Raleigh woman's father loses home in devastating California wildfires: 'Just breaks my heart'

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- As deadly wildfires sweep across Southern California, the images are hard to take in for Raleigh resident Diane Abourisk, who is watching it unfold in her hometown in the Pacific Palisades.

"I'm stunned and dumbfounded and sad," Abourisk said. "We saw things that were going up in flames, like my high school and the local Starbucks. All of these elements that I'm very familiar with that I visit frequently."

As of Wednesday, tens of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate their homes and flee for their lives, including Abourisk's 93-year-old father, whose house burned down.

"It's just hard to process that there's nothing left," Abourisk said. "It's all in ashes. My father has nowhere to go. It just breaks my heart because all his hard work, all his memories are gone."

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Abourisk said her father is safe with her brother in Marina Del Ray, which is outside the marked evacuation zones. But with nothing to return to, she doesn't know how her father will cope.

"I just worry about his mental health and how this will affect him," Abourisk said. "It's the whole community that is going through this together. Most of them have lost their homes and their businesses ... everybody is displaced. Just really sad."