Lurgan woman hails Portadown men heroes after saving lives and homes during Los Angeles fires

Philly McConville, a painter originally from the Tunnel area of Portadown, spent hours battling a blaze at the home he shares with his wife, Lurgan woman Fionnuala and their children Eoin and Aine.

His brother Gregory, who was evacuated from his Los Angeles home the day before, arrived to help try and keep the blaze at bay creating a vital fire line between that property on El Molino Avenue, Altadena and hundreds of others which were miraculously saved.

Fionnuala revealed how the family had to pack up and leave after the fire suddenly appeared close to their their home on January 7 this year. She spoke of her devastation that her beautiful home is now uninhabitable and how many of her friends have lost everything to the LA fire catastrophe.

She also spoke of how proud she is of her husband Philly who not only tried to save their home but created a fire line which stopped the blaze sweeping further into the neighbourhood.

And she revealed how he helped save an elderly couple who were forced to evacuate their home and their heartbreak as he was unable to get into the house to save their disabled daughter just before it was engulfed in flames.

The Lurgan woman, daughter of Sean and Dympna McCleary, has been living in California since 1991 working for Universal Music and this is the first time in her 23 years living in Los Angeles her home has been affected by fire.

Speaking to Northern Ireland World on a planned visit to Lurgan, Co Armagh, for her Dad’s 89th birthday, Fionnuala, explaining that winds from the desert lasted longer than before and arrived ‘at speed’, said: "It’s never been a fire zone area so this is extremely unusual.”

She said a fire at Eaton Canyon added to the “catastrophe”. A fire had broken out there at around 6pm on Tuesday January 7. Before that Edison, the electrical company, shut down everyone’s power as a safety measure that morning and again at 5pm.

"During the afternoon my daughter Aine and I charged all our gadgets. When the power went off at 5pm we picked up food at a local restaurant and lit some candles and settled in,” said Fionnuala.

"At that time we weren’t concerned about the Eaton Canyon fires because they were quite a few miles away from our house,” said a very emotional Fionnuala.

Via a neighbourhood chat group she discovered that those with children had left. She and her husband Philly plus their daughter Aine and a few other neighbours decided to stay – they were not in the evacuation zone.

"We chatted through the night. Philly went to lie down and we stayed awake. You could feel a difference in the air. It started to feel very eerie. At one point we looked out the window – you could see the fires but it was hard to tell how close they were – the mountains are two or three miles from us.

"An hour or so later we were still texting and outside was so dark, so black. At around 3am my phone was dying,” said Fionnuala, who went to her car to charge the battery and was joined by a neighbour.

"I was sitting there and the car was shaking and the winds were blowing and I felt this is not a good place for me to be right now,” she said. When she went to her friend’s house they started to see embers flying through the sky from the kitchen window.

"The house was five doors up. It landed on that house’s roof and it went up like a flash. She had all her animals packed up ready to go. Her husband walked me to the house.

"By that time Philly and Aine were up as they heard the commotion. They were throwing things into what we thought was going to be an overnight bag. The police arrived,” she said, adding that was around 4am.

They got all their important papers, jewellery etc and headed to a friend’s house in Pasadena each in their own car.

"It was like Armageddon. There were fires in people’s lawns. A tree had blown over and blocked the road forcing us to do a U-turn. My daughter was behind me in the car and she was frantic,” she said. When they got to their friend Julie’s house Philly called Fionnuala.

He revealed he had picked up an elderly couple to take them to the evacuation shelter. He spotted them coming out of their house crying for help. Philly stopped the truck to help them. The police arrived with loud speakers telling people to evacuate.

He hailed the police down who helped him get the couple into his truck. “She was crying for her daughter saying she was still in the house and disabled. She asked Philly to get her daughter."

Fionnuala explained that Philly went to the elderly couple’s house but when he put his hand on the door knob it was roasting hot. “Then the house just exploded in flames so he had to leave. The elderly woman was still crying for her daughter. Philly told her the police were going to handle it and he took them to the evacuation shelter.”

"We believe the daughter is gone as the house was engulfed in flames,” said a very emotional Fionnuala.

After dropping the elderly couple off at the shelter and delivering all the bags to their friend Julie’s house, Philly returned to their own home to try and hose the house down - hoping that it wouldn’t go up in flames.

Philly’s brother Gregory, who lives in LA, had already been evacuated the night before. Gregory spotted smoke coming from his brother’s neighbourhood and drove there to check on the house and Philly was already there.

Both of them got hoses and started to hose down the garage as the neighbour’s garage was already on fire. However there were a number of large trees nearby and once they caught fire the embers from those trees landed on their garage setting it ablaze.

"So they moved onto the house. They kept the house drenched. The neighbour to the south, Philly said, there were five fires in their yard. He was keeping our house drenched and also protecting the neighbour’s property. They were there for 3-4 hours before the Fire Brigade came.”

Fionnuala revealed that a Latino family, who lived several houses away, turned up at their home and all ten of them brought extra buckets and hoses and started getting water from our pool. “At that stage the house to the left of us was on fire, so they were trying to keep that fire under control and keep the flames from our property,” she revealed.

"I didn’t even know these people. They lived a couple of doors down and all we ever did was say ‘hello’ to them and that’s it,” she said.

"Philly and Gregory created a fire line on our block. Not every single house is gone, some are randomly gone,” said Fionnuala, adding that the majority of houses to the east of them were destroyed. “Our house was the fire line for our particular block,” she said. “Philly and Gregory saved the majority of houses on our block. I’m telling everyone as I think both of them are amazing.”

Fionnuala said she is just “mentally exhausted”. “I think I’m just trying to process it right now. There’s a lot still to work through over the next couple of months.

"I’m thankful we didn’t lose every single thing that we’ve worked for all these years. It’s going to take us a while to rebuild,” said Fionnuala, who believes she may have suffered PTSD. “Then you have survivor guilt as well as we have so many friends who have lost everything they owned. You have that element where you are happy you have something but you are sad for other people.”

She revealed her husband’s foreman, who has a painting firm, lost everything to the fires. “A lot of people walked out of their houses that night thinking they would be back the next day. No one thought the fire would even come into our neighbourhood.”

The men spent four hours battling the blaze at the house. The garage and apartment were burnt to the ground. However while the main house remains standing, it is uninhabitable due to the smoke and water damage with an estimated year before it can be refurbished.

She revealed that their dog Tucker has been very clingy to both Fionnuala and Philly following the blaze. “He seems to get nervous if we leave him.”

Fionnuala recalled her husband returning from their home in El Molino Avenue, Altadena covered in black ash. “He coughed up soot, and I’m sure Gregory did too, for days.

"He was working on adrenaline for those first few days. He would come home to get some rest and then a neighbour would call to say I think I see smoke coming from your attic. He would get up and go again. There were a few embers in the insulation in our attic. My neighbour hosed it down, Philly hosed it down. He was on high alert for quite a few days,” said Fionnuala.

She said her employers were “amazing” to her, offering her time off and offering to put her in a hotel although she had already organised to stay with friends.

She revealed they managed to get an apartment which they move into on Monday. The insurance will cover the cost of the rent but they must buy their own furniture for it.

"Our neighbourhood is not opened for anyone to go to and it won’t be ready to go back to and live in again for quite a few months,” she said, adding it is being monitored by the National Guard.

‘Some people are left with just what they were wearing. It’s heart breaking,” she said, adding that close to 8,000 buildings were destroyed.