Nurse Who Raced to Flee the L.A. Fires Thought Her Home Was Spared, Then She Saw What Was Left (Exclusive)

• Yvette Anderson evacuated from her Altadena, Calif., home amid the Eaton wildfire

• The nurse later learned from friends that her house was gone, telling PEOPLE, "I feel hurt"

• A friend set up a GoFundMe on Anderson's behalf

Yvette Anderson, a nurse at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center and a longtime resident of Altadena, first heard about the wildfires that had started to engulf the Pacific Palisades and Eaton Canyon on Tuesday, Jan. 7. At the time, it didn’t seem like a threat to her home of 28 years.

“They said there was one in Eaton Canyon,” Anderson, 60, recalls to PEOPLE. “[When] they said where it was, I said, ‘Oh, that's not close to my house. I think I'm good. We're okay.' "

But that dramatically changed in the next several hours for Anderson who, along with her mother, boyfriend and another person, was forced to evacuate her Altadena home as a result of the Eaton Fire — which has killed at least two people and burned nearly 11,000 acres so far, according to Cal Fire.

Related: L.A. Fire Victim, 66, Died with Garden Hose Still in Hand, Defending Home, Heartbroken Loved Ones Say

On Thursday morning, Jan. 9, Anderson, who is currently staying at a hotel in Ontario, returned to her Altadena neighborhood and found her home had completely burned down.

“I feel hurt,” she says after surveying the damage. “But I'm grateful because we're all alive. We all made it out.”

Prior to evacuating, Anderson recalls coming back home from work on Tuesday and smelling smoke, realizing that the fire was close. Later, “I got up at two o'clock in the morning [on Wednesday, Jan. 8] and I took a picture out of my window,” she adds.

“Then at 4 a.m.,” she continues, “my phone started going off saying, ‘Evacuate, evacuate, evacuate!’ I grabbed a few things. My mom and everybody grabbed [things], and we got out of the house.”

Related: Celebrities Who Have Lost Homes or Had to Evacuate in the Los Angeles Fires, and What They've Said

The group drove down to a parking lot in South Pasadena where other people gathered to escape. Later, Anderson made phone calls trying to find lodging.

“I found a hotel in Ontario,” she says, “Then we just went out there to get away from the smoke because the smoke was getting bad. The ashes and stuff was coming all the way down in South Pasadena.”

It was through friends that Anderson first found out that her house was gone. “We lost our house because the winds were just whipping through when we left at 4 o'clock that morning,” she says.

Anderson says there were still flames and smoke when she returned to her Altadena neighborhood Thursday morning to check on her home. “They have it blocked off in certain areas where you can't get up there,” she says. “You hear the fire siren going, and a lot of police officers out and just people just blocking everything.”

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Anderson has fond memories of the area. “It's a lovely neighborhood,” she says. ”Everybody is loving, peaceful. You would want to raise your kids here. ... It's just a caring area to grow up in.”

Related: Mom in Tears After She Has to Tell Her Sons, 5 and 10, Their 'School Burned Down' amid L.A. Fires (Exclusive)

But when she returned Thursday, none of her neighbors were there.

“The neighborhood is gone,” says Anderson.

At the moment, Anderson is contacting her insurance company, FEMA and the Red Cross for help while a friend established a GoFundMe on her behalf.

Anderson says she plans on staying in Altadena and rebuilding.

“I'm so grateful to have caring people right now,” she says.

Click here to learn more about how to help the victims of the L.A. fires.

Read the original article on People