ABOVE: Josh Vetter.

FAIRMONT– Josh Vetter has been living in Los Angeles ever since he graduated from Fairmont High School in 2009. He and his wife, Lacy, live in what’s called the Valley so they’ve been surrounded by the recent wildfires, but fortunately not in an evacuation zone. In his 15 years of living out there, Vetter said these are the worst fires he has seen.

“At this point I consider it my home,” Vetter said of Los Angeles, which has been greatly affected by a series of wildfires that broke out on Jan. 7 and have been spreading ever since.

He said the Valley is without a lot of vegetation as it’s a residential area, but that the Palisades fire and Eaton fire are happening on the sides of it.

“Thankfully my wife and I haven’t had to deal with anything fire-related,” Vetter said.

However, they have friends who have been in an evacuation zone who they have helped move temporarily into another friend or family member’s house. In fact, about 180,000 people have been asked to evacuate.

While the Vetters have been mostly unaffected by the fire directly, something else is now causing problems.

“It’s good and bad because now that the winds have died down, all of the smoke is settling into the Valley,” Vetter said.

Lacy is a teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), which has been closed for several days this week and Vetter is a performer at Universal Studios, which has also been closed.

“They shut down the theme park and the studio lot. Every television show that was in production has been halted because either they film on location outdoors, which is not possible, or in studio and a lot of big lots have lost power,” Vetter said.

He explained that the Santa Ana winds hit 60 mile per hour (mph) this week, which have been fueling the wildfires and creating additional problems.

“We can see out our apartment, down the street and across the road, there’s a whole block without power but we’ve just gotten lucky,” Vetter said.

Right now, he said they are ‘hunkering down’ and staying inside and out of the way of emergency vehicles. Not to mention, the air quality from the smoke is very unhealthy.

“You can see footprints in ash on the ground,” Vetter said.

Due to the fires and poor air quality, it was officially announced on Friday that the Minnesota Vikings’ Monday night playoff game against the Los Angeles Rams has been moved to State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.

While it’s not the first fire, or even the biggest fire Vetter’s seen living out there, it is the worst.

“In my time out here there have been a couple of Northern California fires, but that’s more wilderness and less city,” he explained.

He said the difference with this one is that there’s multiple fires burning and resources are stretched too thin which is why they’re doing their part by staying inside and out of the way. He said right now the best thing is to just get through it.

“Later down the road people will need donations to rebuild their homes and their lives but right now in the thick of it, it’s staying vigilant on what the city is asking of you and doing what you can to help your neighbor,” Vetter said.