The Last House Standing

Story By The New York Times.

After evacuating her home early Wednesday morning and escaping the fires that had engulfed swaths of Altadena, Calif., Monica Perez clutched her rosary and chanted a Hail Mary as her 19-year-old son drove the two of them up the I-5.

Then a neighbor called with miraculous news: Her century-old, Mission-style stucco house was still standing and all but unharmed.

A fire crew had managed to save her home and two neighboring ones, Ms. Perez said. She and her son raced back to their neighborhood, in the evacuation zone, passing homes still ablaze, to see it with their own eyes.