What kids took with them when they fled the L.A. wildfires

If your house was on fire and you only had time to grab a few things, what would you take with you? When you’re an adult, it’s a question you’ve most likely thought about — a list in the back of your mind of Social Security cards, photo albums, family heirlooms. When you’re a kid, it’s not your job to prepare for the possibility of that kind of loss.

But last month, as wildfires tore through Los Angeles, many children and teenagers had to decide, sometimes in just minutes, which of their own belongings to take with them in the chaos of evacuation. For some, the things they chose are now all they have left of home.

The New York Times for Kids asked eight young people to tell us about some of the items they saved from the fires, and what they lost.

Felicity Dale, 8, took her Mickey Mouse stuffed animal.

When the Palisades fire rolled down a hillside toward their house, Felicity’s family had about an hour to pack. So she grabbed her favorite stuffy: a Mickey Mouse she got at Disneyland. At night, when Felicity hears creaks and squeaks in the dark, she imagines that it’s the sound of rats; Mickey makes her feel safe. “I feel like he could just jump on the rats and sit on them,” she says.

Sleep has been a challenge since the fire burned down Felicity’s home. “It feels like I’ve lost everything,” she says. Mickey is comforting, but lying in bed is not the same without the giant stuffed tiger that she had had since she was 6 weeks old. It was as big as she was, so she had to leave it behind. “I just can’t go to sleep,” she says. “I keep reading books until 10 o’clock or 11.”