89-year-old woman's spirit refuses to quit a year losing everything in Palisades Fire

One year after the Palisades Fire ripped through the Pacific Palisades and destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses, CBS LA speaks with an 89-year-old survivor whose spirit refuses to burn out despite the hurdles that have been thrown her way. 

The quiet Malibu hillside that was once home to Dominica Schiro, known to her loved ones as Mimma, is still blackened, carrying a reminder of the devastating inferno that leveled entire communities after it erupted on Jan. 7, 2025. 

"It was very bad," Schiro said. "I lost everything."

She says that while she was able to get out in time, her close friend and neighbor did not. 

"Was very nice man. I feel bad," she said. 

Schiro's daughter, Dorina, says that when they left the home, they could see smoke in the distance, but never thought that it would spread as far as Malibu. 

"I didn't grab anything, thinking that I was going to come home," she said. "It was a big mistake, my family albums, my dad's beautiful paintings — all gone."

Among those family albums was Mimma's wedding album. 

"This was really sad for me. This make me cry," Mimma said. 

Her other daughter, Gracie Darden, says that the horrors of last January still haunt her, even now. 

"Every time I see an alert on my phone, the fire alerts, I literally get traumatized," she said. 

Though they're still trying to come to terms with the fact that the place where Mimma baked and cooked for the neighborhood and made memories with the family over the course of 30 years is no longer standing, they're still able to find gratitude for life. 

After months of setbacks and paperwork, the Schiro family now finally has a rendering for a new home on the Malibu property. They said that they're one step closer to getting their rebuilding permits accepted. 

"They say we could probably start in January, and finish, God willing, they think hopefully a year," Dorina Schiro said. 

The empty lot isn't a graveyard of memories, they said, but rather a blank page where they plan to rebuild everything after the destructive fire. It will also be a reunion with the one item the blaze didn't damage, a stone angel that once sat in the home's yard.

"It's the one thing that survived," Darden said. "Every time I see it, I go, 'Thank you, God.' Because things come and go, family doesn't."