A Bermudian and his family who escaped their home in California just as it was consumed by the state’s devastating round of wind-fuelled wildfires must now reckon with the loss of a community, along with almost everything they owned.

Jarrett Crockwell, an American football coach and teacher along with his wife, Amanda, lived until last week in the family residence in Altadena that dated back generations.

“We do not have a plan — we work in this community, so not only are our houses burnt down, our jobs have burnt down,” Mr Crockwell said yesterday.

“We have a multigenerational situation. I have my in-laws who are 67 and 72; they can’t just up and restart after 50 years’ worth of their lives.

“My sister-in-law is hearing-impaired, and we help her take care of her kids. We need to be in that compound, multigenerational situation for our family.”

He added: “The easy question is, what’s next? It’s the answer that’s hard. There’s 10,000 of us displaced.”

Altadena, an unincorporated community that had a little more than 40,000 residents, enjoys a long history of Black American property ownership.

Its status as a Black enclave dates back to the early days of its development and the practice of “redlining”, when many California insurers and banks withheld access to financial services from neighbourhoods where minority groups lived.

The community, just north of the city of Pasadena, was a place for Mr Crockwell to put down roots six years ago.

The house where he and his wife were married, where both her grandparents lived out their days, was consumed along with their neighbours’ homes by the Eaton fire, which broke out on January 7 and has since swept across more than 14,000 acres.

Mr Crockwell said that in the years since he settled in the area, he had seen wildfires a couple of times.

“It was in the distance, nothing like this,” he said. “Normally, it stays on the mountain.”

Struggling to put the destruction in perspective, he added: “Picture St George’s and St David’s, and how close those two communities are.

“And then, from the east to the west, a firestorm comes and takes it out. That’s how it looks. That’s the devastation we’re going through.”

The canyon behind Altadena caught fire last Tuesday at about 4pm. The seasonal Santa Ana winds were blowing, Mr Crockwell recalled, but firefighters were battling against the blaze, even as the electricity went out.

He recalled: “Around 8pm, 9pm, the wind picked up to 60, 70mph. We knew it was supposed to get worse, but we thought it was contained.

“Around 11pm, 12pm it picked up bad. It was a 100mph wind. That’s when the city started burning down.”

Although the evacuation order did not extend as far as their street, Mr Crockwell awoke at 3am to flames licking over the property’s perimeter fence, with his father-in-law and uncle trying to battle against it.

“By the time I went around to my side to get our bags, our house was on fire,” he said.

As they drove off. the family saw a little store down the road ablaze and their entire block beginning to catch fire.

Mr Crockwell said his mother-in-law’s church gave them shelter, and he was able to take two trips back to try and salvage more.

“We were able to get my mother-in-law’s car, but the whole street was engulfed,” he said.

Over much of Altadena, the stores, the parks where children trained for sports and the familiar meeting places went up in smoke.

The couple’s son, Jaylen, 17, still has a school to attend. Their 12-year-old daughter Tacori’s school burnt down.

Now staying in an Airbnb courtesy of their church, the family has assistance from a GoFundMe site set up online by Mr Crockwell’s mother, Joanne Minors.

By yesterday afternoon, more than $16,500 had been raised. The family will also receive some support from the US Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Mr Crockwell, who was filing paperwork with the Department of Motor Vehicles when he spoke to The Royal Gazette, said the family had no idea what would come next.

He added: “We lost everything — it’s devastating. This was my wife’s family homestead. She grew up there, was raised there 37 years.

“That was her parents’, her grandparents’ house. There were so many memories there, things we can’t replace.

“It’s not even just that our comfort is gone. It would be different if it was just a house. But it’s a whole community, our friends, neighbours, that’s all being split up.”

In the midst of ruins, Mr Crockwell took comfort from the help of others.

“I wanted to highlight a group called Bermudians in California,” he said. “I don’t know how, but they just reached out to me.

“They have been very, very supportive and have offered every possible thing to help get us back on our feet. They made us feel loved.”

Despite the family’s continuing shock, he added: “On the flip side, I’m blessed. We’ve got friends, a good support system, and our community is strong.

“Altadena will bounce back. Our youth are very engaged, very involved, and they’re driven to make sure that because we have a lot of Black communities in Altadena, they don’t sell the properties. They’ll rebuild, so that’s encouraging for us.

“We are bonding together, just trying to keep out community together. I know everybody involved in this feels the investment their parents and grandparents made to put them in this situation.

“You see that in our community. They are trying to hold on to that — and that’s what will get us through.”