Former Lethbridge man on edge of Los Angeles wildfires

By Lethbridge Herald on January 14, 2025.

Submitted photo - Ruston Harker, seen here on a southern California beach last month, says the ongoing Los Angeles wildfires came within two blocks of his home near North Pasadena, Calif.

Justin Seward – LETHBRIDGE HERALD

Lethbridge native Ruston Harker resides near North Pasadena, Calif.,  where the ongoing Los Angeles wildfires came within two blocks of his home.

Luckily for Harker, his home wasn’t engulfed by the massive blaze that continues to roar through California, but he was forced to evacuate and stay with friends last week.

“(Last) Wednesday, it was rough and there were definitely times when I was like, ‘well this is it, this is it,’” he said from his friends’ home. what kept him going through the ordeal, oddly enough, was the Ring video doorbell on his home, which allowed him to see the neighbourhood around his front door.

“Every time I would…see like an image pop up of my street, it was just like, ‘Uhh, thank God, okay, it’s still there,’” says Harker. “But I was fully bracing myself to open it and have it unconnected or (had) lost it and then find out from my community that it didn’t go well.”

Harker says the situation has been very hard to grasp.

“There’s been moments where I even kind of forget what’s going on because I’m with a friend in Hollywood right now staying at his place.”

He was out for dinner with a friend early last week and it was while he was driving home that he noticed a red glow as he drove to his home community. When he rounded a hillside, that glow became clearer – and more alarming.

“Then I saw on the hill it was this large patch of just red glowing and it would burst up for a bit, and then it would kind of go away,” says Harker. “And at that point (the fire) was still miles away.

“Once I got off the freeway driving to my house, there were emergency vehicles driving with their full sirens on in every direction and there were branches in the roads and some of the lights were already out.”

After he got home, Harker woke up at midnight on Wednesday to see the glow in the distance. By 4 a.m. he could smell smoke.

“And so opened up the (fire alert) app and it was like ‘evacuate now,’” said Harker.

He felt a sense of mild panic after he settled at his friends’ place in Hollywood.

“I could watch the news for just  little snippets before it became too overwhelming and then we’d have to turn it off.

My only input into seeing how things were going (was) my community chat and my Ring door bell.”

Harker learned that the nearby community of Altadena was almost entirely destroyed by mid-week. Since that time he and his friend  have been following daily updates.

Harker moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1990s with the intentions of being an actor and pivoted to more stability with Walt Disney Company in 2003 where he started in the music end, and now is in the feature animation side as a legal department support for attorneys.

“It’s great to be surrounded by people who are making the deals and casting the talent. To be involved in the project and seeing everything come together like that is all very rewarding.”

The Walt Disney studio where Harker works in Burbank was closed all last week due the fires. Fortunately, most employees are able to work remotely.