In a haze of smoke, Rhea Borja could see people walking down the middle of the street in their pajamas and underwear at 5 a.m., fleeing as fire swept through Altadena, Calif.

Borja, formerly of Fayetteville, saw a home engulfed in flames.

Then another. “That’s when I said goodbye to my house,” she said.

Former Arkansans who now live in Los Angeles are dealing with wildfires as best they can.

Rodger Bumpass, an actor from Little Rock, lives in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, between the Eaton fire to the east and the Palisades fire to the west.

“I have lived in LA for nearly 46 years now and have witnessed many catastrophes — earthquakes, fires, mudslides and riots,” he said. “So far, these recent events completely blow away any other thing I have ever seen, even the Northridge earthquake. The sheer volume, scale and complete destruction of so many peoples’ lives overwhelm the human heart.”

“I’ve not experienced anything like this previously,”

said Jay Russell, a filmmaker from North Little Rock who lives in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles. “The enormity, the swiftness of the spread, the mass destruction of these multiple fires. It’s humbling and mind-boggling.”

“I have a lot of friends who have lost everything and/or are re-situated right now because they are not able to get back to their houses,” said Jayme Lemons, a filmmaker from Fort Smith who lives in Hollywood. “A lot of familiar places just are gone.”

At least 27 people have died in the fires, and more than 10,000 buildings have been destroyed, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as CAL FIRE.

The fire near the Pacific Palisades neighborhood started on Jan. 7 and was 43% contained as of Saturday morning, after burning 23,713 acres, according to CAL FIRE. The fire near Altadena started Jan. 7 and was 73% contained as of Saturday, after burning 14,117 acres. Both of those fires are in Los Angeles County. Firefighters are also battling other wildfires in the area.

People in the danger zone have evacuated to shelters, hotels and the homes of friends or relatives.

RHEA BORJA

Borja lives in Altadena with her husband Eric Wee.

She said their neighborhood was decimated by the fire, but somehow their home survived.

“Right now, our house is still standing, but houses across the street from us and two doors down on the left and right are gone,” she said. “And less than one quarter of mile to both east and west, north and south, many, many houses are gone. Whole blocks. The soil and ash that covers everything is extremely toxic and carcinogenic.”

She has a harrowing tale of evacuation.

“Eric was out of town and I evacuated in pitch black — no power — with the clothes on my back, our two dogs, and a cellphone with 15% battery left,” Borja said in a text message. “This was at 6:30 p.m. last Tuesday (Jan. 7). Did not get emergency alert. I saw the fire’s red glow and flames marching down the ridges of the mountain from our front yard.

“I tried to return some hours later as our house was still under evacuation warning, not mandatory evacuation. Bad idea. Drove slowly by myself in smoke so thick it was like grey-black fog, maneuvering around downed trees and power lines. This was 5 a.m. Wednesday (Jan. 8). Then I started seeing small clumps of people walking in their pajamas and underwear down the middle of street only to disappear into the smoke. Then I saw first house engulfed in flames. Cursing, I turned to the left and saw another house on fire. That’s when I said goodbye to my house. It took two hours to maneuver myself back to friend’s house.”

Borja said all of that was within a 3-mile radius. Periodically through that first night, she would sit in her car to keep her dogs company.

“They were scared,” she said. “I heard constant pops and explosions to the north of me, where the fire was coming down the mountain and into neighborhoods, as well as sirens. Those pops and explosions were gas lines and houses being set alight.”

Borja said their neighborhood remains under mandatory evacuation but other places in Altadena have had restrictions eased.

She said at least 95 percent of the homes north of theirs are gone.

“Devastation surrounds us. We will be unable to return to our home for many months due to debris clean-up, ongoing toxicity of soil and air, etc.,” she said. “We have also been told that we need to get our home professionally deep-cleaned by companies who deal with these disasters and we have to throw out all porous furniture and belongings due to carcinogens embedded deep into fabric. That means we have to buy all new sofas, chairs, mattresses, rugs, etc. Estimate for cleaning alone is $60,000 to $100,000-plus.”

Borja heads communications and marketing for a state association of lawyers in California.

RODGER BUMPASS

Bumpass said low mountains separate his family’s home from the fires.

“With the winds being northeast to southwest, the Eaton fire (near Altadena) was the most threatening,” he said. “On Tuesday morning, my wife awakened me and said the fire was near our city, Burbank. From our backyard the complete horizon from east to west was black. And close.”

Bumpass said it looked like the famous Hollywood sign should have been on fire based on the proximity.

“Like everyone else, we were glued to media updates from that moment on,” he said. “Cautiously, we went through our day and then in the afternoon while I was out, an evacuation alert sounded on everyone’s phones. It said Burbank was in imminent danger. My wife was panicked since I was away so she began packing her bug-out bags. Then, before I could get to my car, about 20 minutes after the first alert came, another notice rang out on the phone. ‘Disregard the previous evacuation order.’”

The initial evacuation alert was apparently a mistake.

“But the panic remained,” said Bumpass. “We eventually calmed down, only to hear that there was a new fire in the Hollywood Hills dubbed the Sunset fire. This was much closer and we were on the border of the evacuation zone. Thankfully, the LAFD resources in town were in greater concentration than the outlying county ones which were stretched thin by the huge area and it was contained.”

The fire in the Hollywood Hills began Jan. 8 and was 100% contained by the next day, after burning 43 acres, according to CAL FIRE.

Bumpass said his heart aches for the people whose lives have been destroyed by the fires.

“Thousands of people whom I don’t know are now suffering, and that suffering is just beginning,” said Bumpass. “Peoples’ live were shaken violently from ‘normal’ to ‘never normal again.’”

Bumpass is known for his role as Squidward Tentacles on the animated Nickelodeon television series “SpongeBob SquarePants.”

JAY RUSSELL

Russell said he’s been living in Los Angeles for almost 35 years and “it’s a given there will be wildfires in some form or fashion.”

But these fires are different. “While, thankfully, the death toll is lower, the only thing I could compare it to is an event like Hurricane Katrina,” he said. “This has been a perfect storm of extremely dry air, more so than usual, and then hurricane-force winds, which made the fires impossible to fight once they caught.”

Russell said his family evacuated Jan. 8 for two days based on warnings that the fire in the Hollywood Hills could possibly jump U.S. 101 and make it to Griffith Park, not far from his home.

“Thankfully, it did not reach us, but it was a scary situation and a sad activity to grab a few family and career mementos, the dogs and change of clothes, and drive away from our home, not knowing if we would see it again,” he said. “We were fortunate, but so many others have not been.

“I know of at least a half dozen people who drove away from their homes and returned to nothing. It’s devastating. A large part of LA County — which is populated by 10 million people — is in shock. It’s going to take years and billions of dollars to recover from this. Everyone has been affected in one way or the other.”

In 2004, Russell directed “Ladder 49,” a film about a firefighter who is trapped inside a burning building.

“I worked with a lot of firefighters on a movie I made a number of years ago, and I have a sense of what they are going through,” said Russell. “I can’t imagine the fatigue and helplessness they must feel. And yet, they’re out there every day putting their lives on the line.

“And important to note — it’s not over. It’s still extremely dry, the winds are still blowing. We’re all holding our collective breath and praying for rain.”

JAYME LEMONS

Lemons said production of the Apple TV+ series “Palm Royale” has paused for a few days because of the fire. Lemons is one of the show’s executive producers.

She has lived in Los Angeles for over 20 years.

“People I work with are really suffering,” she said. “I’ve had good friends who’ve lost their homes. It’s just of a magnitude that still can’t be fathomed.”

Lemons wasn’t in Los Angeles last week, but a friend was staying at her house because she had to evacuate to a safer place.

“It was safe enough for her to evacuate to the first night, and then she had to evacuate it the second night,” said Lemons. “But she’s been able to move back in. She had to evacuate for the Sunset fire, which is the one in Hollywood. It’s been contained now.”

After the fires are extinguished, area residents still have to be concerned about the toxicity left behind by the ash, she said.

The blowing wind can reignite smoldering embers under debris and ash, Lemons said.

“Some of those embers blowing out of the Eaton fire and the Palisades fire were being found over 3 miles away,” she said. “So you can imagine how all-but-impossible it is to stop (fires from igniting) when those embers are hitting in a place that’s just a tinderbox.”

Lemons said the fire in Butte County in northern California in 2018, which burned 153,336 acres, was “devastation like we’ve never seen before.”

But that was a less densely populated area.

“To have something like that play out in our largest city was something I don’t think anybody could have foreseen,” she said.

DORA HENRY

Dora Henry, originally from Gurdon, lives in Pasadena, but has an Altadena address because of the way the cities are laid out.

The fire, which was about a mile away, spared her home.

“It was, by the grace of God, saved — but it was in the burn path,” she said. “Everything around me is burnt down. Our city is threefourths gone. It’s burnt down, and it’s devastated. It’s so heartbreaking, but our little neighborhood was saved by the grace of God.”

Henry, who is retired from her job as attendance coordinator for Pasadena public schools, said she had traveled to the East Coast for a funeral. She and her neighbors have gotten the OK to go back to their homes in California, so she’ll do that soon to assess the damage.

“I don’t know how long it’s going to be before I can actually go back and live in the house,” she said. “We can go back in, but we can’t live in our houses yet because of the smoke damage. And the gas hasn’t been restored, so we have to wait on that. They’re going from neighborhood to neighborhood because it’s still unsafe. They have to fix all the gas lines and everything.”

Because of toxicity from the smoke and ash, homes will have to be professionally cleaned before residents can live in them again, said Henry.

KATHRYN TUCKER

Kathryn Tucker, a filmmaker from Little Rock, lives in Ojai, Calif., about 22 miles north of the 61-acre fire that started on Monday in Ventura County and was 100% contained as of Friday.

Tucker said Ojai was under a red-flag warning until Wednesday night. According to the National Weather Service, a red-flag warning means warm temperatures, very low humidities and stronger winds are expected to combine to produce an increased risk of fire danger.

Tucker said a December 2017 fire, which burned about 281,893 acres, “basically encircled Ojai and almost consumed it.”

“This is the first year that we really have been under threat of fire again, and that’s because of these winds,” she said of the Santa Ana winds.

She said it’s so dry that a spark can easily start a fire that can rapidly spread.

“Something as simple as a spark or a cigarette butt can cause one of these fires to start,” she said. “One ember can get on a roof and smolder until it catches on fire.”

Last year, because of high winds, electricity in Ojai was turned off for two days as a precaution because power lines are so often how fires start, said Tucker.

HARRY THOMASON

Harry Thomason is originally from Hampton and known in particular as the producer of the television show “Designing Women,” which aired on CBS from 1986-1993.

Thomason said he and his wife, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, live in Encino, Calif.

“Only once or twice did I get a glimpse of the fires,” said Harry Thomason. “They were a couple of miles from the house. They were in a deep valley on the other side of a mountain, so I didn’t see much of them. I saw smoke one day. The last couple of days, we didn’t even see smoke. But the fires are still out there, low in the stumps and so forth, and they’re still finding them.”

Thomason said they didn’t have to evacuate.

“We’ve been awake a lot at night but have not had to move,” he said. “But a lot of our friends have.”