The California fires have brought devastation. On TikTok, those affected are telling their stories.

Kerry Justich and Natalie Rahhal
·7-min read
People are documenting the L.A. wildfires on social media
People are documenting the L.A. wildfires on social media. (samibrielle/saraandcrew/lillybbradshaw via TikTok)

Devastation has swept through Los Angeles this week as wildfires have burned homes, neighborhoods and entire communities to the ground. The over 35,000 acres that have been destroyed thus far may be many miles away from those watching the blazes on the news and online, but thanks to social media, the impact can be intimately felt because victims are sharing their stories.

Meghan Rienks couldn’t sleep on Tuesday night. Instead, she spent hours watching the fires creep closer to her home on the Watch Duty app and trying to prepare for evacuation. “How do you, like, pack, not knowing if your house is still going to be here?” said a tearful Rienks in a viral post on TikTok. She turned the camera on a pile of belongings, including a small tote, in her bedroom. “It’s just a bag,” she said. “I don’t even know if any of that is important,” Rienks added, noting that she couldn’t find her passport. By Wednesday morning, she was among an estimated 100,000 Angelenos under evacuation orders and had to flee to a family member’s home. Fortunately, her home was spared and she was able to return on Thursday.

The evacuation of a TikTok-famous 175-pound tortoise named Tiptoe was also captured on the app. Caitlin Doran, the tortoise’s caretaker and creator of their shared account, posted a series of videos on Wednesday as she helped rescue Tiptoe from her parents’ house in the Palisades.

in addition to her parents, grandparents, other family members and pets, she had to bring Tiptoe to her home in Marina Del Rey. The homes that they had evacuated were lost in the fires and, like thousands of others, will take time to rebuild. Tiptoe, however, has his new digs already set up.

Others have posted videos of the specific items that they packed in preparation for evacuation, while some offer more guidance on how-to. After losing her home Ashley Paige made a video to urge fellow L.A. residents to take evacuation protocols seriously. “The longer that you wait to evacuate, the more you put yourself at risk and the more that you put the first responders at risk,” she said.

She also asked people in other areas to consider their own evacuation plans for future events. “You need to think about what you would take and what you need to do to get out safely in a mandatory evacuation,” Paige continued. “I wish I had been prepared. I wish I had thought about what I needed to take ahead of time.”

More than 10,000 homes and other structures have been destroyed by the Palisades and Eaton fires. This is a tragedy of catastrophic scale, a fact that is not lost on Sara Wang, but she's finding some humor in the darkness.

“Hey guys, welcome to my crib,” Wang quipped in a TikTok video posted Thursday. She’s standing on a pile of rubble where her home stood before it was leveled by the Eaton fire, which erupted Tuesday night. She gave a tour of what remained: A grill, an outdoor firepit — “We could light a fire, but we already have one,” she joked, pointing to a small flame on the ground behind her — metal patio chairs and, incredibly, an orange tree, with edible fruit. She later posted before-and-after videos of her now destroyed neighborhood. Wang guessed that about 90% of her neighborhood was gone. As of Friday, the Eaton fire was only 3% contained.

Aside from Wang’s oranges, there was at least one other surprising survivor: A Stanley cup. Alexus Wilson shared a video of her fiancee trudging through the debris of their home until he found that shiny red thermos — fully intact. “IN THE LAINEY WILSON STANLEY WE TRUST!!!!!” Wilson wrote in the caption.

Erin McKenna also managed to make light of the disaster. “There’s nothing funny about wondering if your home has been burnt down, but while we wait, let me show you what panic looks like in the form of packing,” she wrote in her TikTok post’s caption.

Her husband packed her family’s go-bags, which included a bag of reusable shopping bags, one empty suitcase and a bag of the kids’ trophies. For himself, he packed an entire suitcase, all of his guitars and his velvet blazer. For Erin? Two bras, two bathrobes without their sashes and a tiny stuffed rabbit. “This is valid,” she said of the bunny, “and so is this,” she added about the hot pink Britney Spears hoodie she was wearing in the video. But more than anything, she was grateful that her husband had helped her family escape safely.

Sometimes a situation is so horrible it becomes absurd. Sarah Kathryns and her boyfriend were on vacation in Mexico when the fires broke out. The pair found out that their apartment and cars had been lost in the Palisades Fire while sitting on an idyllic hotel balcony, In the background, a brassy dance track is blaring. “And this f***ing song is playing,” said Kathryns through tears in her TikTok video. Her boyfriend, meanwhile, can’t contain his laughter.

TikTok has provided a closer look at the heroic efforts of first responders as they fight the fires. One Los Angeles county sheriff volunteer, Lilly Bradshaw, posted a video that she was taking to update her friends on the fires when she heard a nearby house explode. “Every single house around us is either catching embers and getting on fire or it’s already burnt down,” she said breathlessly, just before the sound caught her attention. She masked up and headed outside to inspect.

A group of firefighters from Mexico have also garnered attention for a series of videos showing them crossing the border to California by foot to offer help to the Los Angeles Fire Department. “Borders don't exist when there is love, compassion and humanity,” a comment on one of the videos reads. “Thank you Mexico!”

Squads from Northern California were also seen headed to L.A. on the 405 on Thursday.

It’s not just trained professionals that are stepping in. Nicole Young of Selling Sunset posted some clips of one of her friends biking up to an abandoned home that was catching fire. “God, this could be prevented. There’s a f***ing hose right here,” he’s heard saying before turning it on and getting to work himself. He spent time watering embers and fires on the home’s property, gas tank and roof to prevent the flames from growing.

“Be like Billy,” Young captioned the video. “Be a hero.”

The fires are bringing together communities too. Sami Brielle’s home was under a level 2 evacuation warning, meaning she’d likely need to leave soon. But she didn’t have a car. “I just met my neighbor today and now I am going in his car, and hoping he is safer than the fire,” she said in a Thursday TikTok post. “My new neighbor was, in fact, a very safe & lovely human,” Brielle added in her caption.

A creator who goes by @casssythegreatt joined a collective of people bringing food and other necessities to the Rose Bowl for those in need. While Jen Curley of Newport Beach, Calif., packed up her son’s old clothes to donate to children who have lost theirs.

Celebrity private chef Brooke Baevsky, who is often posting videos whipping up immaculate meals for her elite clients, raised over $25,000 to make meals for firefighters and displaced families. She said that hundreds of “hot, high-quality meals” have already been distributed.

A woman named Martha May has also documented herself making meals for first responders.

The gatherings and good deeds are inspiring some optimism during this troubled time. “Humanity still has so much hope,” a commenter wrote.

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