Although California is thousands of miles away, there is still a local connection to the devastation in Los Angeles County, where wildfires are threatening homes, businesses and life.
“I’ve been through fires when I lived in LA before, but they always seemed to be in the canyons and away from people. These are with people,” Dana Olita, of Center City, said.
Olita recently moved back to Philadelphia after living in Los Angeles for eight years.
On Tuesday night, she flew back to California for a two-week work trip.
“When we got to Vegas and started to descend, everything got very turbulent,” she explained. “The pilot warned us, ‘These winds, this is going to be very turbulent. Stay in your seats.'”
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As Olita felt the turbulence, she said she could see the Palisades wildfire, which has burned more than 15,000 acres, off in the distance.