"I could feel the heat," said Mark Wynn, who fled his home of six years on Dundee Drive after police came through the neighborhood with bullhorns ordering evacuations. "I was almost choking to death on the smoke."
Wynn tossed some personal effects in his car and drove into a massive traffic jam on Los Feliz Boulevard, where he could see other cars stuffed with belongings. Wynn made way to John Marshall High School, where the Red Cross and police scrambled to set up shelter for as many as 200 people. By about 9 p.m. only 20 evacuees had shown up. More were expected.
Also seeking shelter at Marshall was Dan Blackburn, a retired TV journalist who had seen his share of fires. "This one looks bad because the way the wind is blowing," he said.
His ex-wife, Markio* Blackburn, lives in the area and raced up to Lowry Road to help him evacuate to Marshall, where their daughter is a sophomore. "Everything is awful up there on the hills," she said.
James Mahler, a retired film technician, was evacuated by the police from his Dundee Drive home, where he has lived for 5 years. The police escorted him and his caretaker, Darcela Hugal, from the house so quickly that Mahler said he was only able to take his cat, a six-month-old named after the street.
Mahler sat on a folding chair by the entrance of the Marshall gym with Dundee huddled on his lap as volunteers and Red Cross officials kept walking past.
"I just took the wallet and the kitty cat," Mahler said.
-Larry Gordon
