WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — A Topeka native, Cooper Olson, now living in Los Angeles, described the fires as devastating. He spent the first part of the week concerned about his parents, who were snowed in, in Topeka.  His worry quickly turned to fear where he now lives.  He told KSN's Derek Lytle they were wondering when the tragedy will end.  A horrific reality, in Los Angeles.  "We know eleven people so far, that know for sure their houses are gone," said Cooper Olson.  Since our initial conversation, Olson said, the number is now 13 friends, left with nothing but rubble, where they once called home.  "It's just devastating," said Olson.  He said him and his wife could see the Palisades Fire the night it started, creating an unsettling tone.  "That yellowish, gray air, heavy, calm, that you know something bad is going on, it might not be right where you are right now, but you just feel it," said Olson.  Olson said they have taken in one of his wife's friends, and plan to host several more people. This comes as many displaced people are not yet allowed to return to the site where they lost everything.  "All the sort of chaos and helplessness and people just wondering what they could do, and basically figuring out that there was nothing they could do," said Olson.  Although the Olson home is safe, he said, this tragedy is a wake-up call.  "I just don't even know what I would do. I've thought a lot about that, and just what your options would even be, and I have no idea, so the best thing I guess we can do, is help out the people we know, and take them in if we can," said Olson.  Lending a Kansan's hand, in a historic tragedy.