Woman survives Las Vegas shooting then sees home burn down in California wildfires a week later

A woman survived the carnage of the Las Vegas shooting to then suffer the further trauma of seeing her home burn down with most of her possessions a week later in the California wildfires.

Michella Flores had returned to her parents' home, in the city of Santa Rosa, days after fleeing the bullets of gunman Stephen Paddock, who killed 58 people on the Las Vegas strip.

Instead of spending time with her family recovering from witnessing the most deadly gun massacre in recent American history, she found herself battling flames as they approached the property.

“Last Sunday, I was running from bullets. This Sunday, I was running from fire,” she said, speaking to KTVU.

“I was really shook up after Vegas. I was shaking and I couldn’t calm down. When I was fighting the fire at my house, I was more in a ‘task’ mode, and so I compartmentalised it.”

The 51-year-old flight attendant, who has previously worked as a firefighter and paramedic, was returning on Sunday 8 October to her parents' home, where she has been living ahead of a move to another address in the city.

As she approached she saw the orange glow of the wildfires from the hillside above the property. She knew from her time as a firefighter that the house was in no immediate danger, but told her parents to pack just in case.

She then took her dog, Baylee, for a walk and monitored the situation by tuning into the emergency service radio system.

When she heard dispatchers mention her parents’ road she called her mother to tell her parents to get out of the house and rushed back.

Ms Flores then fought the flames alongside firefighters using a garden hose and by 4.30am they had beaten them back from the property.

With her parents taking shelter in a nearby community centre, the flight attendant drove downstate the next day to attend customer service training at the airport in Oakland.

When she returned home in the evening she saw a fire engine on her road and then her parents’ home in smouldering ruins. While she had been at work the trees behind the house had caught fire and the flames spread to the property.

Ms Flores said: “The house was gone - the fire crews were just mopping up. Almost everything I own is gone. My bed, my bike, my clothes, my flight attendant uniforms.”

A week before she had flown into Las Vegas and booked into the Hooter’s Hotel so she could watch the Route 91 Harvest Festival on Sunday 1 October.

Just before 10pm that night retired accountant Stephen Paddock smashed the window of his 32nd floor Mandalay Bay Hotel suite and started firing on the 22,000-strong crowd below.

The 64-year-old had 23 guns with him as he began his 11-minute assault, some of which were modified to act like fully automatic rifles.

The carnage ended when Paddock turned a gun on himself as police closed in on his suite. By the time he had finished shooting 58 people had been killed and more than 400 wounded.

Writing on a GoFundMe page set up to raise funds for the family, Ms Flores’s sister, Krista, said: “After being in the Las Vegas shooting, Mich came home expecting calm and a few days later the house burned down. It has not been a good few weeks for her.

“Everything in the house furniture, clothes and momentos were lost in the fire, not just Mom and Dad’s stuff, but Mich’s as well”.

Ms Flores added that for the moment she was focusing on practicalities in the aftermath of the fire and hadn’t had time to process the magnitude of the two ordeals she had suffered.

She added “Believe me, this will hit me. And it will hit me hard. Right now, I’m in this space where things need to get done. And I’ll deal with the rest later on.”