Massive Sand Fire Blazes Path Of Destruction In Santa Clarita

SANTA CLARITA (CBSLA.com) — The massive brush fire that tore through Santa Clarita this weekend blazed a path of destruction that residents were just beginning to grasp on Monday.

"Oh, my Lord ... I wasn't prepared for this," said Jan Sanborn, who returned to her home along Little Tujunga Canyon to find it had burned down. "I don't think anything prepares you for this."

The fire Monday evening had burned 35,155 acres and was 10 percent contained.

Jan and her husband Loren spent 18 years in the home, but their possessions were reduced to rubble in the blaze.

Among the precious items lost in the fire were a piano that she would play for her grandchildren and the VHS tapes documenting her husband's career as a stuntman in Western movies.

She said all that's left are "the memories of the many years and the friendships that were molded here."

She said the scorched hillsides were home to many wild animals including bobcats, mountain lions and coyotes.

"My husband fed coyotes, if you can believe it," she said.

Now, she's preparing for the next chapter of her life. She said she's keeping an optimistic attitude.

"This was a chapter in my life," she said. "Now, the next chapter has already begun, and I'm eager to see how that unfolds, and I know it will be good."

Nearby, residents along Iron Canyon recalled the fire's destructive path.

"It was screaming down the hill," Iron Canyon resident Kara Franklin said.

The fire broke out Friday afternoon along nearby Sand Canyon Road and quickly tore through nearby hillsides and burned some homes in the area on Saturday.

Franklin was astonished by the fire's quick spread, but was most devastated by the loss of her neighbor's boyfriend, whose charred body was found in a burned vehicle along Iron Canyon Road on Saturday night.

The victim's identity was not available Monday. Authorities said he was a 62-year-old man.

"I just met him 16 hours before," she said. "I think he just got trapped and engulfed."

Several homes were destroyed along Sand Canyon Road -- three of them belonging to firefighters. Two of those firefighters were fighting the Sand Fire in other locations while their homes were consumed by flames.

A GoFundMe account was set up to assist Jan Sanborn and her husband with fire-related expenses.