SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Two weeks ago, we spoke to Victoria Wilson and her 16-year-old daughter, Charlotte, whose family lost their home in the Los Angeles fires.
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VICTORIA WILSON: The hardest things for us is, like, the things you can't replace.
CHARLOTTE WILSON: It reminded me that, like, not everything is gone, and, like, I can still be with my friends when I want to.
SIMON: A few days ago, they were allowed back to see their neighborhood to take a look at the place they love, and they graciously shared what they saw and felt with us.
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V WILSON: It's Monday, January 20, and we are preparing to go see the remains of our house that was burned down in the Eaton fire on January 8. And I'm really nervous for myself, for my kids.
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V WILSON: Ah.
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V WILSON: You want something?
C WILSON: I forgot. It's fine. Let's just go.
V WILSON: So we're in the car. We're all a little tense - wasn't sure...
PETER WILSON: We've been yelling...
V WILSON: ...What to expect.
P WILSON: ...At each other.
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V WILSON: Yeah, we've been yelling at each other. Just the further north we drive, the more my heart rate goes up. I mean, it looks like a bomb got dropped here.
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V WILSON: Oh, see that? Oh, my God. There's the gym. It's OK.
P WILSON: Ah, well. There's that karate studio.
V WILSON: That karate studio is gone. Oh, my God.
P WILSON: Going to stop.
C WILSON: All these houses are totally gone.
P WILSON: For sure. It's OK. It looks like it's calmed down.
V WILSON: Yeah. This will go all the way to our street.
P WILSON: I'm sure. Right.
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V WILSON: This is unrecognizable, right?
P WILSON: Yeah. No, I have no idea where we are. It looks like a war zone.
V WILSON: Yep.
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V WILSON: So we just arrived at the remains of our house. Next door looks the same as it did when we left. For all I know, Michelle (ph) could walk out and wave me over the fence, but I know they're not there. The walls caved in on the driveway.
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V WILSON: I'm saving my turtle sculpture. Ugh.
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V WILSON: Citrus trees are all burned. All the lemons and limes and oranges that I like to come out and pick.
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C WILSON: I just want to go through everything.
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C WILSON: I don't want someone going through this for me.
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C WILSON: What is this?
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C WILSON: No, there's paint stuff over here.
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C WILSON: Oh, my God. It's all my dad's paints. Oh, my God, there's still paint in here. I just wish I was up here alone. I just - I can't have people - I just need to, like, take it in for myself.
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V WILSON: And I guess this was the office. So somewhere under that piece of roof is the remains of the desk. And it's so hard to orient yourself in the rubble, even though we lived in this house for a dozen years.
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V WILSON: I'm going to walk across the street and see what it looks like. Jeez. It's just so bizarre. They only got a yellow tag. The rest of us have red tags on our houses. As far as you can see down the street, red, red, red.
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V WILSON: It's just whack-a-doodle.
SIMON: Victoria Wilson and her daughter, Charlotte Wilson, whose family returned to their Altadena neighborhood this week to go through the remains of their home.
(SOUNDBITE OF ETHEL CAIN'S "TELEVANGELISM") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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