TikTok Influencer Breaks Down in Tears as She Recounts the Moment Her Beloved Home Was Burned to the Ground in California Wildfires: ‘Everything I’ve Built Is Gone’
An influencer has recalled the tragic moment she watched her California home burn down in the Palisades wildfire while she was on vacation in Mexico—and how she plans to try to rebuild her life after this “roller coaster of grief.”
Sara Kathryns, 26, became a social media phenomenon when she began sharing her day-to-day life on TikTok, ultimately racking up more than 261,000 followers. The blond beauty was seen by her followers as an expert in all things lifestyle, earning a legion of fans with her videos, which included everything from fashion advice to workout tips.
However, Kathryns’ upbeat content changed when the TikTok star joined the growing list of Californians whose lives were turned upside down by the violent flames that tore through Los Angeles.
Devastation swept through California beginning on Jan. 7, when the Palisades fire began burning up acres upon acres of land, before multiple other blazes ignited throughout and around the city, incinerating entire homes and communities, while also claiming the lives of 27 people, according to Cal Fire.
Now, Kathryns has opened up about her heartbreaking experience of losing her home—and almost all of her belongings—in the fire, recalling how the picturesque pad on Sunset Boulevard was reduced to nothing more than a pile of “rubble.”
In an emotional TikTok video, shared just days before the app was officially banned in the U.S., Kathryns laid bare the torrent of emotions that she and her boyfriend, Shane Lotz, who were 1,500 miles away from their property at the time, experienced when they realized that they no longer had a home to return to.
sarakathryns/tiktok
sarakathryns/tiktok
sarakathryns/tiktok
In a video, which has amassed over 177,000 views, the 26-year-old held back tears as she admitted that she “never thought” she’d ever have to make a video detailing how her beloved home “burned down in the Palisades fire.” Then she recounted how the devastating events unfolded for her and Lotz.
The day the fires began, Kathryns and Lotz were set to embark on a romantic getaway to Mexico, she said. Having heard news of only one fire and no evacuation warnings, the lovebirds headed to the airport, confident that the flames, which were then 10 miles away from their home, would be safely contained long before they returned home.
However, upon landing, the couple’s blissful holiday transformed into a nightmare when they were flooded with text messages and videos warning them that their home was about to be engulfed by the fires.
“We land in Mexico and we see so many texts on our phone and on social media and see that this fire is a crazy fire already and people should evacuate but we’re in freaking Mexico by that time,” Kathryns recalled. “I started hysterically crying on the plane out of fear of, like I don’t know what’s going on and I’m not there so I’m as helpless as can be and we don’t have a spare key for anybody to get in. It was already really hard to get into the Palisades.
“All we had was our carry-on we brought to Mexico, which just had linen pants and swimsuits inside,” she went on, adding that she had “just” purchased a new car and it was in the garage of their home.
Hoping to take their mind off the fires, the couple headed to dinner, all the while hoping that firefighters would be able to contain the flames before they reached their Sunset Boulevard property.
“We went to dinner, and at dinner, they had different TVs up that usually play sports games,” the influencer continued. “These TVs were quite literally playing the fire, just like fire, and there were five of them, and we were like, ‘This is just not what we need right now, we don’t need a reminder that our apartment and everything we own is probably burning right now.’ So we barely slept that night, we were just super anxious.”
The next day, Kathryns and Lotz’s friend went to check on their home and, in the process, sent them a video of what was happening in the Palisades.
sarakathryns/tiktok
sarakathryns/tiktok
sarakathryns/tiktok
What they learned was that their worst nightmare had become a reality.
“We go back to the room, we go to lunch, and we had already had a friend who got up there and revealed everything was burned. So we had an idea that our place was donezo. I finally get a video from a different friend, and at the very end of the video, you just see rubble where our apartment was supposed to be standing,” Kathryns shared.
“I was in disbelief, and then it finally caught in my head that my apartment has burned down and that everything I own has been burned down,” she went on, choking back tears.
The social media star then confessed that she was so inconsolable, her boyfriend had to carry her back to their hotel room, where they stayed up all night and cried.
“We start bawling our eyes out, I’m shaking so much that my boyfriend had to carry me back to the hotel room and we both laid on the bed and sobbed for I don’t even know how long until we both called our moms,” she said.
“We were sitting on the balcony and sobbing together and club music began playing by the pool while we were having the lowest moment of our life and we just held each other.”
Kathryns, who described the Palisades as a “bubble of happiness,” explained that the couple decided to extend their trip in Mexico after learning the fate of their home. She noted that they believed their time would be better spent overcoming their grief away from the site of the fires, before returning with a clear head to assess the extent of the damage.
sarakathryns/tiktok
sarakathryns/tiktok
“We don’t have a home to go back [to] there. We would have gone home to my parents’ house and been absolutely depressed, so we ended up staying,” she explained.
At the end of the video, she revealed that, after she got home, she spent “four days” calling her insurance company and “filing claims.”
“I’m 26 years old. Everything I have built and created is gone. It feels like I took a step back. We are not alone, we will be OK. But despite that, grief is grief and it has been a roller coaster trying to figure out how to move forward,” she added.
It is unclear for how long the couple owned the home. However, it was listed for rent for $3,700 per month in January 2021, before being delisted the following month.
According to Cal Fire, just 31% of the area fire has been contained and firefighters are still battling the flames. More than 12,300 structures have been damaged in the disaster, with over 80,000 people being displaced, exacerbating California’s homelessness crisis.