Couple escapes Palisades Fire weeks after fighting off flames from Franklin Fire
By Dean Fioresi, Laurie Perez
Click here for updates on this story
California (KCAL/KCBS) — Just weeks after having their lives threatened by the Franklin Fire in Malibu, one couple was forced to literally run for their lives when the Palisades Fire descended on their home.
Alec Gellis and his girlfriend, who lives in Carbon Canyon, were among the thousands of people forced to evacuate on Tuesday when the fire erupted that consumed large swaths of the Pacific Palisades, destroying homes and well-known businesses.
Video on his phone shows embers and thick smoke flying across the screen as he runs for safety on Tuesday.
“It was like a vortex of embers,” he said. “There was no oxygen. I couldn’t breath. I barely even made it to my car.”
He narrowly escaped as he had just a month ago, when he fended off the flames from the Franklin Fire that were threatening his and his neighbors’ houses.
“It’s just not real. I mean, a month — less than a month, my lungs weren’t even better from the last time. I’m still coughing from the last time,” Gellis said.
Both were able to get out unscathed, though Kelly Lauren lost a lifetime worth of her writing.
“It’s just hard,” Lauren said, fighting back tears. “Everything I’d, like, written for my whole life. I journal and write a lot, it’s just the little things you remember afterwards.”
She says that despite the loss of her home and collection of writings, she’s happy that she and Gellis got out when they did.
“It reminds me of, like, the value of what is not tangible,” she said.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
