says her family was lucky not to lose their entire house.

“We’re all safe. We didn’t lose any personal items,” she said. “Just the structure is damaged.”

Like hundreds of affected families, Demiral and her husband returned over the weekend to the Saddleridge fire’s aftermath — collapsed ceilings, flooded rooms, smoke damage.

Others returned to nothing at all.

Most residents in the area have now returned home, even as the fire continued to burn. All evacuation orders were lifted on Saturday. The latest mapping Monday night measured the fire at 8,391 acres with 44% containment. The containment percentage had edged up from 43% in the morning.

For those with destroyed homes, there’s no timeline for when they can come back.

On Beaufait Avenue in Porter Ranch, several homes were yellow-tagged — city inspectors determined they were damaged enough that occupancy should be limited. Others that were red-tagged were barely standing, with gutted interiors exposed to the open air.

Numerous cleaning and construction crews were getting to work on the street Monday morning, ripping out burned insulation, vacuuming out water and ash and carrying away destroyed items.The street backs up to Aliso Canyon.

Fire swarmed over the canyon’s walls on Thursday, setting several home in the area ablaze.

Demiral, the homeowner, returned to find two large holes in her roof. Debris spilled into her upstairs hallway, and her daughter’s room. She was gathering clothes and other necessities she and her three kids would need as they continued staying with family.

As she did so, Demiral weaved through workers packing up items. Others pounded hammers and cut into walls to remove water-damaged materials. Only now, after staring at ripped out walls, was the amount of work required to get back to normal dawning on her.

“Thankfully we’re all OK,” she said. “But it’s frustrating, for sure.”

That same morning, a team of Red Cross volunteers was canvassing the street, looking for homeowners struggling to rebuild their lives.

On the porch of one home, Barbara Colwell and Tony Sapien were looking for its residents. The home’s facade was still standing, mostly undamaged. But the destruction inside was obvious — the entire interior was burned to the ground and the home’s door was charred with pieces punched out.

Colwell has been volunteering with the Red Cross for 24 years. She said fire victims often seek help putting their financial lives back together, or recovering legal documents. Few initially recognize the emotional toll fires can have.

“It really varies from person to person, but they go through a whole range of emotions,” she said. “If you can imagine being awoken at 2, 3 o’clock in the morning, and being told you have to evacuate — it’s a real terrifying experience.”

The fire, which ignited Thursday night in Sylmar, has now moved north into rugged areas of the Angeles National Forest on the west and east sides of the Newhall Pass. Firefighters have struggled to get a handle on the five-day-old blaze as they grow the containment lines around the blaze.

“There is some rugged terrain in that area that is difficult to access … that we need to get hand lines all the way around,” said Capt. Erik Scott of the Los Angeles Fire Department. “In the flat ground of neighborhoods, plus water supply from hydrants, that helps add to our containment pretty early. But we expect it to go slow for the next couple of days.”

On the night the fire started, powerful winds ripped through hillside neighborhoods north of Symlar on Saddle Ridge Road, near the 5 Freeway. At around 9 p.m., residents noticed the flames behind their homes – within 15 minutes, the blaze was rapidly spreading east and west along the hillside and sending embers into their backyards.

Officials as of Monday morning said their count showed the fire has destroyed 17 structures and damaged another 58.

At least one person has died in the blaze – a Porter Ranch resident in his 50s, who neighbors said collapsed while using a garden hose to stop the spread of fires near his home. The coroner’s office had not yet identified him.

Another death was also related to the fire – city officials said Capt. Albert Torres of the Los Angeles Park Rangers was patrolling San Fernando city parks affected by the fire on Friday.

“Later, Torres said he wasn’t feeling well and collapsed,” the officials said on Instagram. “He was taken to the hospital and died of a heart attack early Saturday morning.”

On Sunday, arson investigators were looking into a Sylmar resident’s report that the blaze began under an electrical tower. On Monday, the LAFD said in a statement the “area of origin” for the fire is believed to be a “50′ by 70′ area beneath a high voltage transmission tower.” And Southern California Edison notified regulators on Friday “its system was impacted near the reported time of the fire,” SCE spokeswoman Susan Cox said.

Firefighters from around the region were continuing to attack the fire on Monday.

“Today, firefighters will take advantage of lower wind speeds, increasing humidity and decreased temperatures,” officials said in an update. “This weather will greatly enhance firefighters’ ability to mop up remaining hot spots.”

Residents might see firefighter activity in the areas where the fire was still burning Monday: near Elsmere Canyon, just east of the 14 Freeway, and near East Canyon, just west of the 5 Freeway near Oak Tree Gun Club.

Scott said firefighters were also watching out for increased winds that were expected in the area starting on Wednesday and continuing through Thursday. That could complicate their effort to put out the fire for good.

If the winds stir up smoldering embers, that could mean dangerous spot fires flaring up where flames have already passed over.

“We frequently say that a fire is fully out when it’s ‘wind tested’… There are potentially some areas within all of the 8,000 acres of smoldering debris with some unburned fuel,” Scott said. “With wind gusts, that can generate some flames.”

All evacuations that were ordered during the outbreak of the fire have been lifted.

And Granada Hills Charter, which said its campuses in Granada Hills and Northridge were closed Monday for continued cleanup related to the fire, said both campuses would open Tuesday.