While they’re still reeling from the Pacific Palisades fire that hit their local business, a couple was able to save their home through a dramatic example of impromptu firefighting.
Ben and Fay Vahdani are adamant that others may have been able to save their homes too, had they been allowed to try. But now the struggle is to keep their business going and their employees working.
Their company, Luxe Homecare, which includes at-home long- and short-term senior care, rehab and hospice, is still in operation. But after the fire destroyed their offices at 881 Alma Real Drive in the center of Palisades’ business district, the couple has worked from a hotel room in Santa Monica.
“A huge, huge part of our business is gone,” Fay said, noting that about 20 percent of their 300 clients were in the Palisades.
“I’m not worried about that, but at this point I’m trying to hang on to my dedicated, caring employees,” she said. “I have to be on my feet to write them checks.”
The couple moved to the Palisades almost 25 years ago, just before the birth of their daughter, Bita. Immigrants from Iran, they found a welcoming home there and became part of a community they quickly grew to love.
“Me and my husband opened this business about 14 years ago and we just worked very hard,” Fay said, and they had a loyal clientele that developed over the years.
Longtime Palisades resident Ramis Sadrieh, president of the Palibu Chamber of Commerce (a chamber named for both Malibu and Palisades), expressed his gratitude for Luxe Homecare.
“Fay and her staff are one of the reasons that my father is still alive,” he said, “and I am forever grateful to her.”
Sadrieh said that following his father’s stroke three years ago, Fay and the company stepped in to provide pivotal care toward his recovery. “Fay is one of the kindest and most thoughtful human beings I have ever met,” he said.
Concerned for both their clients and employees, the Vahdanis stayed in their office for the greater part of the day on Tuesday, Jan. 7, when the Palisades fire began.
“Our office was on the third floor, so I could see that the wind had shifted, coming toward town and the Palisades center,” Fay said.
The 13 employees in their office spent that afternoon reaching out to clients in the town, offering to pick them up if they needed rides out of the Palisades.
“We reached out only to the ones that we knew lived alone,” Fay said. “The ones that had caregivers, they knew what to do. … My main focus was the people that lived alone. They have no one. … We know them and we knew they needed help to evacuate.”
The Vahdani’s staff finally left the office around 3 p.m. that Tuesday, but Fay and Ben Vahdani stayed. Fay thought they could sleep that night on the couch. But by 5 p.m. they saw the fire moving too close so they left for the hotel in Santa Monica.
But later that night they watched a monitor that showed live video footage of their house in Palisades Highlands still standing. So they drove to their street in hope of saving their home.
“We were watching this from the camera,” Ben said. “We were watching the house, and then eight fire engines, they just passed by the house. No one bothered to stop … and that’s why we went there.”
The couple arrived in the Highlands before midnight. “I saw half the street was gone,” Fay said, likening the sight to things they saw in their native country during the Iran-Iraq War.
Their bushes and patio furniture were burning. They had a fountain in the yard, so Ben hooked up a pump which he used to water down the property as best as he could.
Ben burned his feet that night. “I was going up the hill and the bushes, everything, was burning,” Ben said. “It’s like you’re walking on sand and all these fires, they’re like charcoal, and I slipped and they went into my shoes.”
But somehow they not only stopped the fire from destroying their house, but a neighbor’s house as well.
Though it will be a lot of work, the couple is confident they can rebuild their business. “Luckily COVID trained us to be experts in operating virtually,” said Ben, who handles the technology aspects of the business.
What is most important to them is that their house was spared from the fire. “If it wasn’t for that caring cop who let us through and let us go to our house, we would have lost our house,” Fay said.
Although Los Angeles officials point out that people who tried to save their homes with hoses or other means were among those who died, Fay insists, “Use us as an example that we saved our home ourselves.”
Now she says, “It’s time to allow people to go back and take care of their property.”
Jarret Liotta is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and photographer.