“I looked out the front window, and...

“I looked out the front window, and the transformers on the electric lines were blowing up. They were popping. The back yard was full of burning ashes. It looked like a big barbecue pit. I woke my dad and said, ‘Let’s get out of here.’ ”

--Hector Salas, 20, whose home was reduced to little more than charred wood in the wind-whipped fires that destroyed 22 houses and damaged nine others in Baldwin Park and the La Verne area.