An Irish couple who had to flee their Los Angeles home amid the Palisades Fire said much of their community has been destroyed.
Dermot and Anne Tuohy describe themselves as among "the lucky ones".
"We live in Pacific Palisades, there are two parts to the Palisades, one is called the 'village' and the other is called the Highlands. We live in the ‘highlands’ which was only partially destroyed, the village was fully destroyed," Mr Tuohy told RTÉ News.
"Most of our friends live in the Village area of Pacific Palisades, those homes are gone, our church is gone, every shop, bank, and school is completely burned at this point," Ms Tuohy continued.
"So, we are somewhat lucky, I have to say, we do have a house, it's not habitable at the moment but we do have four walls. Bringing the community back together, that remains a huge challenge at this point." Ms Tuohy said.
The couple described their efforts to leave their home on Tuesday after the fire broke out at 10.30am.
"The most terrifying event was within the first three hours when we tried to get out ourselves, driving in both our cars" Mr Tuohy said.
"We were stopped at the bottom of the canyon, at Palisades Drive, because it was actually on fire, so we couldn't get out, we had to turn back."
The couple returned to their house, and within around an hour police came to escort them from their home.
With the wildfire now only 11% contained, Mr Tuohy said it remains "a worry".
Unable to return to home and the couple is staying with their son Mark in his home in Mar Vista, near Venice Beach in LA.
Mr Tuohy described Pacific Palisades as "a town of around 23,000 people, about the size of Sligo" with around eight different churches.
He believed the town could and would rebuild, with the help of promised federal funds, though he acknowledged that this would "take years".
He said the town's communities have also been "scattered" as a result of the fire.
"It's going to be very difficult to pull them all back together again," he said.
As the blame game over the handling of the fires ratchets up, Ms Tuohy said they believed that "the authorities did everything as fast as they could with the resources that they had".
"Okay there may not have been enough officials at the end of Palisades Drive to direct us out of the fire, but they moved as fast as they could," she said.
"This happened very quickly, the winds were 50 to 70 mph at the time, so you know the finger pointing ... this always happens after a catastrophe, we certainly would not be pointing at anyone, we feel they all did their best."
Mr Tuohy is IDA Ireland's former West Coast Director in the USA.
The couple said that there was a very strong Irish community living in LA, with over 270 connected in a social media group, and that many of them have been affected by the wildfires.
