The Los Angeles wildfires are "worse than being in a movie because you're living it", a Co Cork man living in Altadena has said, after he and his partner "lost everything in just five hours".
Andrew Duggan has lived in Altadena in Los Angeles for the past few years, where he has a house and design studio with his partner, Renata.
The wildfires around Los Angeles have killed at least ten people and destroyed nearly 10,000 structures, with five fires burning into a third night. Dry desert winds fanning the flames have again gathered strength.
Mr Duggan said he left his home an hour after his area received a final evacuation notice at around 2am yesterday morning.
He said around five hours later, they returned to find their house and studio had "completely burned to the ground".
The property, Mr Duggan said, is "absolutely levelled" except for some hedges, a couple of fruit trees, broken walls and the chimney stack.
"Everything else was unrecognisable," he said, adding the couple's design studio is "non-existent".
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Mr Duggan described losing his property to the wildfire as "insane" due to "how it just disintegrates to dust".
"Our entire neighbourhood and community is just gone," he said.
The devastation, he said, is "so vast to the foot of the hills all the way into downtown".
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He described returning to his neighbourhood after the fire as "sad" after witnessing the blaze's "total devastation" on the journey back.
Mr Duggan said it will be "at least a year or two" before the couple can return to the neighbourhood and be "able to even rebuild our home and studio".
He said in the interim they "have to stay working" and are surviving through the support of family and friends.
He said people have been "offering their studios for us to work out of", adding the help will get them "through whatever is about to come forth".
"We're definitely moving forward because at the end of the day we’re alive and we’re healthy and our dogs made it out and all of our neighbours made it out and we can work from there."
Read more:
Los Angeles fire deaths toll hits 10 as National Guard called in
'Crazy town': Air tankers fight LA fires from the sky
