Los Angeles Times

Getty fire: Housekeepers, gardener go to work despite the flames

LOS ANGELES - When she left her house about 6 a.m., Carmen Solano didn't know a brush fire had erupted near the neighborhood where she worked. So she left for her job, with coffee and pan in hand.

She'd filled her red backpack with tortillas, bananas, water and lunch for the day before heading to a home she cleaned weekly on Robinwood Drive. When Solano arrived, via a taxi shared with other housekeepers, the hillside neighborhood lined with multimillion-dollar homes was already choked with debris from the Getty fire.

"There's a lot of smoke," the driver

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