Surfer's van left standing amid entire street of burned homes in Pacific Palisades neighborhood

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. (KABC) -- Along a stretch of Erskine Drive in the El Medio Bluffs - not a single home stands. But somehow amid the destruction of the Palisades Fire, something miraculously survived.

"Somehow, the 'beast' is still here!" said Monique Navarro.

Navarro is talking about her son Diego's surfer van, which was untouched by the flames.

"It's actually the eyesore of the neighborhood, and it's the only thing that survived the entire street," she said.

Her son's large van, which takes up three parking spaces, has now become a symbol of resilience. This is fitting, considering it was her son's phone call that prompted her family to get out, she said.

"He just said - just leave. The house isn't going to be saved. We're on the bluffs and these winds are in every direction," she recalled.

Diego, who is Navarro's oldest son, was in Europe when flames erupted. Worried, he called his mom all the way across the world.

Diego's passion is surfing. He coaches and travels the globe to find the best waves. But to be a good surfer, you also have to watch for dangerous wind patterns.

"He was the first to say, 'These are tornado winds. Where are my brothers and sisters? We need to get them out of the house because I've never seen winds like this before,'" Navarro recalled.

Navarro and her three other children got out, heeding Diego's warning. Their house unfortunately burned down. Diego had 30 surfboards that burned up.

And three days later as they sifted through the rubble, a heart-shaped rock with the word "love" etched atop the surface was the first thing they found under a charred tree.

"We called this house our treehouse because it healed all of our souls. We would sit under this magical tree, and that rock which says love was right under the tree," Navarro described.

Although Navarro and her family lost their home, somehow the surfer van still parked outside their property serves as a reminder that not everything is completely lost.

"It's kind of now the healing van. You know?" Navarro said.