As California Fires Burn, Some Residents Begin to Mourn Lost Homes

Mazen Sheikhly’s heart was pounding on Thursday as he drove up a winding road to his one-bedroom home of nearly two decades outside the community of El Cariso Village in the Santa Ana Mountains in California. He could feel his blood pressure rising because of the uncertainty of what he and a friend would find.

The Airport fire southeast of Los Angeles had exploded in the canyons of Orange County earlier in the week before crossing the mountains into Riverside County, forcing Mr. Sheikhly and thousands of others in the area to evacuate.

Now, on his return, he opened the gates to the long driveway of his 20-acre property known for its glittering views of Lake Elsinore below. Then he saw the emptiness.

There was “nothing left of the house,” Mr. Sheikhly said. “Completely gone.”

A 2000 Indian motorcycle that he treated as his baby was now a gutted hunk of metal. Pictures of his mother and the designer clothes and jewelry that he had from his years working at Neiman Marcus were turned to ash.

“It’s like a loss in your family and you can’t get it back. It’s death,” he said.

Three major wildfires in Southern California — the Bridge fire, the Line fire and the Airport fire — have destroyed dozens of homes, scorched over 110,000 acres and displaced tens of thousands of people. Cooler, more humid weather has helped slow the fires’ spread and enabled firefighters to make progress trying to contain the blazes, allowing some evacuation alerts to be lifted or downgraded on Friday.

But even as crews gain more ground, many residents must deal with the shock of seeing a lifetime of memories reduced to ashes, or the stress of not knowing what they will find, or when they will be able to go back.