"I'm alone. I'm scared."

There are countless tragedies arising from the California wildfires.  As I get older I have increasing empathy for senior citizens who not only lose all their possessions in floods and fires, but who also have no close family or established support group to fall back on.

Marilyn Pelletier got a knock on her door in Paradise as the Camp Fire raged and was told she had five minutes to leave. She grabbed her medicine bag and her small dog, and when she left "the whole sky was pink."

"You could see the fire coming," she said. "It was devastating. It's horrible. The worst thing I've ever experienced in my life. I was just — I'm grateful I got out with my life."

Pelletier moved to Paradise two years ago after her husband passed away, and bought a house in the town which was destroyed in the fire, she said.

"It’s a beautiful home — it was. It was real pretty,” Pelletier said. "I'm devastated. I'm heartbroken, I'm alone, I’m scared."

The screencap and quote come at the end of a two-minute video on this page.