LOS ANGELES — What haunts firefighter Brett Klemme is not the flames. It’s the photographs.
On Jan. 7, the day the wildfires of Los Angeles ignited and forced mass evacuations, Klemme recalled, he entered a burning house in Pacific Palisades and saw photos of two young children that reminded him of his own.
Klemme, 39, said he felt deep gratification when he and other firefighters extinguished the flames inside that house. Later, they circled back and found the house had burned down.
“It was such a gut punch,” Klemme told USA TODAY during a recent interview. “I wanted to tell them (the homeowners), we did everything we could to save your home.’’
The wildfires have killed at least 28 people, destroyed more than 15,000 structures and impacted an untold number of firefighters like Klemme. “We just have this guilt about what we could have done better,” he said.
