Sask. man describes ‘terrifying’ evacuation from California wildfire [Video]

When the alert came on his phone to evacuate from his home in Hollywood, Calif., due to wildfire last week, Samuel Tipewan says he couldn’t believe it.

Tipewan, from Witchekan Lake First Nation, Sask., about 180 kilometres north of Saskatoon, is a film student at the New York Film Academy’s Los Angeles campus and has been living in Hollywood.

“We’re like right in the heart of Hollywood,” he said. “It’s concrete, the only things that really could get on fire [were] kind of the hills and the brush. So I felt like we were safe.” 

“Then to get the word that our hill was on fire, I was in disbelief. So I had to go and look at it myself.” 

It was Jan. 8, and the Sunset Fire had just broken out in the …