When James Perry, 42, received the first emergency report of the Franklin fire at 11:45 p.m. Monday, he and his wife were already packing up their belongings.

The couple had already received an email from their five-year-old’s school, Sycamore School, next door to their home in Los Flores, informing them that the site would be closed as a precaution because of the fire.

They lost their power at 11:20 p.m. Perry said his family, without cell reception or Wi-Fi connection, relied on emergency notifications to prepare and leave the house on the third alarm – just a ravine away from the growing fire zone.

“As soon as we got down near Duke’s Malibu (Los Flores Canyon Road), we saw the halo of fire, smoke and light,” Perry said. “That’s when we realized it was closer than we thought.”

The family of three stayed at a hotel in Santa Monica and are currently looking for alternative accommodation.

This is not the first fire Perry and his family have experienced. They previously lived in Topanga Canyon and were evacuated for two weeks during the devastating aftermath of the Woolsey fire.

“We were doing well, but I had a lot of friends who had to rebuild and rebuild their lives,” he said.

Living in a potential fire zone has changed the way Perry and his family live, he said.

“We don’t have anything expensive on-site, and we keep our important documents off-site and have printed (copies) with us,” he said. “It’s scary. We love living where we live, but it feels like (fire accidents) are happening more often.”

The big difference between the Woolsey and Franklin fires is the emergency notifications. Perry said he didn’t receive any virtual alerts last time.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said the fire burned some cell towers in the area and affected service. The extent of the outage is unclear, but people in the area reported having problems making phone calls.

The eastern half of Malibu was evacuated. An evacuation warning was in effect for the rest of the city and parts of unincorporated Los Angeles County, affecting about 18,000 people. The evacuation order applies to more than 2,000 buildings and an evacuation warning is in place for another 6,000.

Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said during a news conference Tuesday morning that a “minimal number” of homes had been destroyed, although he did not have an exact number of structures damaged. He urged residents to limit the use of lawn sprinklers to maintain water pressure for firefighters.