Retro blue VW van stands defiant after miraculously surviving the deadly Los Angeles wildfires
A RETRO blue VW van stands defiant after miraculously surviving the deadly Los Angeles wildfires.
Stunned former owner Preston Martin, 24, assumed the 1977 Volkswagen Type 2 van had been consumed by the flames.
The surfboard maker had parked it in Malibu shortly before the Palisades fire ripped through the seaside community.
But he was delighted when a pic emerged of the shiny blue van defiantly still standing among the charred rubble.
Martin, who slept in the van for a year while studying mechanical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said: “There is magic in that van.
“It makes no sense why this happened.
“It should have been toasted, but here we are.
“It’s so cool that it’s become this, like, beacon of hope.
“Everything around it was toasted, just destroyed.
“And then here’s this bright blue shiny van, sitting right there.”
Martin sold the van last summer to his friend and business partner Megan Krystle Weinraub, 29, who designs surf and skateboards.
Two days before the fires erupted the pals went surfing with the van, which Weinraub calls Azul – Spanish for blue.
Afterward Martin parked it on a flat spot up the hill from Weinraub’s apartment.
When the fires broke out, Weinraub fled with her dog Bodi and some dog food in her primary car.
She was resigned to Azul being gone, but on Thursday a neighbour sent her the photo of the van in among the devastation.
Weinraub, whose home survived, has not been able to visit Azul because the area remains closed to the public.
The devastating wildfires across LA have killed at least 27 people, destroyed over 12,000 buildings and other structures and burned through 60 square miles of land.