HS football coach loses sister in Los Angeles fires. She wonders why she didn’t evacuate

• Zair Calvin’s 59-year-old sister, Evelyn McClendon, is one of the victims of the Los Angeles fires
• Calvin’s family was separated from McClendon during the evacuation from the Altadena neighborhood
• McClendon’s remains were later found in the former bedroom

A high school football coach in Altadena, California, is remembering his 59-year-old sister who died in an accident Eaton’s Fire — one of many fires that devastated Los Angeles – and said he tried to get out of her house while his family living nearby evacuated on the evening of Tuesday, January 7.

“That part just keeps replaying in my head like a bad nightmare,” Zaire Calvin told the CW affiliate KTLA about his deceased sister Evelyn McClendon. “I’m trying to understand what she was thinking and why she didn’t do it or why she didn’t do it.”

Calvin said CNN that the last time he spoke to McClendon was as the fire was approaching their Altadena neighborhood, and added that she was packing her things, preparing to leave her home. “I felt like he was on his way out,” Calvin said.

At that time, he was busy preparing for the evacuation of his family, including his wife, one-year-old child and his disabled mother in her 80s. CNN reported that Evelyn’s house was adjacent to Calvin’s.

Calvin later told the outlet that before the family was ready to flee the neighborhood, he noticed Evelyn’s car was parked in front of her house. Before he attended to his mother, he went to her house and shouted, “We have to get out.”

“Everyone’s screaming, ‘Get out.’ Calvin also said 60 minutes. “I think she’s leaving. And the next day after the storm – I come back and her car is still there. At this moment, my whole soul is shaking in my brain.”

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When Calvin returned to the area the next day, he found that his family’s homes had been destroyed and his sister’s car was still parked in front of her house. CNN reported that a cousin later found McClendon’s remains in what was once her bedroom.

“It was hard for me to process it all. I cried every day,” Calvin said, according to KTLA. “I just want to go home.”

Jamire Calvin, Zaire’s son and Pasadena resident, who also escaped the fire, said Spokesman review that his deceased aunt watched movies with him when he was a child. He added that she is a fan of classical music and is interested in politics.

“Just overwhelmed again. I’m overwhelmed with emotion again,” Jamire told the newspaper after hearing the news of McClendon’s death. “I was already hurt, distraught, kind of defeated by what happened, emotional about it, and then this was like the cherry on top that just made it worse. It made it worse than it should have been.

In the wake of the tragedy, Zaire called on the community to come together and help rebuild the area, telling KTLA: “As long as we stick together and don’t sell – please keep your homes – my community of Altadena, keep fighting for everything. God will find a way.”

Zaire told KTLA that donations can be made to his cause unprofitable; Jamire also founded GoFundMewhich, as of Tuesday, January 14, had raised over $49,000.

Tuesday morning, the Los Angeles County Fire Department reported that the Eaton Fire was still over 14,000 acres and 35% contained.

PEOPLE reached out to the Calvin family for comment on Tuesday.

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