In California, National Guard soldiers have been searching the ruins of the town of Paradise for any sign of the 130 people still missing. The death toll from the state's deadliest wildfire has now risen to 56. While most victims got out in time. Some decided to stay to save their homes. Phil Lavelle reports from Bell Canyon, near Los Angeles.

This is what it looks like when a raging wildfire is closing in on your home.

MARK LEISS "The flames had to be 25, 30 feet tall. They were over these treelines here."

And Mark was determined it would not take his. The Woolsey fire has devastated huge areas of land near Los Angeles, including his road.

MARK LEISS "It went within 15 minutes from the first sign of it to the house collapsing on itself."

This area - Bell Canyon - was under mandatory evacuation. Authorities told residents to leave. Mark decided to stay to try to save his and his neighbors' homes.

PHIL "Your wife leaves with the kids, you say I'm staying. A lot of people will say you're crazy. What goes through your mind? Why stay in a fire?"

MARK "For me, it's a strange thing and people will disagree. This house is my home, it's my castle. I raised my children here, they sleep here. I live my life with my wife here. It's part of my soul. Some will say rebuild it. That's not my position. This house protects me, it keeps me safe, when it's raining, it keeps me dry. Why would I abandon it when it needs me most?"

PHIL LAVELLEBELL CANYON, NEAR LOS ANGELES "What apparent is just how indiscriminate these flames were. Some homes completely destroyed. This one gone, and the fence melted away by the intense heat. Same over the road, and yet behind it, that one untouched. And it's the same story over there too. When the flames came, the winds pushed them through and changed direction every few seconds. Nobody knew which house would be next."

Mark's neighbor's was one of them.

MARK LEISS "This house ignited - it went up in 15 mins. And when that happened, I was standing on this deck and I was throwing as much water as I could from my own hoses but by that time, the water pressure had died on mine as well. So as a result, I turned to a classic method of using water buckets, which sounds insane but where there's a will, there's a way, and I put everything I had into keeping that fire as much as I could on that side of the fence."

PHIL "I guess surely in that moment, you are alone, you're facing death. You must be petrified?"

MARK "Absolutely. To say you're not scared is foolish. I was absolutely, absolutely, absolutely petrified by what I saw, what was going on, the noises. When a house burns, it's not like what you see on TV with the snap and crackle. You have a house that is screaming at you to save it. You have a house that's metal breaking, gas exploding, water shooting up, propane tanks, gasoline exploding. To hear that and feel the explosion of the heat is something that I can't explain. And God, I hope that I never feel it again. Because to see it, you're not only seeing a home go, but the emotional aspect of what people are losing at that exact moment, whatever their belongings are, they're all gone. And it's within 20 mins."

And so as people come back to their homes, some have no home to come back to. Others do - because they fought with everything they had to keep the flames away. Phil Lavelle, CGTN, Bell Canyon, near Los Angeles.