EXCLUSIVE. Our reporter and photographer return with Flemish Catherine to her burned down house in LA for the first time: “Had I waited until that evacuation order, I might not have been there today”

The star of the Christmas tree is still in the living room and there is still a bottle of Duvel in the burnt-out refrigerator. But nothing more remains of the destroyed house of the Flemish Catherine De Pauw (49) in Los Angeles. For the first time, together with reporter Sabine Vermeiren and photographer Pieter-Jan Vanstockstraeten, Catherine returns to the place she called ‘home’ for seventeen years. “Here was the living room, here was the kitchen. The dishes are still in the machine, see? But I don’t recognize this place anymore.” Here she explains how a correct reflex may have saved her family’s life.

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