Woman with 175-Lb. Tortoise Recalls Watching Home Burn in Palisades Fire, But She's Grateful to Be Alive (Exclusive)
"The whole community's gone," TikTok star Caitlin Doran tells PEOPLE
Caitlin Doran/Instagram; Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg via Getty
Caitlin Doran and her tortoise Tiptoe (left); Los Angeles fireTikToker Caitlin Doran, her tortoise Tiptoe and her family are safe from the Los Angeles area fires
Family members are now living together nearby in Marina del Rey, Doran tells PEOPLE
Five generations of the family have lived in the Palisades, and all lost their homes and businesses, she says
Less than a day after losing her childhood home to the Palisades fire, Caitlin Doran and Tiptoe the tortoise are determined to make the best of it.
The TikToker, who chronicles life with her 23-year-old, 175-lb. African tortoise for her 4.5 million followers, is safe with her family — her grandmother, grandfather, aunt, uncle, brother and two cousins — in her home in Marina del Rey, she tells PEOPLE exclusively.
But her grandparents’ home is gone, as is the one she grew up in, she shares.
“I mean, everybody lost their house,” Doran, 28, says. “So it's all of us. We're all going to be figuring it out together, but there's nothing to go back to.”
Related: L.A. Fires Live: 2 Confirmed Dead as Blazes Continue to Burn Through the City
Doran adds, “We're fifth-generation Palisadians. My mom, we lived across the street from my grandparents where my mom grew up. My aunt and uncle are three streets down, all gone. All of our houses are gone. My grandpa's, the property owner for the Ralphs, the Pharmaca, the hardware store and the car wash. I think the Ralphs is gone. I mean, the whole community's gone."
Doran says the fire started quickly and that she and her family first saw black smoke around 2 p.m. local time on Tuesday. Jan. 7.
Tiffany Rose/Getty
People watch the smoke and flames from fires in Los Angeles“We were on the roof just watching until we broke out the hoses,” she tells PEOPLE.
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Sadly, by around midnight on Wednesday, Jan. 8, Doran says she and her family abandoned any effort to save their homes.
“Once the water stopped, then that's when my boyfriend was like, ‘No, there's nothing left to do,’ ” Doran recalls.
She detailed the difficult decision they were forced to make to save their prized possessions amid the blaze.
“They grabbed a couple things that they could, but we were at the house all day," she says. "We were watching the flames and I mean, maybe we in hindsight could have packed a couple more things, but you just never know. Really don't know. What do you take? There's so many things that come into play. I feel like that. I mean, it's just kind of in that fight or flight — you're watching your house burn.”
Yet, one of the items her brother managed to save was a 5-foot lazy Susan, a keepsake the family cherished for decades, using it every Sunday for family meals, Doran says.
While her family lost so many material items, Doran says, she takes comfort in knowing they still have each other.
Even Tiptoe, who lived in the Palisades in a backyard oasis lovingly constructed by Doran’s grandfather, is getting a new place thanks to Doran’s landlord in Marina del Rey.
“The plan is we're all going to move in together, be one big happy family,” Doran says. “I mean, it's quite the shift, but I feel like at least seeing how my family has reacted so far, what do you do? They're going to be strong about it, [and] I feel like they're community-driven people. So I feel like we're already feeling the love from the community so much. I mean, we've been so lucky.”
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