Los Angeles student, residents evacuate to Las Vegas amid wildfires

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) - As fire officials are surveying the devastation, evacuees are finding shelter in Las Vegas.

FOX5 spoke to a couple of people who took matters into their own hands and got a flight into Las Vegas late Wednesday night to make sure they were out of the fire danger.

“Soon, we started to smell smoke in our rooms,” said Dora Chatterjee.

Chatterjee is a junior at Caltech Pasadena, which is close to the Eaton fires.

“From my dorm room, I could see the trees holding onto dear life,” she said.

Chatterjee tells FOX5 her campus was not under any evacuation orders, but her parents back in Las Vegas were worried it would be too late to get out.

Her parents flew her into Las Vegas late Wednesday night.

“The atmosphere you could see a lot of people worried, we were told to shelter in place. So I guess the lack of knowing what to really do was definitely, or the confusion you could sense that,” Chatterjee said.

Over in the Hollywood area, the Runyon Canyon fire was inching closer to Matthew Paine’s apartment.

“Panic kicked in when I realized Runyon Canyon was on fire, I hike at Runyon Canyon pretty often it’s beautiful it’s in my backyard,” Paine said.

Paine originally thought he would wait it out until he realized the flames were just two miles away and got a last-minute flight to Las Vegas, however many flights were booked.

For now, he is staying in Las Vegas until the weekend.

“I will go back to a very devastated Los Angeles,” Paine said.

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