LAist is part of Southern California Public Radio The Eaton Fire had turned much of Altadena into a moonscape — dusty hundreds of signs started to sprout — disaster-related advertisements from the likes of investors Most signs have been illegally placed at public intersections and parks Others have gone on people's scorched yards Some co-opt the language of fire survivors with one sign reading “Rebuild Altadena Strong.” “It was really upsetting,” said resident Linda Japha and so many other people saw that as an opportunity to make a profit.” Japha is part of a loosely-organized group of residents who have been taking down signs in the public right of way One employee in particular has become a local hero “It was important for me to get out here and help out because I've been here a long time,” said Constantino Kallimanis Kallimanis has monitored graffiti in unincorporated communities such as Altadena keeping public spaces clear and free of vandalism his focus in Altadena shifted to removing unauthorized signs He said he mourned with a community he’s developed great affection for and there was a lot of good restaurants to eat here back in the day,” said Kallimanis who commutes from Alta Loma in San Bernardino County On approach to the Mountain View mortuary and cemetery Kallimanis eagle-eyed a sign for debris removal that had been zip-tied to a stop sign He walked out of the van gripping a pair of pliers Some contractors attach their signs so high up utility poles that they can’t be reached without a ladder But Kallimanis has come up with a method that’s now copied by other residents He demonstrates a move with a shovel at a stop on Christmas Tree Lane Kallimanis jams the blade behind a bright yellow plastic sign secured to a utility pole and loosens the wire ties until the sign clatters to the ground Japha coined it the “Kallimanis method,” the mention of which seems to embarrass him Kallimanis and colleagues on the county’s graffiti abatement team call offending businesses saying they didn’t know county code and were just trying to help the community But others don’t listen and keep putting up signs and we're trying to make things clean and nice for them The removal of unwanted signs from public spaces in Altadena is part of the county’s larger effort to speed the recovery and rebuilding process said the goal is for residents to feel safe and "not be distracted by signs or companies or advertisements.” “We want the area to be free of graffiti and solicitation so residents can really start to feel at home again and can start to rebuild," Halpern said The case could be made that Kallimanis is just doing his job but residents single him out as a dedicated ally “I think it's the fact that somebody who didn’t even live here cared so deeply and identified with the blight that was being caused,” Japha said as her Altadena home undergoes remediation said she hadn’t expected much from the county after the fire Many residents have been angry and disillusioned by the county response to the disaster starting from the first night of a blaze that would kill at least 18 people in Altadena and destroy more than 9,000 structures Then came the county’s decision to re-open Altadena to the public in late January entry to Pacific Palisades remains restricted at checkpoints secured by the National Guard Trying to do her part to protect the community from "predator" businesses Japha has removed 150 signs from public spaces “And if you can just go and do something for yourself and make that happen "There's probably some great contractors putting down signs who just don't know what the ordinances are," Moreland said because you can't tell good from bad just by looking at a sign if it's in the public right of way." Nearly four months since the fire laid waste to his house Moreland grows emotional talking about the immense loss as lawns and fences in the neighborhood started to catch fire Moreland had managed to put out all the embers he could see but his heart sank as he heard ominous sounds in the distance “Eucalyptuses and other trees uphill were starting to explode,” Moreland said and the number of embers just skyrocketed." That’s when he said he knew to say goodbye to the house the act of taking down errant signs has proven cathartic I'll screech on the brakes," Moreland said But the decision to do it is really based on wanting to help the community as much as anything." the county recommends that citizens not to remove signs on their own but to call the public works helpline at (800) 675-4357 But what’s typically happening is that residents like Moreland will just text or e-mail Kallimanis But with construction expected to ramp up in coming months And more will start to show up on private properties undergoing construction Signs on private property must also follow county code when it comes to size and the length of time they can be posted the regional planning department has received 19 complaints about signs and issued seven notices of violations to homeowners As with sign infractions on public property the county has prioritized education over fines "We don't want to overburden an already-overburdened community by fines," said Sharon Guidry deputy director of the enforcement division of the county's Department of Regional Planning While unauthorized signs on private property are not under Kallimanis’ purview he will no doubt hear about them from locals On her rounds posting “Altadena Not For Sale” signs on behalf of homeowners who purchased them Michelson would see illegally-placed signs and e-mail locations and images to Kallimanis She said he would respond the next day with a simple "done." she saw him in the flesh at a community event is this who I think it is?'” Michelson said Kallimanis said he’s never had this kind of reception from the public when a woman found out who he was and grabbed both his hands ‘Thank you for not giving up on us,'” Kallimanis said Kallimanis said he got goosebumps talking to the woman “It just got me going again,” Kallimanis said until Altadena is back to being itself again The 1920s cottage was where she brought her son Brayden home from the hospital and where she held backyard parties for birthdays or whatever anniversary family and friends wanted to celebrate Her mom lived a block away; her three sisters weren’t much further When the Eaton fire destroyed the house she called home for nearly 17 years Williams said she was told she could have the burned lot if she could pay $565,000 “Nobody has $565,000 in cash just right up front,” said Williams a 47-year-old therapist and consultant said Since flames destroyed thousands of homes in largely middle-class Altadena in January, more than 80 property owners have sold rather than rebuild with many of the new buyers being developers That is raising concerns among some community members that in building pricey new houses, developers will usher in a wave of gentrification that will at least partially wipe away the architectural, racial and economic diversity that’s a hallmark of the small town below the San Gabriel Mountains A group of nonprofits are looking to blunt those economic forces First, they are trying to keep residents in Altadena through grants and other support that enable homeowners to rebuild particularly if they were uninsured or underinsured the groups want to be there to acquire the land in a bid to stop an escalation in home prices Eshele Williams stands at the lot where her home (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times) Williams benefited from both efforts She said she could qualify for a mortgage to buy a $565,000 home So when she received the offer from her landlord Williams turned to the nonprofit Neighborhood Housing Services of Los Angeles County which she already had been talking to about receiving financial help for her family after the fires Neighborhood Housing Services stepped in and purchased the burned lot in April, and plans to build a new home on site and then sell it to Williams at an affordable price the chief executive of Neighborhood Housing Services of Los Angeles County said she and a coalition of nonprofits are looking to raise more money to purchase a couple hundred burned properties build homes on them and ideally sell to people from Altadena at prices they can afford Disaster recovery efforts say an escalation in home prices is common after fires and hurricanes as many families hit a wall in the rebuilding process and sell to developers and wealthier families who build more expensive homes “You don’t want investors or people who are super-high income coming in and jacking up the prices,” Gay said In Altadena, many community members purchased their homes decades ago and would struggle to afford today’s typical home value of $1.3 million Given the nation’s economic disparities, there’s been particular concern about a dispersal of Altadena’s long-standing Black community in part due to a history of segregation and redlining Black residents had already been moving away because of gentrification before the fires and saw their homes severely damaged or destroyed at higher rates than other groups during the blaze The Williams family was among them. Not only did Eshele lose her housing, but so did her mother and two of her sisters, who owned their homes and are trying to find the funds to rebuild. One potential option is Pasadena-based Greenline Housing Foundation, which is focusing on providing financial support to displaced Black and Hispanic homeowners, citing “historical systemic inequities and lack of access to resources” that will make recovery tougher. The group has also acquired two lots, with the idea it can resell them below market to people from Altadena who want to stay. “It’s just a community that needs to be restored,” said Greenline founder Jasmin Shupper, citing her fear a developer influx will drastically alter “the fabric of Altadena.” Some specifics on nonprofit land acquisitions are still to be worked out, including how different groups might collaborate. But Shupper said more money needs to be raised quickly. “It’s important we have this long-term vision organized,” she said. “But if we don’t have fast capital now, it won’t matter because there won’t be any lots left.” For Williams, she is looking forward to moving back, seeing it as a chance to build generational wealth, as well as continue her family’s legacy in Altadena. Her decision might already be having impact. Williams said she recently ran into one displaced neighbor in her 70s who over the years became a family friend. The woman told Williams she doubted she’d return after losing her house. “Probably the only way that I would reconsider is if you were going to be my neighbor,” the woman said. “Well, I’m going to be your neighbor again,” Williams replied. The woman then broke down in tears and said she was “definitely coming back.” Andrew Khouri covers housing and homelessness for the Los Angeles Times. Before coming to The Times, he wrote about commercial real estate for the San Fernando Valley Business Journal. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and graduated from the University of San Diego with a degree in history. California Sports Climate & Environment Subscribe for unlimited accessSite Map F | F | 5-Day Forecast °F Now | Forecast The Rotary Club of Altadena in partnership with Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation’s Parks After Dark program has unveiled the lineup for its 28th season of free summer concerts is currently on the cusp of reopening following extensive reconstruction efforts after January’s destructive Eaton Fire The 17.33-acre community space has undergone a remarkable transformation over the past four months with its grand reopening scheduled for May 17 just days away from Altadena Rotary’s announcement The concert series itself is set to begin July 5 with Kenny Metcalf as Elton John: The Early Years The Walking Phoenixes will perform beloved music from Johnny Cash Pepper playing Beatles hits and other British invasion classics Phat Cat Swinger brings their blend of rock and jazz infused with a modern sensibility on July 26 August performances include The Mariachi Divas on August 2 The series concludes August 9 with the return of Upstream “everyone’s favorite Steel Drum Reggae and Soca Band.” As noted in the announcement “As it is every year this concert will be a jammed packed audience!” All Concerts are on Saturday evening and start at 7:00 p.m The Rotary Club of Altadena will be selling beer and wine throughout the entire Summer Concert Series the Summer Concert Series is made possible by the generous support of our sponsors including MonteCedro Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture and Supervisor Kathryn Barger,” according to the announcement XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong> On January 7, 2025, the Eaton Fire ravaged over 9,000 homes and businesses, including several historic sites Keni Arts had once captured in his watercolor plein air paintings. Now, in a moving response to the tragedy, the artist has returned to those same locations to paint Beauty For Ashes—a new series that explores destruction, resilience, and rebirth. “For nearly five decades, Keni Arts has captured the soul of communities through his vibrant plein air paintings,” read a tribute from the gallery. “He’s painted across the globe—from Africa to Brazil—but his heart has always remained in the ‘Denas.’” In Beauty For Ashes, Keni doesn’t shy away from the scars left behind. Instead, he embraces them—transforming scenes of charred foundations and scorched hillsides into powerful symbols of collective endurance. Each brushstroke is a meditation on grief and grace, destruction and healing. At the heart of the evening was Keni’s own reflection: “Art is a process more than a product. It doesn’t start with the paint, nor does art end with the picture. True art starts in the heart of God, then flows through the artist and continues in the viewer, allowing them to interact with the body of work. Art can be a powerful voice for change. It can be enlightening, but it can also be challenging.” As attendees left with prints of Keni’s artwork in hand, they carried more than just images—they carried fragments of memory, markers of loss, and reminders that from the ashes, beauty can indeed rise. “Beauty For Ashes” reception on Friday Many of our advertisers are local businesses that have been impacted directly by the fire we immediately removed all advertisements the day after the fire and transformed our site to provide live updates We felt it would be inappropriate to run ads while our friends and neighbors were being evacuated and displaced we don’t outsource our operations overseas Our priority has been to keep you and ourselves informed with timely even a small contribution of $5 can make a significant difference Please click the blue button below to learn more about how you can assist Support Colorado Boulevard is your place for enlightening events informative news and social living for the greater Pasadena area and work together to make a better world for all of us See all articles See all newsflashes Back to articles That peace of mind may prove elusive. The government is not testing soil on supposedly cleared properties for toxic substances — so The Times did it and found evidence that the decision not to test is leaving potentially dangerous levels of contamination behind. Climate & Environment The federal government decided not to test the soil of L.A.’s burn areas for hazardous substances. A Times investigation found high levels of lead and other heavy metals. The Times tested for lead, mercury and other heavy metals in Altadena and Pacific Palisades. From respiratory problems to lung cancer, these are the risks of exposure. Following best practices from previous federal post-wildfire soil-testing efforts, The Times collected samples from residential properties in Altadena and Pacific Palisades. Lifestyle The Eaton and Palisades fires likely made polluted soils worse, but soil experts say bioremediation may be an alternative to scraping, especially for gardeners. Two Altadena residents set out to collect testing data for toxic contaminants within the Eaton burn area’s standing homes. They found lead everywhere. Soil testing revealed concerning levels of lead on properties downwind of the Eaton fire, as well as isolated “hot spots” of contamination in the Palisades, according to county officials. Rebuilding in Altadena and Pacific Palisades has begun, despite the lack of official requirements to test soil for heavy metals and other toxic substances. In the wake of the Eaton and Palisades fires, Army Corps officials are saying that excavating six inches of topsoil is enough to rid properties of contamination. L.A. fire contaminant levels could sicken the marine food chain, new tests show March 28, 2025 About this investigation How they would help: The board wants to develop a multi-prong approach that might include helping residents afford modular homes and accessory dwelling units as well as banking land to get properties off the speculative real estate market Who's leading the foundation: The board members have deep experience in disaster relief A new foundation supported by $55 million in donations will help Altadenans struggling to rebuild after the Eaton Fire destroyed vast swaths of their foothill community “We need to do something very bold with those donations,” said Sarah Hilbert housing is going to be the most paramount issue that we need to all be tackling.” Recognizing that $55 million will only go so far given more than 6,000 households lost their homes leaders of Altadena Builds Back say they will have to be strategic in their spending “Maybe we fund ADU’s and allow people to get back on their properties while they're rebuilding their primary residence,” Hilbert said a strong focus on helping renters return to Altadena and supporting the most vulnerable residents Decisions will be made by a five-member board which was finalized late last week Four are Altadenans — three of whom lost their homes while fire damage displaced a fourth member Each brings to the board their lived experience of being a resident Hughes has temporarily relocated to View Park as she plans out the rebuild of a home she can retire to “This is a profound moment where my professional life as a community builder in affordable housing and my personal life are intersecting,” Hughes said “It's part of my own personal recovery to be part of the rebuild.” Her hope is that the foundation can help preserve Altadena’s diversity and the generational wealth that families were able to grow over decades Also determined to return is her fellow board member Mark Mariscal a long-time public administrator who retired from the city of L.A with extensive experience in disaster preparedness and response part of leadership at the Altadena Library Foundation and the Altadena Rotary Club said he hoped Altadenans will recognize that most board members are in the same boat as them are juggling the rebuild process while raising their two grandchildren in their Pasadena rental “[We] are in the exact same process as everyone else is when it comes to going to the disaster center talking to all the different contractors or architects and the people that we need to put our own lives back in order while at the same time we're trying to help others,” Mariscal said Two other board members will simultaneously sit on the board of the Pasadena Community Foundation which they had joined prior to the fire: Eric Gronroos a public accountant from Altadena who’s been displaced by the fire and Scott Christopher of La Cañada Flintridge The Pasadena foundation has also hired a program administrator for Altadena Builds Back a community organizer and nonprofit administrator last worked with the environmental advocacy group Moving Forward Network at Occidental College Kim will work out of the offices of the Pasadena foundation "We never in our wildest dreams thought we would raise the kind of funding that we did with our tiny staff,” Hilbert said The $55 million set aside for Altadena Builds Back comes from about $70 million the Pasadena foundation has received in the fire's aftermath and has been drawing down to make grants to local nonprofits "It's been this kind of Herculean effort to figure out how to do this in a way that's transparent and trustworthy and that really has the community's best interests at heart," Hilbert said Listen NowSaveShareDownload"Marketplace" host Kai Ryssdal owner of a commercial property that was consumed in the Eaton fire “I've never had to deal with a total loss like this,” Galloway said.Andie Corban/MarketplaceOn a sunny morning in mid-March “Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal looked out at a fenced lot piled with blackened rubble and debris a month since I've been up here,” he said In front of him were the burnt remains of a building in Altadena which was destroyed in the Eaton Canyon fire in January commercial properties and detached garages Early estimates from the University of California have found that total property and capital losses from the Eaton fire range between $24 billion and $42 billion we'll explore the challenges facing Altadena businesses as they start to rebuild help the entire community recover from an epic natural disaster The rebuilding is certain to be long and difficult but we'll check in with these businesses along the way and report on their efforts Joey Galloway owns two buildings in the heart of Altadena’s business district One building completely burned down in the fire Ryssdal views the debris from Joey Galloway's burned-down property Andie Corban/Marketplace“My father bought this building 42 years ago,” Galloway said It was just kind of one of those things.”  Galloway said he’s going to rebuild his property on Mariposa Street that burned down “I've never had to deal with anything that was a total loss like this,” said Galloway “So it's kind of a learning curve for me.”  Galloway’s second property is in completely different shape Despite its proximity to the building that burned down this structure survived and suffered very little fire-related damage not a single one of the six businesses inside have reopened “They could technically open if they wanted to, but they kind of had the same mindset I did with all this debris around here,” said Galloway He thinks many of his tenants will want to come back Galloway expects it to take at least three years to rebuild the property that burned down Ryssdal spoke with the owner of Altadena Hardware Altadena Hardware is an independently owned and operated store but it is associated with the national brand TrueValue The store is Galloway’s largest tenant and the anchor business at Mariposa Junction He's looking for a temporary lease for his business Andie Corban/Marketplace“I'm technically a third-generation hardware store owner,” said Orlandini “My grandfather bought a store in East L.A in the ‘60s that my dad still has and he runs Orlandini is part of a multigenerational family business He grew up in Altadena and still lives here Orlandini plans to come back to Galloway’s property once it's rebuilt he’s looking for a temporary lease in Altadena “I had one realtor that works with hardware stores I don't think it's going to happen for you,’” Orlandini said about his search for a temporary space they're going to charge you an arm and a leg and they're not going to want a temporary tenant.”  Orlandini told “Marketplace” that most of the quotes he’s received are more than double the rent he paid Galloway before the fire Sign up for the Marketplace newsletter to get the day’s biggest business stories straight to your inbox every weekday evening A Times investigation finds toxic levels of lead in soil in Altadena and Pacific Palisades that the government refused to test after the L.A We sampled within the former structure’s footprint, where the Army Corps had scraped off up to 6 inches of soil. Diagrams demonstrate sampling methodology, are not to scale and do not represent any particular participant's property. Times journalists mixed these five samples in a lined bucket to create one “composite” sample to be tested in the lab. This sample pattern is designed to account for a wide range of soil conditions on each property and serve as an average, since it is possible that one part of a given property might be fully devoid of metal contamination while another might be heavily polluted. Composite sampling is a common practice in wildfire recovery. Between every property, the team sanitized all soil collection equipment with distilled water and wipes, and changed gloves and boot covers — so that no potential toxins could accidentally track from one site to another. We stored the samples in lab-provided jars, and kept the samples refrigerated at 38-40 degrees. At the end of the collection week, our editor drove the samples to BSK Associates, a state-certified environmental testing laboratory that tested soil on behalf of the government following the 2018 Camp fire and 2024 Mountain, Park and Borel fires. BSK used an Environmental Protection Agency-approved method to test for 17 metals most often studied in post-fire recovery. To do this, BSK used an instrument that sorts out different elements from within the soil by mass and counts the atoms. Since each of these 17 elements has a unique atomic mass — for example, only lead has an atomic mass of 0.34 trillion billionths of a gram — BSK could then determine the concentration of the metals. The federal government decided not to test the soil of L.A.’s burn areas for hazardous substances A Times investigation found high levels of lead and other heavy metals our team and BSK meticulously documented the chain of custody for the samples which individual was responsible for the safekeeping of each individual sample To find participants, we identified standing properties using the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s damage inspection data and properties that had finished debris removal using the Army Corps’ dashboard. All participants consented to testing on their properties, and their exact addresses have been anonymized. The testing methodology used by The Times is a conservative reading. By using composite samples, high levels of contamination from one part of the property can become diluted by relatively uncontaminated sections elsewhere on the property. Further, due to cost considerations, The Times’ methodology differed from typical postfire soil testing practices in one key way: In previous fires, soil testers would collect multiple composite samples for larger properties, roughly one sample per 500 square feet. Our team took only one composite sample per property, regardless of size. This means The Times’ results had a greater potential to miss smaller contamination hot spots on properties. The Times found two properties cleared by the Army Corps in Altadena still had contamination above the state’s typical health-based cleanup goals: one arsenic, one lead. Altadena’s standing homes had arsenic, lead and mercury levels above typical cleanup goals, across three of the 10 homes our team tested. The Times found only a single reading above typical cleanup goals in the Palisades: a standing home with high levels of arsenic. Tony Briscoe is an environmental reporter with the Los Angeles Times. His coverage focuses on the intersection of air quality and environmental health. Prior to joining The Times, Briscoe was an investigative reporter for ProPublica in Chicago and an environmental beat reporter at the Chicago Tribune. Noah Haggerty is an environment, health and science reporter at the Los Angeles Times. With a background in physics, he has conducted research on spacecraft propulsion, fusion energy and plasma — the stuff that makes up lightning and the sun. He joined The Times in 2024 as an AAAS Mass Media Fellow. Hayley Smith is an environment reporter for the Los Angeles Times, where she covers the many ways climate change is reshaping life in California, including drought, floods, wildfires and deadly heat. LAist is part of Southern California Public Radio, a member-supported public media network. Altadena Seed Library: The organization has established a network of seed exchange boxes since 2021. Now, they are working on a game plan for regrowing the green spaces that combat shade inequity and increase food sovereignty in their neighborhood — and looking to learn from other communities that have also seen their landscapes drastically altered by destructive wildfires. Paradise recovery: Two years after a wildfire tore through Paradise, California, several groups and 300 volunteers joined forces to rebuild — in one day — a nonprofit arts and culture center whose public gardens provide compost, seeds and produce for free. Grant money allowed organizations like the Butte County Local Food Network to prepare 150 garden boxes and deliver them to people’s homes, complete with new soil and plants. Read on ... for details about how the fire could be an opportunity to plant native species of trees and plants — and not replant nonnatives, such as eucalyptus and palms. Donated seeds and tools are pouring in from locals and places around the country, as well as compost, pots, trees and personal protective equipment for people cleaning up the hazardous waste left over from burned homes and melted cars. “We’ve had a pretty overwhelming response,” Raj said. “People have been so, so generous.” Individual volunteers and organizations like Club Gay Gardens, a nonprofit in nearby Glendale, are helping sort the donated seeds. When the time comes, Raj and other community leaders will need the proper permits to plant in the public spaces beyond private yards and gardens. But before residents can replant anything, they must consider testing the soil for toxins and remediating it accordingly. This can be expensive — about $100 to test one soil sample for heavy metals. Eventually regrowing Altadena’s urban greenspaces and canopy could mean confronting how previously introduced plants — like ornamental grasses, eucalyptus and palm trees — helped spread flames. “These palms that are so common in Southern California have these dead fronds at the bottom of them,” said Alexandra Syphard, a senior research scientist at the Conservation Biology Institute. “That’s the opposite of what you would want to do to have a fire-resilient landscape.” Replanting efforts in Paradise, California, where the Camp Fire killed 85 people in 2018, and Lahaina, Hawai‘i, where a wildfire killed 102 people in 2023, offer inspiration as to what responsible reseeding can look like post-fire. Wildfire survivors from up and down the West Coast have already reached out to Raj, offering to help Altadena. “It’s so unfortunate to be bonded in that way,” Raj said. “It also feels really beautiful that those connections can grow out of something so tragic.” The Federal Emergency Management Agency helped test for soil toxicity in Paradise, eventually scraping the contaminated top layers away. But replanting efforts were left to residents. “None of this would have happened if it weren’t for these community groups that all came together,” said Jennifer Peterson, a Paradise local who saw her house, plus a seed library and two community gardens she worked on, destroyed. Peterson and other community members worked hard to safely reestablish old food sources. In 2020, several groups and 300 volunteers joined forces to rebuild — in one day — a nonprofit arts and culture center whose public gardens provide compost, seeds and produce for free. Grant money allowed organizations like the Butte County Local Food Network to prepare 150 garden boxes and deliver them to people’s homes, complete with new soil and plants. Being part of efforts to regrow people’s food has helped Peterson heal. And her front yard now teems with native wildflowers whose seeds survived the fire. “It was kind of like therapy for everybody,” she said. More than 200 trees are ready to be put in the ground. That includes a mouthwatering array of fruit trees — mango, jackfruit, starfruit, avocado, citrus and banana — fragrant plumeria and orchid trees, and native species like wiliwili, milo, koa and lauhala trees. “Knowing that we’re going to be part of what’s eventually going to be the canopy for our grandchildren is immense for us,” Sparkman said. Like in Paradise, FEMA removed contaminated topsoil from Lahaina. But other than that, Sparkman said, federal agencies provided no guidance for how communities should replant their neighborhoods. Sparkman suggests new fruit tree owners wait a few years for crops to cycle through any residual toxins that may still be in the soil. Ulu, or breadfruit, trees were especially important to preserve post-wildfire. Breadfruit is a starchy staple food in the South Pacific and throughout Hawai‘i. “It’s been planted beside houses, and it’s been giving people food security, especially in urban areas,” said Kaitu Erasito, the breadfruit collection manager at the Kahanu Garden in Hana, Maui. Some breadfruit trees survived the flames, growing new shoots nine months post-fire. But more will need to be replanted in the years to come. Roots from three varieties that grew in Lahaina’s burn scar were dug up for safekeeping, eventual propagation and replanting, at the National Tropical Botanical Garden on Kauai. “Each community,” Sparkman said, “has the ability to create their own recovery.” That recovery is already underway in Altadena. Recently, a woman whose home and community garden space burned in the fire came to Raj looking to begin again. Thanks to donations, Raj was able to provide her neighbor with all the same seeds she had lost. but some residents fear that won’t be enough to keep thieves away Residential burglaries are up about 450% in the Altadena area compared with last year as thieves target homes that survived the Eaton fire — further traumatizing residents The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department announced Wednesday that deputies have started deploying enhanced security camera systems in the Eaton fire area to suppress theft and deter criminal activity “Security cameras are one of the most effective tools we have to reduce property crimes and support successful prosecutions,” Ethan Marquez acting captain of the Altadena Sheriff’s Station and these systems allow us to respond faster and with better information when crimes occur.” The cameras will monitor high-traffic areas and provide video evidence that can be used to prosecute thieves It is not clear how many cameras will be installed in the community While some residents were excited by the prospect of more surveillance in their neighborhoods, others were less optimistic about how effective the cameras will be at reducing crime. Several voiced a desire for neighborhood checkpoints staffed by the National Guard, which are currently in place to protect Pacific Palisades. “Installing cameras to prevent crime in an area that’s seen a spike in [burglaries] by 450% is like putting a Band-Aid over a blood-gushing gunshot wound,” said resident Natalie LaFourche, whose home was broken into in early April. “The residents of Altadena want equity, not cameras. We want the same protections as the victims of the Palisades fire.” In Altadena, which is a denser urban area with many more entry and exit points, the National Guard stopped operating traffic checkpoints on Jan. 21, according to a statement from the Sheriff’s Department. The National Guard was reassigned to key intersections to help deter crime, before concluding operations in Altadena last week “due to the absence of active traffic control needs,” the department said. More than 140 residential burglaries were reported in the Altadena area from January through mid-April this year, according to Sheriff’s Department data. Some homes have been hit multiple times. Pacific Palisades has not experienced a comparable rise in crime. Twenty-three burglaries were reported from January through March this year in the Palisades, compared to 20 burglaries during the same time period last year, according to data from the Los Angeles Police Department. “I guess it’s harder to secure the neighborhood [of Altadena], but I wish they’d never let the National Guard go,” said resident Jenna Morris, whose home has been burglarized three times. “That’s what we need.” The department noted that while the National Guard can help with traffic control and disaster response, they are not peace officers and therefore cannot perform policing duties. The department accepted the offer of more CHP officers and is working to determine what additional resources they can provide in Altadena, officials said. Morris and her husband, Howard, said the cameras were an encouraging step and one that might give them more peace of mind, but they also offer no guarantee of safety. Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents Altadena, said in a statement Wednesday that the security cameras will be a “critical tool to help law enforcement respond quickly and effectively to protect residents and their property.” Madalyn Majors, one of the few Altadena residents who has moved back into the neighborhood, said she welcomes security cameras, but acknowledges that there will still be surveillance gaps in the community. “It gives me hope that [sheriff’s officials] are at least monitoring the situation and are aware and can take more drastic measures in the future once they’ve seen what sort of effect security cameras have,” she said. “The fear that someone is just going to come in and drive away into the night mysteriously is not quite so great anymore.” While Majors is grateful to be able to live at home, she remains on edge after dark. She has already paid to install security cameras and Starlink satellite internet to protect her home since WiFi is still down in the area. L.A. County sheriff’s Dets. David Gaisford, left, and Jeff Lohmann patrol an Altadena neighborhood in mid-January. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) Altadena resident Elena Amador-French, said many residents have already installed security cameras on their properties but that hasn’t stopped criminals from pilfering items from homes. “It’s so brazen. These people come in and they see the camera as they come right up to them, no masks, no cover. ... We see their license plates,” she said. “I’m just like, wow, what do you think this is? It’s a free-for-all.” Sheriff’s officials are asking residents and business owners who have video evidence of crimes recorded on their personal security cameras to contact the Altadena Sheriff’s Station. Prior to launching the new security cameras, the Altadena Sheriff’s Station already had several measures in place to try to combat the uptick in crime. They have been doubling and tripling the number of deputies on patrol, and running targeted operations with undercover deputies to catch thieves in action, officials said. They have also launched the Altadena Home Check Program to provide routine check-ins on empty properties. Deputies have provided more than 14,000 checks on about 600 properties that have opted into the program. Residents can sign up by emailing AltadenaHomeCheck@lasd.org and providing their name, address and cellphone number. Clara Harter is a breaking news reporter at the Los Angeles Times. Previously, she covered politics and education for the L.A. Daily News. While at the Daily News, she published a series on fentanyl addiction that won a first-place investigative journalism award from the L.A. Press Club. Harter majored in political science and Middle Eastern studies at Columbia University. She loves surfing and, when not reporting, can most likely be found in the ocean. World & Nation Print Two groups independently found lead levels far exceeding 100 times the EPA limit within standing homes in the Eaton burn area.With little government and insurance support for testing Others fear Altadena is on the precipice of an environmental health disaster.Lead exposure can lead to irreversible damage to the brain and nervous system two residents on opposite sides of Altadena — Francois Tissot a Caltech professor who studies the geology of ancient Earth and our solar system living in the east side of town; and Jane Potelle an environmental advocate living in the west side — fled the intensifying red glow of the devastating Eaton fire The inferno devoured home after home, unleashing what experts estimate to be tons of dangerous metals and compounds, from lead to asbestos to the carcinogen benzene. Carried through the vicious winds, the toxins embedded deep into the soil, seeped into the blood of first responders and leaked into structures in the area that hadn’t burned down Altadena residents whose homes had withstood the fire began to return — yet few were testing for contaminants both Tissot and Potelle knew were almost certainly sitting in their still-standing houses they both decided to create a comprehensive picture of the contamination lurking within surviving homes both in the burn area and miles outside it what’s at stake is the future of a generation of zero- to 3-year-olds,” Tissot said Activists and community leaders along with residents who were force to evacuate when the Eaton fire swept through the city of Altadena gather at an apartment complex where several residents are living with little to no utilities (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times) Potelle frustrated with the lack of government response to contamination concerns started a grassroots organization with other Altadena residents with standing homes to collect and publish tests conducted by certified specialists The organization, Eaton Fire Residents United, or EFRU, found lead in every single one of the 90 homes for which they’ve collected test results. Of those, 76% were above the EPA limits. EFRU and Tissot’s team were distressed by these data, particularly seeing debris-removal and remediation contractors work without masks in the burn area and some residents even begin to return home. In early April, Anita Ghazarian, co-lead of EFRU’s political advocacy team, went back to her standing home within the burn zone to pick up mail. She watched as a grandmother pushed a toddler in a stroller down the street. County Board of Supervisors approved a proposal to allocate $3 million to help owners of fire-damaged homes test their soil for lead “She has no idea … this area is toxic,” Ghazarian recalled thinking it’s just — unfortunately — a calamity waiting to unfold.” Evidence mounted in the 1950s that even small amounts of lead exposure could harm children’s brains. But by the time the U.S. banned lead in paint in 1978, roughly 96% of the homes in Altadena that burned in the Eaton fire were already built. In the Palisades, that number was 78% — smaller, but still significant. Dust from the fire inside the Franz family’s home. (William Liang/For The Times) After the Eaton fire, Tissot did a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation to understand what his Altadena community might be dealing with: roughly 7,000 homes burnt with 100 liters of paint per house and 0.5% of that paint likely made of lead. “That’s something like several tons of lead that have been released by the fire, and it’s been deposited where the fire plume went,” he said. As the Eaton fire roared in the foothills of the Angeles National Forest the night of Jan. 7, Tissot fled with his two kids, along with the rest of east Altadena. Meanwhile, Potelle sat awake in her living room on the west side of town, listening to the howling winds as the rest of her family slept. When Potelle got the evacuation order on her phone around 3:30 a.m. Jan. 8, her family joined the exodus. As they raced to gather their belongings, Potelle grabbed protective goggles she had bought for her son’s upcoming Nerf-battle birthday party. Even with them, the soot, smoke and ash made it impossible to see. Here are the landfills that could take toxic waste from the L.A. wildfires in the coming weeks — many have not accepted hazardous materials in the past. The family made it to a friend’s house in Glendale, but as the toxic smoke plume swelled, Potelle had to evacuate yet again, this time to a friend’s garage. Tissot, then in Eagle Rock, left for Santa Barbara the next day as the smoke’s incursion progressed southwest. As Altadena turned into a ghost town on Jan. 9, some residents — including Potelle’s husband — crept back in to assess the damage. Potelle waited for her husband’s report and watched on social media from the safety of the garage. “People are just videotaping themselves driving through Altadena, and it’s block after block after block of burnt-down homes. The reality of it started to strike me,” Potelle said. “This is not just carbon. This is like, refrigerators and dishwashers and laundry machines and dryers and cars.” Fires like these, with smoke made of car batteries, paints, insulation and appliances — and not trees and shrubs — are becoming increasingly common in California. These fuels can contain a litany of toxic substances like lead and arsenic that are not present in vegetation, waiting to be unlocked by flame. Potelle’s home sustained visible smoke damage. So, she made two trips to a disaster support center set up temporarily at Pasadena City College, hoping to get support from her insurance company and the government for soil and in-home contamination testing. Officials directed Potelle back and forth between her insurance company, FEMA, the L.A. County Department of Public Health, and the California Department of Insurance. Potelle — who, at this point, had already started to develop a cough and chest pain, which she suspects came from her visits to the burn area — left with without clear answers, feeling dejected. “I’m driving, going back to my friend’s garage … and I’m just realizing there’s no one looking out for us,” she said. Potelle set out to find the answers herself. “Here’s the thing, if you don’t know what’s in your home when you remediate, you could just be pushing those contaminants deeper into your walls, deeper into your personal items,” Potelle said. Tissot, meanwhile, visited his home a week after the fires to find the windows exploded, melted or warped; the walls cracked; and ash and soot everywhere. He too decided that he ought to do his own testing for contamination. How to deal with all those dangerous lithium-ion batteries in the burn zones? Sift. Brine. Crush (in two bright blue ‘sausage grinders’) In his day job, Tissot runs a lab with sophisticated machinery able to discern what metals are present in samples of material, usually comprised of rock and dirt, based on their atomic mass: Only lead has an atomic mass of 0.34 trillion billionths of a gram. He normally uses the machine to study rare elements and isotopes from space and eons ago. He gathered his lab team together on the Caltech campus to use the equipment to test samples from their own backyard. The team took 100 samples from windowsills, desks and stairwells in the Caltech geology and planetary science buildings. Some surfaces were untouched since the fire; others had been cleaned by Caltech’s trained custodians. 5:56 p.m. April 16, 2025A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the Caltech team had tested samples from uncleaned surfaces, then cleaned those surfaces and took second samples. The Caltech team tested some samples from surfaces untouched since the fire, and some from surfaces that had been cleaned by Caltech’s trained custodians. The team found multiple uncleaned surfaces with lead levels above the EPA’s limits. And while the cleaned surfaces had about 90% less lead, some still exceeded the limits. Tissot quickly set up a webinar to announce the findings. The chat exploded with requests from homeowners in Altadena asking Tissot to test their houses. Around the same time, Potelle noticed some folks on Facebook sharing the results of in-home contamination testing — which in many cases, they had paid for out of pocket. Inspired, she advertised a Zoom meeting to discuss a strategy for mapping the test results. Sixty residents showed up; Potelle coordinated the group so that residents could submit results to EFRU’s Data Unification team for analysis. Meanwhile, Tissot connected with residents who messaged him to set up a testing campaign. The researchers donned full hazmat suits in early February and entered the burn area to test homes and meet with homeowners. ERFU posted its first dataset of 53 homes on March 24. Tissot’s group announced their results, which included data from 52 homes, just a week later, confirming what many had feared: There was lead everywhere. “What was surprising to me is how far it went,” said Tissot. “We got very high levels of lead even miles away from the fire, and what’s difficult is that we still can’t really answer a simple question: How far is far enough to be safe?” The two groups hope their data can help homeowners make better-informed decisions about their remediation and health — and apply pressure on leaders to take more action. Tissot wants to see the government update its guidebooks and policy on fire recovery to reflect the contamination risks for intense urban fires, and to require testing companies to report their results to a public database. Nicole Maccalla, a core member of EFRU’s Data Unification team, hopes to see officials enforce a common standard for insurance claims for testing and remediation so every resident doesn’t have to go through the same exact fight. “You’ve got people stepping up to fill the void,” she said. “There should be an organized, systematic approach to this stuff, but it’s not happening.” Times data journalist Sandhya Kambhampati contributed to this report. Residents who’ve returned home after the L.A firestorm are facing another issue: getting back online The primary high-speed internet service providers in the area LAist spoke to residents in Altadena about the barriers they’ve faced and what service providers are doing to reconnect homes longtime Altadena resident Joan Collazo remembered reading in an online group that if flames ignited during the high winds but a neighbor called us after dinner… and said ‘you have to evacuate,’” she said “I looked out and we could see the flames from the end of the street.” Collazo’s family left the house in less than half an hour they were going to move back in until they realized the ongoing lack of internet posed a big problem While they could have used the mobile hot spot function on their cell phones it typically can’t handle heavier internet traffic like the video conferencing that Collazo’s daughter needed for work it was slow and speeds would “crawl to a halt” at times which made things like uploading insurance documents incredibly time-consuming They also drove to Caltech to work out of a conference room They would take turns using the internet to prevent bandwidth issues reserving most of the hotspot for their daughter But the three months of free service the hotspot came with has since run out Collazo’s regular AT&T internet service still hasn’t been restored Other people in her neighborhood can connect “ It was like we were this little black hole of like two-and-a-half blocks with nothing,” she said “ We didn't expect the electricity and the gas and the water the next day She ended up switching temporarily to Spectrum because their service is back on in her neighborhood “It’s just not as fast as what we were used to.” she’s been home during the entire course of the fires and recovery Janes came back because she didn’t know what to do with her pets — 16 canaries and 20-year-old fish the homes directly adjacent to hers were on fire She and her neighbors formed a bucket brigade with pool and pond water to tamper the flames her next hurdle was to hold out with zero utilities so it doesn’t keep the charge that much,” Janes said “I have my Prius that only had a little bit of gas in it well I can juice up my cell phone from my car.” She also got an old gas generator from a family member allowing her to get online in limited ways but the cell service was how she learned to properly clean her home “I looked up on the internet and it [said] She also used her phone to order things online Janes needed an air purifier and a new pump for her pond which allowed her to watch shows on BritBox But it took months for her reliable internet to return “ I don’t know that much about internet,” Janes said While there are other internet providers that serve the burn zones Spectrum and AT&T are typically the most popular because of their broadband speeds an AT&T spokesperson said they’re making progress on restoration efforts more than 60% of our internet customers have had their service restored,” the company said “Restoration efforts in this area have been extensive and require close coordination with other utility providers before we’re able to place our cables.” It’s worth noting AT&T doesn’t service the Palisades area that burned They seem to be further ahead on repairs overall “We have already restored service either permanently or temporarily to more than 75% of the affected homes in the fire areas,” said Spectrum in a statement “Those remaining require new utility infrastructure rebuild and we are coordinating with them and others on it.” the roughly 25% remaining includes properties where customers may not be able to move back in They’ve replaced more than a hundred miles of network lines so far crews are going in and doing the painstaking work of replacing damaged and destroyed equipment that can include splicing internet cables together with hundreds of fibers Why it matters: Early estimates from UCLA have found that total property and capital losses from the Eaton Fire range between $24 billion and $42 billion When you look at a map of the Eaton Fire burn zone you see that almost all of Altadena falls within it Mariposa Junction: Joey Galloway owns two buildings in the heart of Altadena’s business district on a block known as Mariposa Junction One building was destroyed during the Eaton Fire and the other sustained minimal damage plans to come back once Galloway’s property is rebuilt Orlandini told Marketplace that most of the quotes he’s received are more than double the rent he paid Galloway before the fire Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal looked out at a fenced lot piled with blackened rubble and debris In front of him were the burnt remains of a building in Altadena's business district which was destroyed in the Eaton Fire in January When you look at a map of the Eaton fire burn zone Parts of Pasadena and Sierra Madre burned too Early estimates from the UCLA have found that total property and capital losses from the Eaton Fire range between $24 billion and $42 billion we'll explore the challenges facing Altadena businesses as they start to rebuild but we'll check in with these businesses along the way and report on their efforts “My father bought this building 42 years ago,” Galloway said “I've never had to deal with anything that was a total loss like this,” said Galloway “So it's kind of a learning curve for me.” “They could technically open if they wanted to but they kind of had the same mindset I did with all this debris around here,” said Galloway Ryssdal spoke with the owner of Altadena Hardware “I'm technically a third-generation hardware store owner,” said Orlandini Orlandini plans to come back to Galloway’s property once it's rebuilt I don't think it's going to happen for you,’” Orlandini said about his search for a temporary space they're going to charge you an arm and a leg and they're not going to want a temporary tenant.” Tony Briscoe is an environmental reporter with the Los Angeles Times His coverage focuses on the intersection of air quality and environmental health Briscoe was an investigative reporter for ProPublica in Chicago and an environmental beat reporter at the Chicago Tribune health and science reporter at the Los Angeles Times he has conducted research on spacecraft propulsion fusion energy and plasma — the stuff that makes up lightning and the sun He joined The Times in 2024 as an AAAS Mass Media Fellow Albert Brave Tiger Lee is a Southern California native a father and a staff videographer at the Los Angeles Times His work spans various mediums of visual storytelling and has been recognized for various disciplines including a national Emmy Award for News and Documentary the National Press Photographers Assn.’s Best of Photojournalism Award and Columbia University’s Dart Award Corinne Purtill is a science and medicine reporter for the Los Angeles Times Her writing on science and human behavior has appeared in the New Yorker she worked as the senior London correspondent for GlobalPost (now PRI) and as a reporter and assignment editor at the Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh She is a native of Southern California and a graduate of Stanford University Hayley Smith is an environment reporter for the Los Angeles Times where she covers the many ways climate change is reshaping life in California But many are finding that blessing comes with a curse. They are now prime targets for opportunistic thieves who prowl their neighborhoods at night. Jenna and Howard Morris’ home has been burglarized three times: first on the night they evacuated, then at the start of April and then again the following week. “When we found out that our home survived, we had no idea that three months later we would be dealing with this,” Jenna Morris said. The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department launched a Looter Suppression Team for the Altadena area scorched by the Eaton fire raided their garage and ransacked their home stealing engraved family silverware dating to the 1800s The couple are now left with thousands of dollars in property damage on top of what was already sustained in the fire and a gnawing anxiety that their home will be targeted again In the first few days of the January firestorm, burglaries increased in both the Palisades and Eaton fire evacuation zones Although crime is no longer surging in Pacific Palisades A firefighter views signs at a home that was spared from the Eaton fire on Jan Schaben / Los Angeles Times) From Jan the number of residential burglaries reported in the Altadena area was up about 450% compared with the same period in 2024 according to data from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department More than 140 residential burglaries have been reported to the Altadena sheriff’s station so far this year year-over-year burglary rates remain relatively stable and 23 incidents reported during the same period this year according to Los Angeles Police Department data The disparity in burn scar security has left many residents feeling anxious “Why can’t we get the same type of security that Palisades is getting?” said Altadena resident Natalie LaFourche “It’s hard for me to accept that they don’t care about us in the same way that they care about Palisades.” communications director for Councilmember Traci Park attributes the lack of ongoing burglaries in the Palisades to the high level of neighborhood security The California National Guard staffs around-the-clock entry and exit checkpoints with assistance from the California Highway Patrol the Sheriff’s Department has more than doubled the number of deputies on patrol in the fire zone brought in specialized anti-theft teams to assist with undercover operations and implemented routine checks on about 600 uninhabited properties that have opted in to the free service who works at the Altadena sheriff’s station LaFourche is a second-generation Altadena resident who “fought tooth and nail” to provide a home for her two children She is now working up to 14 hours a day to try to cover her mortgage rent on a temporary place to live and the repairs necessary to eventually return home Losing thousands of dollars worth of goods and irreplaceable memorabilia — including collector’s items from her time playing “Queenie,” the Queen of New Orleans at Disneyland — to thieves felt like a sucker punch Natalie LaFourche stands on the front lawn of the Altadena home where she grew up thieves broke into the house and stole thousands of dollars’ worth of items including irreplaceable memorabilia from her time working as “Queenie,” the Queen of New Orleans at Disneyland (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) “I just kind of broke down,” she said “My knees buckled and it really hurt my feelings Altadena resident Leslie Wright also feels let down by the neighborhood’s lack of security. Burglars broke into her home just one hour after she fled from the fire — when the area was under a mandatory evacuation order — and made off with her husband’s Emmy award and other valuables before they were apprehended by the Sheriff’s Department Wright eventually got most of the items back “It was pretty disturbing to hear that it happened so quickly and then we couldn’t get back to our house,” she said Wright is constantly worried about her home being broken into — a nagging feeling that never goes away Both women said they understand it’s harder to control access to Altadena which can be accessed by only a handful of roads checkpoints were in effect used to close the Eaton fire evacuation zone to the public And although they caused significant wait times to access the neighborhood some question why they were removed so quickly A member of the California National Guard stands at a security checkpoint along New York Drive in Altadena on Jan Schaben / Los Angeles Times) “Why aren’t we at that level where you have to have a checkpoint to come in and out?” Wright said The checkpoints in Pacific Palisades were initially set to be lifted on Feb. 2. However, Mayor Karen Bass backtracked on that directive after facing fierce pushback from residents and Park over security concerns. who would see the worst damage from the Eaton fire also experienced the most issues with evacuation alerts Was the community at a disadvantage during the L.A firestorm because of its government structure Some residents who have returned to Altadena go to bed each night worried about who may be lurking in the desolate streets Resident Madalyn Majors said she is grateful that she her husband and their 2-year-old were able to move back after the fire Jimmy and Madalyn Majors sit with their 2-year-old daughter as she blows bubbles near their Great Pyrenees in their Altadena backyard The couple are among the first residents to return to Altadena after the Eaton fire but are worried about safety at night (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) “When 6 p.m hits and all the construction workers and truck drivers leave “It’s really peaceful and lovely until the sun goes down and then it starts getting weird.” Resident Elena Amador-French said she is shocked by the brazenness of thieves on her street where criminals have been captured on security cameras stealing from homes without making any attempt to disguise their appearance “I wouldn’t want to be living there right now,” she said “I wouldn’t feel safe knowing that people are constantly coming in and scouting out the area It’s like this trauma on top of the trauma that we’ve already all been through.” Amador-French’s home was razed during the fire She attempted to salvage some burned pieces of her grandmother’s silver she spotted in the wreckage but when she came back to retrieve the jewelry “I didn’t even consider that someone would come digging through literal ash,” she said L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents Altadena, said she is angered by the increase in burglaries and confident that Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman will prosecute offenders to the extent of the law. “Our residents have endured enough trauma and loss, and opportunists are taking advantage of an incredibly vulnerable situation,” she said in a statement to The Times. “I will continue to monitor the situation closely to ensure we direct resources where they’re needed to prioritize the safety and protection of Altadena.” Barger advised residents to add interior and exterior cameras, lighting, fencing and “no trespassing” signs to their homes and to work with neighbors to keep an eye on one another’s properties. Marquez, of the Sheriff’s Department, said thieves will take anything they can get their hands on and have even taken to ripping up copper pipes to sell to metal recyclers. California lawmakers are proposing tougher penalties on looting and other opportunistic crimes during disasters after more than two dozen individuals were arrested in evacuation zones after the recent deadly wildfires in Los Angeles County. The Sheriff’s Department is now running multiple targeted operations per week with undercover agents to catch criminals in action. One such operation, on April 13, netted 15 arrests — including one suspect who had 500 pounds of scrap metal in his car, Marquez said. Several more operations are planned in the coming days and weeks. But until Altadena begins repopulating in earnest, he fears the thieves will keep coming back. “We shouldn’t see this,” he said. “People in the community have lost everything and now people are trying to capitalize on their losses.” the Tucson community will rally in support of musicians who lost their instruments in the Los Angeles wildfires earlier this year The fundraising event Tucson Loves Altadena aims to help artists regain their livelihoods and ability to perform by donating funds and instruments to victims in the Altadena community The Eaton Fire destroyed nearly 6,000 homes in Altadena standards,” said event organizer Karen Greene it’s more of a place you could afford to live.” said she wanted to do something to help the community after her daughter-in-law had friends and neighbors who lost their homes and nearly lost hers her backyard opens up onto Eaton Canyon,” Greene said “Just thinking about all of the people losing their houses and all of this stuff It’s been over three months since the Eaton Fire and communities are still struggling to recognize the streets they’ve known for years closer to the event,’ but you know people are still going to need help in four months,” Greene said “I know a lot of stuff happened in February but by May people aren’t going to be talking about it anymore.” Tucson Loves Altadena will take place Saturday The event will feature performances by Miss Olivia and the Interlopers MSA Annex bar Westbound will be donating a portion of its profits Saturday evening to the event All proceeds will go to Altadena musicians Print Debris catch basins in and around the Eaton fire zone filled with storm run-off debris in recent months.The dredged dirt is being dumped on county-owned property in Tujunga alarming residents.Neighbors say they are overwhelmed by truck traffic and fear the dirt may be hazardous Residents in the rugged enclave of Tujunga became suspicious in January after dirt-filled trucks began inundating their neighborhood streets dumping their loads on nearby county-owned property Their inquiries revealed that the trucks carried winter storm sediment dredged from catch basins that were quickly inundated with runoff in and around fire-scarred Altadena essential to flood control in the San Gabriel Mountains are largely located above residential areas that burned But the hauling and dumping operation has led to a dramatic fallout between county officials and Tujunga residents and is another example of a community fearful of accepting debris related to the Eaton and Palisades fires. The residents say noxious dirt is being trucked in. At least one local sneaked onto the site earlier this year to collect and later privately test the catch basin soil. The results found selenium and arsenic, according to the community. “I’m scared and I’m angry,” said Tujunga resident Karen von Gunten, who lives within about 150 yards of the county site. She no longer feels comfortable gardening for long periods of time because of a noxious odor she attributes to the site. County officials contend the soil is safe. At the same time, Tujunga locals — who relish their relative isolation living against the rugged backdrop of the San Gabriel Mountains — say they are tormented by the noise, vibrations and dust caused by the hauling trucks, which traverse along homes in this semirural area. Almost 8,800 property owners have asked the Army Corps of Engineers to direct the cleanup of burned homes With more than 100 parcels a day being cleared It’s all anathema to Tujunga’s history and reputation as a clean air community the area began attracting people who have asthma the neighborhood still draws residents looking to escape the pollutants and noise of city life Caroline Kim Palacios said she was forced to temporarily move her 70-year-old mother out of her mother’s home next to the county site after she complained about a sore throat Her mother believes those issues are linked to the hauling operations that come through the area and the nearby wash “I’m worried about the ecosystem,” Kim Palacios said County officials acknowledged at a March meeting with Tujunga locals that they didn’t warn residents about the operation at the 17.5-acre site “I’m sorry for not handling it better,” said county engineer Laren Bunker “I think we could have been a little bit better in our communication with the community.” Although operations stopped earlier this month, hauling is likely to resume after future rainstorms, the county said. The lot, known as Zachau sediment placement site, is bounded by a tall fence and next to several homes. County Public Works spokesperson Elizabeth Vazquez said the sediment brought to Tujunga came from the West Ravine and Fern basins at the edge of a mountainous area. Some homes that burned in the hills are above the basins. Photos taken in February by Altadena residents show the basin filled with dark sludge-like debris. The debris includes “vegetative matter,” said Vazquez, who said operators scraped off the top layer and sent it to a Simi Valley landfill, with dirt and rocks going to Zachau. furious residents assailed federal officials for trucking electric vehicle batteries and other hazardous materials from Altadena to their area for processing Some ash from the undeveloped hillsides may have ended up in the basin the underground storm drain system and the landfill Vazquez also said that crews took measures to prevent burned home debris from washing off properties a spokesperson for L.A.’s Department of Transportation told The Times that the county isn’t required to clear its truck routes with the city residents living along the route described trucks rumbling past their homes The screech of truck brakes was particularly torturous Ara Khatchadourian lives at the corner of Commerce Avenue and Summitrose Street and moved to Tujunga two and a half years ago because he and his wife wanted a quiet neighborhood after living next to a high school in Glendale “It’s been a very stressful time,” Khatchadourian said. The plan to open a site to process Eaton fire debris near foothill communities has prompted swift backlash from San Gabriel Valley residents and leaders moved to Tujunga in 1987 and enjoy the owls and other wildlife that flock to their backyard she can’t always keep her windows open without an odor wafting into their home there was a strong “burnt rubber” smell that eventually diminished but is still bothersome Her husband described the odor as akin to an “old car engine.” A representative for the South Coast Air Quality Management District said the agency has received 23 complaints alleging traffic concerns odors and dust from soil related to Zachau since Jan “South Coast AQMD responded to each complaint and conducted on-site inspections on nine different days,” said spokesperson Nahal Mogharabi “Our inspectors did not detect odors in the area and did not observe any air quality violations during any of those in-person visits.” Dirt collected by a resident at the site showed selenium a trace element that can be harmful in heavy concentrations The lab results also showed arsenic in amounts higher than federal and state levels but below another common level used in California The county did its own testing of Zachau and the two storm basins and those results showed no selenium and generally the same levels of arsenic “You could take two scoops and get two different results,” said Joe Sevrean Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger told The Times in an email that “the toxicologist reviewed the samples collected by residents and their tests indicate that the soil is clean and well within the state’s safety standards.” Los Angeles City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez has demanded that the county fix roads in Tujunga that she said were damaged by the trucks Rodriguez, whose district includes Tujunga, said in a March letter to Mark Pestrella, director of Los Angeles County Public Works, that she is “deeply concerned” about the county’s use of the site. The Tujunga community wants the county to do more testing. Residents are also bracing for the next storm and another round of trucks. One county official told residents to consider removing the speed bumps along part of the truck route, so the trucks don’t have to brake and make a screeching sound. Dakota Smith covers City Hall for the Los Angeles Times. She is part of the team that won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in breaking news for reporting on a leaked audio recording that upended City Hall politics. She joined the newsroom in 2016 and previously covered City Hall for the Los Angeles Daily News. She is a graduate of Lewis & Clark College and lives in Los Angeles. when Arcadia joined the sphere of concern as the fire erratically tore through the San Gabriel foothills the city’s fire chief successfully advocated for unified commanders to issue more widespread evacuations than initially proposed when a shift in winds sent the fire on a terrifying march west La Cañada Flintridge officials stood ready to quickly alert and evacuate all residents having activated its emergency operations center immediately after the fire broke out almost 12 hours earlier — even though the small city was initially miles from the blaze Meanwhile, many residents in Altadena — which would end up seeing the worst damage from the conflagration — felt left in the dark, seemingly lost in the chaos. Thousands found themselves waiting and waiting for alerts and evacuation updates, even as their neighborhoods came under siege. It’s a major point of frustration and anger in Altadena and has reignited concerns about how the unincorporated town is governed, how resources are allocated and how key communications are issued — especially compared to the many independent cities that surround it. law enforcement officers knew the Eaton fire was spreading in west Altadena The fire “brought to the forefront the issues of us being unincorporated; in some ways it did put us at a disadvantage,” said Darlene Greene, a member of Altadena’s town council, which can pass along concerns or recommendations to Los Angeles County leaders but holds no real governing power or spending authority I certainly think that hurt us,” Greene said Other cities “have coordinated efforts for emergencies It’s unlikely that Altadena could have fared better — even with its own city government — against the major ember-cast fire driven by hurricane-force winds, which fire officials say was impossible to fight at times But some local officials and residents wonder if dedicated resources and leadership could have improved the emergency response “It’s catastrophic failure,” said Seriina Covarrubias a west Altadena resident who has been advocating for better public resources and government representation for the town since even before the fire “It just tells me that there was no centralized communication no one was calling the shots and it was a hot mess.” Seriina Covarrubias stands outside her temporary residence recently (William Liang / For The Times) County officials who were coordinating the evacuation decisions and alerts the night of the fire still haven’t provided any answers or explanation about what went wrong and how they failed to systematically evacuate a large section of the community who serves as the de facto mayor for Altadena was quick to criticize what she called the evacuation “epic fail” in west Altadena but Barger said this specific shortcoming doesn’t necessarily point to a larger issue about Altadena’s resources or support She and other county officials have declined to comment further on what happened with the evacuation alerts until the completion of an outside after-action review “I know my unincorporated cities like the back of my hand,” Barger said in an interview but I’m not ignoring the rest of my district.” qualified staff that she said supports her and her work across her unincorporated communities “At the end of the day … I do stand tall with the representation this county has provided to Altadena,” Barger said While it’s hard to make direct comparisons to nearby cities — particularly because the Eaton fire hit Altadena harder than any other jurisdiction — it appears that residents in surrounding cities had more avenues to receive communication more focused leadership and more resources dedicated to their communities As the fire continued west and overwhelmed crews in west Altadena Pasadena was able to dispatch its police officers to evacuate and escort residents out of the Linda Vista area neighborhoods just across from west Altadena officials sent out geographic-coded phone alerts from their emergency operations center had its own emergency management team staffed 24/7 during the fire sending out alerts to employees when necessary 2025An earlier version of this story referred to Chad Augustin as the Pasadena police chief; he is the city’s fire chief The story also had said that the Topanga Coalition for Emergency Preparedness formed after the 2018 Woolsey fire The coalition formed after the 1993 Old Topanga fire you have the ability to be a little more nimble and target some additional resources where there’s need,” Pasadena Fire Chief Chad Augustin said While he and other city officials operated in a unified command structure throughout the Eaton fire — with the county and other agencies — “we’re still ultimately responsible for our city.” And that is one of the most useful aspects of a hyperlocal government during a crisis: it can provide a central spot for questions, information and updates, said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Haynes Foundation, which supports research on governance and democracy in the L.A. region. unconnected transmission line somehow reengerized on Jan 7 is now “a leading hypothesis” for what started the destructive Eaton fire “They’re going to be taking your case and advocating,” Sonenshein said “The real advantage of it all is you have local representatives They’re beating the drum about what’s happening in the community.” County does have extensive resources far above that of any small city there’s no avoiding the fact that Altadena is one small community in the most populous county in the country “It’s kind of easy for the unincorporated territory to fall through the cracks,” Sonenshein said “This is a case where government structure has impacts.” Sonenshein also pointed to the recent passage of Measure G, which over the next eight years will expand and potentially transform the county’s government by adding four new supervisors and a county executive He said that could change how Altadenans feel connected to and supported by the county government decided to leave on their own the evening of Jan waiting to be told if they needed to leave “They got out just barely,” said Covarrubias, who is part of California Unincorporated, a group that works to improve how unincorporated areas are governed “It was everything we were fighting against.” She said she got involved with the movement after it took two years of organizing and hard work to get two speed bumps installed on her street — something she considered a no-brainer safety issue She thinks the best solution is for Altadena to become its own city It’s exceptionally frustrating that no leader or agency has owned up to the evacuation failure — or provided an explanation — even now “It makes you feel … like the county just takes the money from the homeowners’ taxes and runs,” Covarrubias said “There’s not any leadership that has accountability right now.” But cityhood may not be the only solution. In unincorporated Topanga, residents have formed the Topanga Coalition for Emergency Preparedness a volunteer group that provides real-time emergency updates and disaster information for the Santa Monica Mountains communities and also coordinates preparation efforts focused on wildfire resilience “We do not believe the systems in place are good enough,” said James Grasso it’s very difficult to get communications.” “We have no city government, we have no town government. Our government, in effect, is our supervisor, and our supervisor has a lot of areas. ... It’s a huge district,” Grasso said. “We fight for everything that we have … because we understand, clearly, we need it.” Southern California Edison has announced that it will bury more than 150 miles of power lines in in Altadena and Malibu following January’s firestorms While their group has a great relationship with Supervisor Lindsey Horvath Grasso said there are still gaps in what their community needs — and the county has yet to fill them many of the people The Times interviewed in favor of more locally focused emergency operations for Altadena were clear that the on-the-ground firefighting — which operated as a mutual aid system during the Eaton fire — was not a driving factor in their position messaging and communications were the main concerns which all fall under the purview of city officials but our focus is our own jurisdiction,” said Arcadia Fire Chief Chen Suen He recalled that when the Eaton fire’s unified command recommended parts of northern Arcadia be evacuated or issued warnings he reviewed the situation with other city officials and decided to evacuate a larger area than initially considered “It’s so much better to get people out during an event for safety reasons than to — at the eleventh hour — try to get people out,” Suen said in an interview with The Times West Altadena never received any evacuation warnings In Pasadena, officials also focused on the idea of redundancy: making sure there were several ways to reach residents with critical updates. The city uses its PLEAS alert system a type of alert that will text or call residents who have signed up; a program called Nixle which sends opt-in email or text information; and also appearances on local news and posts on its website and social media And that is in addition to the county’s WEA notices and police officers on the streets A firefighter is silhouetted against the flames of a burning home on Glenrose Avenue in Altadena the morning of Jan (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) “Ultimately we’re collectively doing two things: You’re looking out for the best interest of your city but also you’re collectively managing a large-scale incident — doing the most amount of good for everyone in need,” said Augustin He said when his city has additional resources available emergency staff looked to do things like additional door-to-door notifications or added patrols which focused on his city but also expanded into Altadena when needed: “We knew no borders.” The county used its WEA system and Alert LA County messaging program as the “primary communication methods,” to issue urgent and timely evacuation alerts during the L.A according to a statement from the county’s Coordinated Joint Information Center The CJIC provides public information during large-scale disasters through the county’s Office of Emergency Management County officials, however, also recommend people sign up for their more local emergency notification systems, most operated by cities. Sheriff’s deputies also worked to carry out evacuation orders on the ground, though many in west Altadena said they saw few to no first responders that night. When flames bellowed up out of Eaton Canyon on the evening of Jan seem to pose the most urgent challenge for evacuations So why did it take so long for evacuation alerts to go out The CJIC declined to answer specific questions related to the Eaton fire until the after-action report is completed. But it did say it follows all state emergency management requirements and has eight different disaster management coordinators assigned to different regions to better tailor its response it called its emergency response a “collective effort more than that of any single organization important to note that the community of Kinneloa Mesa — just east of Altadena — is similarly unincorporated but had no reported issues with its evacuation alerts The foothill community sits not far from where the Eaton fire broke out with several of the first fire crews arriving there And for some, the evacuation alert issue in west Altadena is just that: one glaring issue, not a reason to go through the complicated and often expensive process of incorporation, or deal with more red tape or regulation. “Obviously something went wrong,” said Connor Cipolla, another member of the Altadena Town Council. And while he emphasized that he wants answers and fixes so it doesn’t happen again, he said he’s not convinced Altadena would get better services as a city, and pointed to California’s strong mutual aid system during fires. “Altadenans love their autonomy,” said Cipolla, who remembers living in Pasadena and constantly getting parking tickets. “The quirkiness and the self-determination and not being overregulated — all those things are the free spirit of what it means to be an Altadenan.” Milissa Marona, another Altadena Town Council member, said she partially agrees with Cipolla — and with Greene, who pointed out that Altadena may be getting a bad deal as it remains unincorporated. Part of what makes Altadena unique is its lack of local, complicated government, she said, but she also realized — especially after the delayed evacuation alerts during the fire — that it can be a weak spot. “It does somewhat leave a vulnerability there because we don’t have the city resources,” Marona said, “but I think the county did the best they could.” Times staff writer Terry Castleman contributed to this report. Grace Toohey is a reporter at the Los Angeles Times covering breaking news for the Fast Break Desk. Before joining the newsroom in 2022, she covered criminal justice issues at the Orlando Sentinel and the Advocate in Baton Rouge. Toohey is a Maryland native and proud Terp. it’s as if the entire community has gone into quiet mourning The Eaton fire destroyed thousands of structures in Altadena and Pasadena residents grapple with how they can afford to rebuild Mills says she spent the first six weeks or so after the fires feeling “very lost and disconnected from myself,” like she was going through an identity crisis after losing everything she owned including everything she needed for her business When her friend and tintype mentor came to town the pair went to Mills’ old property to poke around When Mills set up her new-to-her camera for a self-portrait among the ashes she was surprised at what she calls “the dramatic result.” Artists Hannah Ray Taylor pose around a staircase towering alone in the rubble of Zorthian Ranch (Sunny Mills) “The picture was so beautiful,” Mills says “It also felt like this sort of pivotal moment of this is real,’ because every time I would drive up [to Altadena before] ‘Please let all this be a dream,’ but when I saw the photograph “It’s snowballed into this greater healing project, because I started meeting up with people at their houses, and they’d tell me their story and then I’d take their photograph,” she says. “Since I’m doing it all on the spot and the photo develops right before their eyes, a lot of people end up crying. It’s become this really emotional connection that we’re sharing and also a really intense healing journey, but we’re realizing that we’re all in this together.” Lifestyle In the wake of the devastating fires, seven young Angelenos reflect on rebuilding their community, their biggest concerns and what’s keeping them optimistic. In some ways, Mills says, taking the photos is like meditation. Since the process is somewhat slow and methodical, it requires focus and stillness. Processing the pictures, from coating the plate to presenting the developing image, can feel a bit like a ceremony. Each shot is a singular moment in time, and plates are sometimes imbued with not just the emotional weight of the image but also flecks of dust kicked up by passing dump trucks full of debris. Dorothy Garcia would certainly agree. A longtime Altadenan, Garcia moved to the community as a child because it was one of the few places where her parents — who were Japanese and Mexican — were able to buy a home. Her family put down roots over the decades, only to have all three of their homes destroyed by fires. When she saw Mills’ post on Beautiful Altadena, Garcia decided to sign up. She’d had a small collection of tintypes in her home, and she’d always admired the art form. “There’s just something about the process that is a weird manipulation of time,” Garcia says. “It’s now, but it seems like it could be a long time ago. It’s timeless too. It’s like, ‘How are we going to capture the last 60 years of life and all the people who were here before us?’ Doing this photo just seemed like a noble and beautiful way to capture how this disaster looks.” Before the fire, when she was planning her daughter’s baby shower, Garcia managed to scan some photos of her parents and grandparents. Those digital copies are the only old photos she has left, so she views Mills’ tintype as the first step toward creating a family album for her grandson. As Garcia watches Mills photograph her brother, Rupert, and his daughter, Alexandria Garcia Rosewood, standing in the spot where their house once sat, she looks down at Grayson in her arms. “I see my brother and I see my niece, but I see my parents here too,” Garcia says. “I see the future and I see the past. You’re gonna really love these, little one. This is a new beginning for us too.” One of those remaining employees is Craig Sloane Altadena Town & Country Club's general manager stands in front of what was the main clubhouse.Andie Corban/Marketplace“We did our best to try and place as many of the employees as possible with other clubs and other locations,” said Sloane about the staff ‘Let us know in three years when the clubhouse is rebuilt The clubhouse, which is the main building on premise, will take around three years and over $20 million to rebuild, according to best estimates from the club’s board. It is insured, but Sloane said they’ll likely have to dip into savings to cover the full costs of rebuilding “It's hard to tell what construction costs are going to be “So it's hard to know if the insurance that we have is going to cover everything.”  Seventeen percent of the club’s members lost their homes in the fires Craig hopes members will return when the club is able to reopen will feel the impact of the club's temporary closure “We were a pretty integral part of the community,” said Sloane “We had organizations that met here on a regular basis Rotary Club had been meeting here for well over 50 years Chamber of Commerce held numerous events here at the club Use the audio player above to hear the full story Crime has surged 250% in Altadena following the devastating Eaton Fire with burglary rates specifically spiking approximately 400% according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Looters are targeting evacuated homes and stealing copper wiring from damaged properties prompting authorities to more than double patrols in the fire zone In a recent law enforcement operation targeting copper and metal thefts a Sheriff’s Department sting netted 15 suspects in just 16 hours Eight face felony charges and seven face misdemeanor charges Ethan Márquez of the Altadena Sheriff’s Station Deputies arrested one suspect on April 13 after finding approximately 500 pounds of metal piping in his car Some thieves have escalated their tactics by impersonating officials and using technology to bypass security systems the Sheriff’s Department has formed a Looter Suppression Team and conducted checks on hundreds of uninhabited properties They have also increased helicopter flyovers and drone surveillance in the area “These efforts ensure continuous 24-hour patrolling to provide a consistent and visible law enforcement presence particularly in neighborhoods still dealing with utility outages and heightened security risks,” the Department said in a statement Sheriff Robert Luna issued a direct warning to looters: “You will be held accountable.” The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department offers a home-check program where residents can request deputies to patrol their properties. Requests can be sent to altadenahomecheck@lasd.org Some community advocates have raised concerns about the looting narrative in surveys of Altadena residents about their needs following the fire “Zero percent of those folks said anything about crime or looting.” Some returning residents have alleged they were stopped by officials and “questioned as looters.” “The rebuild is going to take several years and the sheriff’s department and Altadena station is committed to the community And we’re going to keep bringing additional resources in as long as we can to make sure that the theft and all the crime is reduced,” Lt More » The ‘Humming-Byrd’ House: A Mid-Century Storybook Ranch Surrounded by Nature Pasadena Now has been published daily since April 2004 and is among the very oldest continuously operated community news websites in the U.S Pasadena Now strives to publish a full spectrum of news and information articles in service to the entire community The publication will remain free to readers and will not erect paywalls Copyright © 2025. Pasadena Now | Terms of - Service | Privacy Policy | CA Notice of Collection RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds offer another way to get Pasadena Now content Subscribe to our feeds to get the latest headlines summaries and links back to full articles – formatted for your favorite feed reader and updated throughout the day My “sheps” alert to someone on my property before the motion detector lights come on and well before the sheriff arrives By Christina LiAvid Reader Press: 352 pages, $29If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. Two families, both alike in dignity and each with plenty of suppressed damage, meet in a crumbling Altadena mansion for the reading of Oscar-winner-turned-recluse Vivian Yin’s will in Christina Li’s adult fiction debut, “The Manor of Dreams.” On one side of the table are Vivian’s daughters, Lucille and Rennie, as well as Lucille’s only child, Madeline. On the other side are Elaine Deng, a single mother, and her daughter Nora. Completing the opening tableau is Reid Lyman, Vivian’s attorney. It’s not entirely clear why the families are meeting in Yin Manor, Vivian’s dilapidated mansion, as opposed to in the attorney’s office, but as this is a gothic haunted house novel, the venue, if a tad contrived, is crucial. Books Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s ‘Silver Nitrate’ continues her tradition of overturning genres — this time in the chilling story of film horror fanatics in Mexico City. When Lucille gets a preliminary toxicology report from her mother’s autopsy, she learns that the results are “inconclusive,” and becomes convinced that Elaine must have poisoned Vivian, and sets out to use her week in the house to prove it. That these two women have bad blood between them is obvious, but readers are, at this point, as in the dark as daughters Nora and Madeline. L.A. author Lisa See explains how her historical novel about a doctor, ‘Lady Tan’s Circle of Women,’ was inspired by an antique bed in her family store. The book falls short in its attempt to tie Yin Manor’s haunted nature to the exploitation of the thousands of Chinese migrants who built the Western half of the first transcontinental railroad, however. It’s an evocative through line, to be sure, but it’s given short shrift, and doesn’t end up having the emotional or political impact that it might have. On the whole, though, “The Manor of Dreams” is a swift and enjoyable read, increasingly spooky, with a surprising queer romance twining its way through. Masad, a books and culture critic, is the author of the novel “All My Mother’s Lovers” and the forthcoming novel “Beings.” Print Every archaeologist remembers the first time they came to a layer of blackened dirt while excavating I was crouching in a hole; the dig’s director spotted the dark soil from up above created when fire tore through a settlement It was the material residue of great trauma — whole lives consumed and carbonized 2025An earlier version of this article misidentified Nick Cave as Nick Cage and there is no mistaking the one for the other Our home in Altadena has had its own burn layer since Jan Our family is one of the thousands who lost their homes in the Los Angeles-area wildfires sifting through the fragments to see what survived a fire so hot it melted wrought iron and thick antique glass Unlike most of those who are searching through the debris of January’s fires this isn’t the first time we’ve excavated the rubble of destroyed lives Both Carly and I are historians who practice archaeology Humans tend to build and rebuild in the same places the hills made up of the ruins of successive eras — often many yards deep and spanning centuries or even millennia — are called “tells.” Sometimes distinguishing a tell’s layers is a subtle art but a burn layer stands out from everything around it we found Assyrian arrowheads and ballista stones: evidence of the assault that destroyed the village in 701 BCE part of the military campaign that the emperor Sennacherib immortalized in stone relief wall panels now displayed in the British Museum I stood on the hill and looked out toward the edge of the Negev desert imagining the villagers watching an army come into view Like those long-gone inhabitants of Tel Halif we saw the destruction coming — fire on the hillsides of Eaton Canyon was visible from our bedroom window It wasn’t unfamiliar: I had watched the hillside above me burn in La Crescenta during the Station fire of 2009 and in 2020 the Bobcat fire brought noxious smoke and ash to Altadena and the poor cell reception without it meant we hadn’t seen the news out of Pacific Palisades Santa Ana winds are a familiar part of Los Angeles life and the flames that night didn’t seem any more dangerous than the ones we’d encountered before drove down the hill with our kids and expected to come home in the morning weaving through downed trees and power lines (It was some time before the National Guard came to close off the area.) But what we saw at our address made no sense This was not like a house fire in movies or on TV There was no blackened shell dripping water after the valiant efforts of firefighters to save it towering chimney and the massive concrete pillars that had supported the front porch The sheer gone-ness of it was disorienting random surviving objects oriented us: the small cast-iron bedside table fallen from the second floor to a spot near the fireplace directly beneath it Our toddler’s diaper pail in the hollow of a crawl space mixed with the remnants of the dining room Our archaeological training taught us to look for these small clues and to reconstruct from them the outlines of the house’s upper stories Carly once excavated the skeleton of a young woman who had been crushed beneath pottery that had fallen from the upper floors We know we are among the lucky ones; at least 18 people from Altadena died in the Eaton fire The house we lost was built in 1913 for a spinster heiress named Helen T The drawings of the exterior’s timbering and the interior’s multilayered moldings and built-in cabinetry attest to both the muscularity and the intricacy of Craftsman architecture at the end of the style’s peak in the Los Angeles area The beams that supported the large front porch were drawn at an impressive 6x12 inches Near the front of the house had been Carly’s office Because it was in a part of the house with a concrete subfloor and no second story some of the books on bottom shelves still sat in neat it immediately began to disintegrate and blow away in the light breeze I was reminded of the charred scrolls from Herculaneum frozen in the poses in which they died as waves of volcanic ash and lava overtook them Here was the image of a book and bookshelf the fire has driven home what my life’s work as a historian of antiquity has taught me what Shelley crystallized in his poem “Ozymandias”: We humans build monuments only to have them disappear into the sands of time But maybe the Bible says it most succinctly: “You are dust and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:19) I count myself lucky to be disabused so forcefully of any fantasies of material permanence while I’m still in the middle of my life How many elderly people look around their homes and wonder what to do with all this stuff From the ashes she pulled a strange assortment of survivors: fragments of ceramic plates misshapen metal and coffee mugs that no public health authority would recommend using (Archaeologists do frequently lick the ceramics from an excavation but those don’t have toxic metals in the dusting of soil.) including a star sapphire ring that belonged to her late father and an inexpensive metal lotus bowl that I had loved the site at Tel Halif mostly yielded small finds: the pottery that families used to store prepare and consume food and drink; small clay figurines that may have been children’s toys I imagine the people who lived there leaving without time to gather everything and without an efficient way to transport their heavy pottery Some of the items we left behind are now unrecognizable; others have vanished completely handed down from our older son to his younger brother the art and the family photos that adorned our walls As archaeologists used to reconstructing the past from the fragments left behind the erratically preserved remnants of our house are a sobering reminder of how many of a site’s most meaningful objects simply disappear Some of the surviving items may be restored A shattered lilac plate from my sister-in-law can be glued back together The earrings I gave Carly before our wedding may yet be wearable But there is no illusion that these items represent the triumph of our own permanence buildings were sometimes rebuilt on the same foundations but not even our home’s foundations are left The Army Corps of Engineers has already scraped our lot Carly’s excavations are her effort to salvage a few fragments of our Before and connect them to our yet-to-be-determined After They are symbols of the relationships and the beauty that gave our lives meaning before the fire We have been reminded repeatedly in the weeks since the fires of the significance of our community to both parts of this story Our neighbors and co-workers have risen up around us picking us up out of the literal and figurative ashes Government employees have worked tirelessly at the Disaster Recovery Center to guide us toward a new beginning We continue to lean heavily on both friends and strangers as we struggle to maintain the hope necessary to rebuild our lives in this unexpected After Christopher B. Hays is a professor of Old Testament and ancient Near Eastern studies at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. In 2024, he also taught at the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem. Carly L. Crouch, professor of Hebrew Bible and ancient Judaism at Radboud University in the Netherlands, contributed to this article. 2025: An earlier version of this article misidentified Nick Cave as Nick Cage Welcome, Mickeymickey@disney.comManage MyDisney AccountLog OutSeveral suspected copper thieves caught in the act in AltadenaTuesday 2025Several suspects accused of stealing copper are now behind bars after authorities said they target the Altadena area.ALTADENA (KABC) -- Several suspects accused of stealing copper are now behind bars after authorities said they target the Altadena area according to an Instagram post from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Altadena station but additional details about where it happened or exactly how many suspects were apprehended were not released Photos released by the sheriff's station showed a trunk full of copper wires While authorities say they will continue to conduct more operations they urge community members to make a report if you see something Altadena, CALIF — More than three months after 16,251 homes and other buildings were destroyed in the Eaton and Palisades fires Now that burned debris has been removed from lots both Los Angeles city and county have started issuing building permits Among the many decisions homeowners face is whether to rebuild with all-electric appliances or re-install gas ones. California's policy is to transition away from burning climate-warming natural gas in buildings and switching to electric Climate activists hope to convince homeowners to make that choice but requiring all-electric homes of people who just had their lives upended by a wildfire is proving challenging I didn't learn how to cook with electric," says Shawn Maestretti a landscape architect whose Altadena home burned in the Eaton fire He also wants more information about the benefits of switching to electricity and what it's like to adapt to that change and it's too soon for me to be making decisions about this right now," Maestretti says still needs to clear burned debris from his lot The question of whether he'll install gas in his new home is just one of many issues he'll need to decide in the coming months Organizations concerned about climate change are pushing Los Angeles policy-makers to rebuild without gas. A few of them created a coalition called Rebuild LA S.A.F.E. (secure That still leaves gas as a choice for homeowners, despite a 2022 city ordinance that requires only electricity for most new buildings. Sticking with that "would be ideal," says Aleksandar Pavlović, president of the environmental nonprofit Resilient Palisades His family also lost their home in the Palisades wildfire We went back to it several days after the fire and all that's standing now is just a chimney," Pavlović says His family plans to rebuild without gas but does not think others should be required to make that same choice Savannah Bradley agrees. She co-founded Altadena Recovery Team which also is part of the Rebuild LA S.A.F.E "We understand that in a time of crisis when people — all they're looking for is stability it's really hard to sometimes present what may be a new idea," Bradley says the groups hope to convince as many as possible to choose only electricity Bradley says this is an easier argument to make if homeowners had already been thinking about getting rid of gas before the fires Jaime Rodriguez lived in his Altadena home for two-and-a-half years before the Eaton Fire destroyed it two bath — great for myself and my daughter," Rodriguez says he points to where the garage used to be and remembers evacuating in January "I had a classic BMW M Roadster in there and I could only take one of the cars with me," he says With the remains of the burned car now hauled away and plans to clear his land of debris Rodriguez says he'll build a more climate-friendly home "I plan on rebuilding what's called a passive home," Rodriguez says — referring to an air-tight building style with plenty of insulation that reduces the home's energy consumption Rodriguez started converting gas appliances to electric ones before the fire. He replaced a gas furnace with a more efficient heat pump and says that's saved him money. He looks forward to cooking with an electric induction stove, which uses magnetism to heat food, and avoids some of the health concerns scientists warn about Rodriguez says the devastating fire also is an opportunity "I'm a big advocate of building back better and building back better is without gas," he says But he doesn't want to force his neighbors to do that too "People have lost so much and I wouldn't want to take anything more away," Rodriguez says For people who've never considered converting to an all-electric home the decision to do that now can be more difficult A mile down the hill from Rodriguez — past the burned elementary school — Lupe Sanchez's home is still standing but she says the roof was damaged in the fire There's a blue tarp on top and water damage inside from a rainstorm Sanchez says switching to all-electric appliances never occurred to her "I haven't heard anything about that at all," Sanchez says "I don't like electric stoves." And she's not considering a switch now Gas utilities have used tobacco-style tactics for decades to undermine science that points to potential health risks with gas stoves That's helped utilities avoid regulation and they've boosted the popularity of gas cooking with a marketing campaign Climate advocates still hope to convince homeowners, like Sanchez, to rebuild with electric appliances in coming months. The California-based group Building Decarbonization Coalition is providing information and technical help "Many of these homeowners have never built a house — never intended to build a house And now they find themselves having to make thousands of individual decisions that they never thought they would have to make," says Beckie Menten One of their more compelling arguments is that electrification can save money "We estimate that you can save somewhere between $7,000 and $10,000 [in construction and appliance costs], by building an all electric home as opposed to a dual-fuel home," she says. That argument was recently bolstered by a report from the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment at University of California Berkeley a house rebuilt with only electric appliances doesn't need new gas pipes installed throughout the home The local gas utility, SoCalGas, did not respond to NPR's interview request. Instead, it offered a statement of support for its customers who are rebuilding. The utility says on its fire website that about half the 30,300 customers initially affected by the fires have had their service restored. Climate groups hope to convince the remaining customers to give up gas and choose electric appliances instead. (Not pictured) Dianne Philibosian (Photo – PCF) The fire’s toll was staggering—an estimated 60% of all childcare spaces were lost—deepening what was already a national crisis in affordable and accessible early education “We understood immediately that this disaster would expose two truths: the razor thin margins of childcare operation and that childcare offers more than just shelter – it provides critical stability and continuity,” said Toni Boucher Chair of the Child Care Directors Alliance (CCDA) which are often scarce in the aftermath of a catastrophe Families and providers face a long road ahead.” The emergency PCF funding marks the first phase of a long-term recovery plan Relief efforts are being led by a consortium of expert organizations Pacific Oaks College and Children’s School and the City of Pasadena Task Force on Early Child Development and Early Learning “We are not just rebuilding structures but strengthening the bonds that make us a community,” said Dr “The support from Pasadena Community Foundation will uplift our childcare sector and help us create something new something worthy of our children’s future.” Planning for Phase 2 of the recovery will begin in the coming months and will focus on systemic issues in childcare infrastructure The ultimate goal is not just to recover—but to reimagine and fortify the childcare sector for generations to come Representatives leading this initiative include Tony Santilena a key member of the consortium’s advisory team Our News Desk department consists of a collective of news gatherers in order to keep the community informed and safe Colorado Boulevard is your place for informative news and social living for the greater Pasadena area See all articles Caltech researchers working with community members and schools in Altadena and Pasadena have quickly deployed a network of particulate air quality sensors on rooftops in and around the burned areas of Altadena dubbed PHOENIX (Post-fire airborne Hazard Observation Environmental Network for Integrated Xposure-monitoring) aims to provide the community with a way to monitor airborne dust as debris removal and rebuilding proceed Data from the PHOENIX sensors can be viewed here and are updated every five minutes we wanted to give the community a source of independent air-quality measurements," says Haroula Baliaka (MS '23) a graduate student in environmental science and engineering at Caltech who has been working to install the PHOENIX sensors the data can be used by agencies such as FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers to gauge how well dust-mitigation efforts are working." the team has installed 19 sensors spatially distributed across Altadena; one sensor was installed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) an associate research scientist at Caltech have been using their personal networks and reaching out to the community to identify standing structures with nearly flat roofs and then quickly going out to install sensors made by QuantAQ These commercially available sensors offer the advantage of running on solar power and using cellular networks whereas many other sensors require access to Wi-Fi "That's helped us with setting up fast—within a few hours—and being able to already show the real-time data" Baliaka says The sensor locations include multiple school sites including the EF Academy a private day and boarding high school in Pasadena; Odyssey Charter School; Saint Mark's School; and Saint Elizabeth Parish School Sensors will soon be installed on at least two additional school sites in the Pasadena Unified School District Parents at Crestview Preparatory School in La Cañada Flintridge raised funds to purchase a sensor for the school Each of the air quality devices is able to measure particulate matter in three size categories—particulates measuring less than 1 micrometer in diameter (PM1.0), those that are less than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5) in diameter, and larger particulates up to 10 micrometers in diameter (PM10). Data related to these larger particles will be particularly useful as the region recovers from the fire, says Paul Wennberg Stanton Avery Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Environmental Science and Engineering The larger particles settle to the ground relatively fast compared to the smaller PM2.5 particles "That means these larger particles are much more indicative of local dust events," Wennberg says "Since one of our goals was to be able to isolate from the general aerosol pollution of Los Angeles things that were more related to the fire debris we needed sensors capable of good PM10 measurements." Although the large particles settle quickly Wennberg says the air mixes them around and can carry them roughly a kilometer away "If you have a dust source during the day and if it's made out of the ash and the dust from these houses it will get transported some distance," says Wennberg "So we're trying to place our sensors roughly a kilometer apart in every direction to be able to isolate and figure out where the dust is coming from." While the PHOENIX website currently shows only raw data from the various sensors the team plans to continue incorporating additional features to the site that will illustrate general air quality across Altadena and identify dust events The team also aims to make the data as accessible as possible and to use machine learning and predictive models to gain additional insights Funding Enabled the Team to Spring Into Action the air-quality map maintained by sensor company PurpleAir was dotted with sensors throughout the Altadena area Green spots on the map correspond to locations of low-cost PurpleAir sensors bought and installed by residents forming a network driven by citizen science Data from those sensors also feed into the EPA's data helping to formulate the air-quality index (AQI) that is reported on the weather app on our phones Baliaka and Wennberg noticed with concern that the PurpleAir map was completely devoid of sensors in the Altadena burn zone All the sensors had either been burned or were no longer receiving Wi-Fi and utility power needed to keep them running "We had lost this important data for everybody in the community," Wennberg says "All those PurpleAir sensors had just evaporated." seeing all this lead in the particulates in the air and just thinking what could we do to assist our community?" Wennberg says the team quickly had enough funding to buy the first set of sensors Loans of additional sensors for the network have come from JPL The City of Pasadena is also purchasing a sensor to install on the roof of a Public Health Department building QuantAQ donated a year of Caltech's two-year service contract to operate the sensors the team aims to further expand the network and enhance the public database to provide real-time access to particulate matter concentrations "It all came together so quickly," Wennberg says "This seemed like something in our wheelhouse that could really help the community Southern California Edison announced plans to underground 40 circuit miles of power lines in Altadena’s high wildfire risk areas and an additional 23 circuit miles outside those zones The announcement came during the Altadena Community Meeting held on Monday part of ongoing recovery efforts following the Eaton fire “We just announced that we will be undergrounding 40 circuit miles in Altadena in a high wildfire area an additional 23 miles of circuit miles outside of the high wildfire area,” said David Ford a Southern California Edison representative at the meeting The undergrounding project is still in the design phase and moving toward implementation Ford acknowledged the timeline for completion would be extensive due to the massive spread of the fire throughout the community “We’re still a long ways out from actually completing that project It’s going to take a while to complete this was a pretty massive spread of fire throughout the community and our restoration process is to restore and build back better our infrastructure in Altadena community,” Ford said The announcement was part of a broader community meeting that included updates from various agencies involved in Altadena’s recovery efforts Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger opened the meeting by highlighting progress in the rebuilding process Barger noted that only four Altadena residents had received rebuilding permits from Los Angeles County so far prompting her to introduce a motion for a pilot program allowing self-certification during the permitting process She also announced plans for a unified permitting authority and the exploration of AI solutions to streamline approvals Other agencies providing updates included the United States Army Corps of Engineers which reported completing debris removal on over 3,300 properties and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department which has implemented a Home Check Program that has conducted over 14,000 checks on approximately 600 homes The meeting also addressed concerns about air quality Ph.D.from the South Coast Air Quality Management District presenting data showing that air quality measurements have remained below federal standards during cleanup operations The community meeting provided residents an opportunity to ask questions about various aspects of the recovery process Elderly residents of the Mirador Apartments in West Altadena held a rally Tuesday to voice concerns about their evacuation experience during the recent Eaton Fire claiming they were left without proper assistance Several seniors at the gathering alleged they were forced to navigate the evacuation without functioning elevators or accessibility features when the building lost power during the fire reportedly leaving them trapped on upper floors in complete darkness engulfed in thick smoke described her evacuation attempt during the rally “I fell down the stairs and hit between my shoulder blades and the pain was so severe I thought I broke my spine,” Recasens said “People were running by and screaming and I kept saying some called emergency services as the fire approached but were told that West Altadena wasn’t in a mandatory evacuation zone and would have to wait for assistance Residents also expressed frustration with the building’s management company which they said declared the building safe for occupancy two weeks after the fire despite concerns about toxic ash in the building the Mirador is adjacent to structures that completely burned in the fire ConAm told media the company was not commenting but did issue a statement reported by KABC Eyewitness News ‘Mirador is an independent living community and should not be confused with assisted living or skilled nursing facilities…,” the statement attributed to ConAm said “Our management followed all city and county protocols — both around the mandatory evacuations the morning of January 8 and in ensuring the remediation necessary to confirm Mirador units and common areas were safe and habitable.'” claimed she asked management about cleaning the apartments “I asked when they were going to clean the apartments how do you expect us to clean all of this soot and ash and smoke?’ Several attendees at the rally said they received eviction notices the same day as the event These residents expressed concerns about potential homelessness if forced to leave what they described as one of the few affordable senior housing options in Altadena identified as being from the all-volunteer Altadena Tenants Union spoke at the gathering about broader concerns like the Mirador have been happening,” Clark said identified as Director of the Pasadena Community Job Center “What type of city are we if we can’t take care of our most vulnerable community We know that this is going to take a long time to recover from this fire and that’s what we’re seeing here today.” residents presented several demands they said were previously shared with ConAm and Affirmed Housing without direct response These demands included: functional backup power sources for emergency evacuations; a clear evacuation plan with regular drills; immediate remediation of smoke soot and ash from apartments and common areas with post-remediation testing; return of rent prorated from January 7th (the night of the evacuation) until proof of habitability; reliable on-site staffing with an end to alleged bullying and threats and a standardized complaint reporting process and evaluation process for residents to give feedback; and 24-hour security personnel on site Recasens and other Mirador residents have formed the El Mirador Alliance to advocate for improvements to their living conditions So glad to be a part of this great organization. Setting an example for my kids. Being a part of the change I want to see in the world. Starting in my own community! Join our community of over 2 million activists across the nation fighting for change and for justice. An inclusive culture of health and equitable social health systems Support for young leaders and change agents Fair and just representation for all by standing up for our rights in the courts and in Congress We work to turn the Black community's priorities into public policy through the legislative process In response to the devastating Eaton Fire and its disproportionate impact on the historically Black community in Altadena, California, the NAACP is partnering with BET Media Group, Johnson Shapiro, Slewett & Kole (JSSK), and WME to launch the Altadena Community Preservation Fund. This fund empowers homeowners and small business owners impacted by the Eaton Fire with direct cash assistance in the form of bridge grants. The fund will focus on assisting:  The Altadena Community Preservation Fund will be administered in partnership with FORWARD — a platform dedicated to putting people first through efficient, secure, and human-centered technology. This fund will uphold transparency, efficiency, and accountability in distributing much-needed aid, with allocation based on available funds. Donate to AltadenaMake a difference: give to Altadena where it matters most.  By giving to the Altadena Community Preservation fund, you're helping Altadena residents with immediate and mid-term needs — including temporary housing, hiring independent adjusters, legal fees, and administrative costs. Altadena - a city rich in Black history and homeownership - deserves hope and an unwavering commitment to restoration. Through this coalition of partners and organizations, we are dedicated to providing the critical resources needed to help families reclaim and rebuild what was lost. Black residents in Altadena were particularly and disproportionately impacted by the Eaton Fire. Nearly half (48%) of Black households in Altadena were destroyed or sustained major damage.  57% of Black homeowners in Altadena are older than age 65, and may be especially vulnerable to insufficient insurance coverage and predatory financial scams as they navigate the rebuilding process. of Black households in Altadena were located within the Eaton Fire perimeter By donating to the Altadena Community Preservation Fund, you help to ensure that recipients can navigate recovery on their own terms. You can become a Champion for Change and receive a t-shirt with your monthly gift of $19 a month or more right now. Wildlife is returning to the areas burned by the Eaton Fire — and scientists are working to study their return to better understand how nature recovers after fire. Since July 2024, Kristen Ochoa and a group of volunteers and a biologist have been documenting wildlife in the Chaney Trail corridor, a wilderness area northwest of Eaton Canyon, via a network of trail cameras and other methods. The sports complex development plan has since been abandoned. But the data Ochoa and her group collected now serves as an important baseline to understand wildlife recovery in the Altadena foothills after the Eaton Fire.  ”We are pretty excited about what we can potentially learn about nature coming back,” Ochoa said. When the Eaton Fire began on Jan. 7, Ochoa got a front row seat to the destruction. “As the fire destroyed the Chaney Trail corridor, I could see it through the trail cams,” Ochoa said. “Each one burned in the fire.” Her cell phone pinged with each image the cameras caught as extreme winds whipped debris in front of them. Then came the flames. One by one, the cameras went black. Ochoa was able to get back out on the mountain soon after the flames died down. She collected the burned cameras and installed new ones. The landscape — formerly lush with chaparral, sage, thistle, sugar bush and other plants — was barren. But only a few days after the fire, life started to return. After the rains, the mountain began sprouting green. “The coyotes and the ravens were there right away,” Ochoa said. “Then with time, we've seen some green come back. There's crown sprouting on a lot of the trees. There's elderberry coming back. There's black sage coming back.” Ochoa said a stream in the area has become an oasis for wildlife. “The riparian area of Millard Canyon did burn, but in patches, and a lot of the tree canopy is still there. There's food, there's water. ... If anything, it was sort of like a wonderland right after the fire,” Ochoa said. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Chaney Trail Corridor Project (@chaney.trail.corridor) then came the deer as the grass and plants started to grow “Then came the bobcats because the ground squirrels were there,” Ochoa said And then we were fortunate to see a mountain lion.” one of Ochoa’s trail cameras caught a lanky mountain lion pausing in the center of the frame It was the first one her cameras had caught returning since the fire the rest of the family showed up on cameras in another part of Millard canyon — a female with two juveniles “That mountain lion means everything to me,” Ochoa said I really wanted to share it with everybody who has struggled during this fire so they can feel the same feeling of hope and elation that the lion is back.” Ochoa checked in with her partners at the San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians Gabrieleno Tongva and she wanted to share the news respectfully community outreach coordinator with the tribe it's an exciting time because it shows us that Mother Earth will restore especially with the fires and the devastation that occurred Ochoa hopes the ongoing monitoring of the wildlife corridor will help ultimately conserve the Chaney trail area in the Altadena foothills for good “We believe it's likely that the land will still be for sale at some point and we want to try to conserve that land,” she said Ochoa and supporters believe that preserving open land Tongva scientist Samantha Morales Johnson Yang said there are lessons from Indigenous practices that should be heeded going forward “ We did not traditionally have villages where the Santa Ana winds blew and we did that on purpose because we knew how the strong wind could bring fire,” said Yang “I'm not saying that we should not have people live there but we need to think of alternatives for building materials if we want to continue having people live up there.” Ochoa said preserving more open land in the Altadena foothills is another way to adapt as climate change drives more extreme weather and displaces more people and wildlife “ I think that in these sorts of spaces — the urban-wild interface — it's really important if we have a chance to keep it open to allow the wildlife to move around,” Ochoa said The lessons from the recent fires — and wildlife's recovery — go deeper than policy “It's a time when we can also learn from the wildlife and nature and all the plants and sort of watch them regrow as we do," she said "It can teach us how to rebuild our own lives as we watch nature do what it's been doing for millions of years 2025Photo: Mario Tama / Getty Images News / Getty Images nonprofits are stepping in to prevent gentrification after the Eaton fire destroyed thousands of homes in January lived in a historic Janes Village cottage for nearly 17 years before it was destroyed Her landlord offered her the burned lot for $565,000 in cash Neighborhood Housing Services of Los Angeles County stepped in purchasing the lot and plan to build a new home for Williams at an affordable price The fire has raised concerns about gentrification as developers buy properties and build expensive homes, threatening Altadena's architectural, racial, and economic diversity. The Greenline Housing Foundation in Pasadena is also working to combat this trend The foundation has purchased lots and plans to sell them below market price to local residents particularly focusing on displaced Black and Hispanic homeowners emphasized the importance of keeping land out of speculative markets to preserve the community's fabric these nonprofits are committed to restoring Altadena and preventing a loss of its longstanding Black community which has already been affected by gentrification and the fire as many properties have already been sold to developers Nonprofits are racing against time to secure more lots and ensure that Altadena remains in the hands of its community members The nonprofit Habitat for Humanity said they received the permit in a press release on Thursday “This is not just about rebuilding homes—it’s about restoring hope and a future for families who have lost everything,” said SGV Habitat CEO Bryan Wong The property is located on North Olive Avenue Habitat for Humanity built the home previously and will handle the rebuild for the family The announcement came just days after Los Angeles County received criticism after local media outlets reported that no permits had been issued despite promises of an expedited process while the fire was still burning Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger introduced a motion to create a Unified Permitting Authority (UPA) within the Altadena One-Stop Recovery Permitting Center to expedite the residential rebuilding process Barger said she has been keeping a close eye on the County’s One-Stop Permitting shop and was not satisfied with the pace The motion is designed to cut through the red tape and get the rebuild back on track “No rebuild permits have been issued in Altadena and that’s unacceptable.” UPA County departments will identify and fix problems that are slowing down the permitting process A “strike team” of senior-level staff from Regional Planning Fire and Public Health and other key County departments involved in approving rebuilding plans will also be created The team will work directly with fire survivors to move their applications forward The Board of Supervisors will be updated to guarantee real progress and hold departments accountable In the days following the devastating wildfires that ravaged Los Angeles County SGV Habitat announced their plans to help the community rebuild in Altadena there are 9 Habitat partners who lost homes in the Eaton fire More than 9,000 homes in Altadena and Pasadena were lost in the fire which began on Jan The backstory: A loosely-organized group of Altadena residents have been removing and reporting signs in the public right of way They found an ally in Constantino Kallimanis © 2025 Advance Local Media LLC. All rights reserved (About Us) The material on this site may not be reproduced except with the prior written permission of Advance Local Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site YouTube's privacy policy is available here and YouTube's terms of service is available here Ad Choices The local NBC affiliate in Los Angeles is reporting on the start of construction of the first home to be rebuilt in Altadena following the devastation of the Eaton Fire there in January The design by TC Design-Build is for a private client and took just 56 days to obtain a permit via the new self-certification system a German immigrant who has lived in Los Angeles for 30 years More of our coverage on the rush to rebuild in Altadena and the Palisades is here: Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site Your comment will be visible once approved Print Long before the evacuation order came law enforcement officers knew fire was spreading in west Altadena At 12:55 a.m. Jan. 8, a sheriff’s official reported a flaming structure on the corner of Las Flores Drive, a few doors down from the home of a 71-year-old who would later die in the fire the first evacuation order for west Altadena did not come until 3:25 a.m. after dispatchers had received at least 14 reports of fire in the area according to 911 logs from the Los Angeles County Fire Department obtained by The Times “I could just hear it in [the 911 operator’s] voice: ‘You’re out of luck,’” said Erin Foley as she watched tumbleweed-like balls of fire land in her west Altadena yard The logs depict a deadly disconnect between dispatchers receiving reports of flaming homes and officials deciding which neighborhoods to evacuate. All but one of the 18 Eaton fire deaths occurred in west Altadena which got its first alert eight hours after the other side of town The 911 logs provide the clearest picture yet of when fire was first reported on the blocks where people died The county coroner’s office has not released a time of death for any of the victims Hundreds of “supplemental reports” — brief time-stamped summaries of information that dispatchers gleaned from 911 callers law enforcement and firefighters — are included in the logs The Times reviewed the nearly 400 reports created during the fire’s first 12 hours Both the county fire department and Sheriff’s Department who share responsibility for ordering evacuations have said that first responders were overwhelmed battling flames and helping residents flee as the foothill town morphed into a chaotic hellscape Hurricane-force winds sprayed embers in unpredictable patterns and almost immediately grounded helicopters leaving firefighters without aerial support during a nighttime firefight The logs underscore the night’s sheer chaos with calls for help crescendoing around 4 a.m as residents of west Altadena desperately tried to escape a fire now at their doorsteps a 911 caller reports seeing sparking in Eaton Canyon hoping to extinguish the flames before they barrel towards nearby homes after three more callers report flames creeping into the foothills County officials order an evacuation for much of eastern Altadena and Kinneloa Mesa the county orders the rest of east Altadena to evacuate at 8:59 p.m ‘I know you guys are busy … but it's spreading to the neighborhoods,’” recalled Carolyn Scott “It literally looked like the gates of hell.” a caller spots a flaming roof on East Calaveras Street — the first sign that flying embers may be threatening west Altadena neighborhoods dispatchers are told that the house across the street is on fire some nervous families on East Calaveras Street slept in shifts convinced there was no chance the wind would shove embers in their direction all of Altadena would have had to burn,” said Rukmani Jones to the smell of acrid smoke and rushed her groggy family into the car dispatchers get dozens of calls from residents reporting flaming palm trees and incinerated yards People who have already fled keep calling to see if firefighters can salvage homes they’re watching burn through their Ring cameras Most of the calls are from Kinneloa Mesa and eastern Altadena But it’s becoming clear — the fire is posing a real threat to neighborhoods west of Lake Avenue has spent the evening cooking himself a pork chop at his home on East Las Flores Drive he sees fire crackling about a dozen blocks away The flames are going to be here any minute?’” he recalled He notices the streets are empty as he flees Two women who will die in the fire — Lora Swayne, 71, and Patricia McKenna, 77 — live a block away. McKenna tells a friend she plans to sit tight until an evacuation order comes tells a shocked 911 operator that all of Monterosa Drive is burning “He couldn’t really grasp what I was saying.” Her neighbor, Victor Shaw At 2:43 a.m., a sheriff’s official warns that fire is approaching Wapello Street, near where Edwin Cridland, 94, will perish. A friend told reporters he believes that Cridland took out his hearing aid and went to sleep after watching embers from Wapello Street ignite his block “Their response is ‘There’s fire everywhere,’” he says the county sends its first evacuation order to west Altadena residents the fire will be roaring in western Altadena reports start coming in nearly every minute of newly singed streets Many of these blazes are reported on the blocks where residents will die Some family members have said they believe their loved ones were likely sleeping by the time the fire arrived But others, like 83-year-old Erliene Kelley last saw his mother at her home around 11 p.m “I know my mother was not prepared to die in that house,” he said He offers to clear the tree branches from the front of her garage Kelley calls 911 to say she is trapped in her driveway Her body will be discovered in the rubble. The remains of Zhi Feng Zhao a caller says they’re surrounded by burning homes on East Las Flores Drive calls roll in as flames consume East Sacramento Street This part of west Altadena has still not received an evacuation order Carolyn Burns, 56, will die on the block after her family wakes up to flames in their kitchen dispatchers are flooded with calls from people who are trapped Disabled residents are stuck in their wheelchairs Some are bedridden and tell dispatchers they need a gurney Those who can escape on their own are finding their driveways blocked by fallen trees After being displaced by the Eaton fire Jonathan Mitchell is staying at a friend’s home in Huntington Beach (Carlin Stiehl/For The Times) On El Prieto Road runs to his neighbor to borrow an electric saw “It was very clear — the cavalry was not coming.” That’s when he decides to use his Toyota as a battering ram dispatchers have received nearly two dozen reports of residents trapped in west Altadena Only four such calls come in for residents in east Altadena sheriff’s officials tell dispatch they can’t handle any more evacuations the county issues an evacuation order for the rest of west Altadena Those residents will have to escape the flames on their own Yet calls from people who need help fleeing keep coming terrified residents say they’re stuck inside burning homes For some, help never arrives. At 6:03, dispatchers get a call from Terrace Street. Anthony Mitchell, Sr., an amputee, and his son Justin, who has cerebral palsy, are trapped. Two more calls come in for the home as the backyard bursts into flames. Neither makes it out. The frantic calls will continue long after the sun rises. Soon, worried family members start dialing in as well, desperate for the location of loved ones they haven’t heard from since the middle of the night. Kelley, who evacuated to an Ontario hotel after leaving his mother’s home, wakes up and learns the fire has spread to her neighborhood. He and his wife race back around 6 a.m., winding their way through streets rendered unrecognizable by thick black smoke. He finds his mother’s block obliterated, the only identifiable landmark a Cadillac Coupe DeVille parked in front of her house. He stares at the last place he saw his mother sitting and drives away. The heat is so intense he’s worried it’ll bust the car windows. He checks his phone and notices for the first time the text his mother sent at 3:30 a.m. — five minutes after the evacuation order for her neighborhood went out. She told her son she was preparing to leave. But by then, no one was left to help her. Untangling the mystery of failed Altadena evacuations: ‘There should have been all sorts of red lights’ Feb. 16, 2025 About this story Vanessa Martínez is an assistant data and graphics editor at the Los Angeles Times. Prior to joining The Times in 2017, she worked at the Seattle Times and the Southern California News Group. She graduated from Cal State Fullerton. Koko Nakajima is a data and graphics journalist at the Los Angeles Times. Sean Greene is an assistant data and graphics editor, focused on visual storytelling at the Los Angeles Times. Get the best experience and stay connected to your community with our Spectrum News app. Learn More — The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a motion Thursday to establish a Unified Permitting Authority within the Altadena One-Stop Recovery Permitting Center The motion was authored by Supervisor Kathryn Barger and co-authored by Supervisor Lindsey P the UPA will streamline and expedite the residential rebuilding process for those impacted by the deadly Eaton Fire which destroyed nearly 7,000 homes in the unincorporated community of Altadena "I’ve been keeping a close eye on the County’s One Stop Permitting Shop and to be candid — I’m not satisfied with the pace,” Barger said in a statement Thursday "No rebuild permits have been issued in Altadena and that’s unacceptable Today’s motion will cut through the red tape to get my Altadena constituents back on track to rebuilding faster The UPA will be empowered to make final permitting decisions across departmental lines resolve regulatory conflicts in real time and eliminate bottlenecks that have delayed recovery efforts Key county departments involved in approving rebuilding plans — regional planning fire and public health — will also be required to assign senior-level liaisons to the one-stop center "Helping our communities recover swiftly and effectively from this year’s devastating fires is Los Angeles County’s highest priority,” Horvath said in a statement "We must ensure the rebuilding process is not only fast and efficient but also equitable and accessible for every resident stands as a proven model of what’s possible when we prioritize people over red tape I’m committed to enhancing this approach and bringing the same level of responsive support to our neighbors in Altadena." A copy of the approved motion can be viewed here The Altadena One-Stop Permit Center is located at 464 West Woodbury Road, Suite 210, Altadena, CA 91001. Walk-ins are welcome, and consultation appointments can be scheduled here. Altadena is one of those rare places in Los Angeles County where people of many backgrounds and ethnicities have been able to afford the American Dream of homeownership. Situated near the base of the San Gabriel Mountains northeast of downtown L.A., Altadena was known for its mixture of single-family homes, restaurants and businesses. It’s been a sanctuary for Black residents in particular: according to census data, about 75% of African Americans living there own their homes — close to double the national rate. So when the Eaton Fire ignited last week and tore through Altadena and parts of neighboring Pasadena, the loss was felt deeply in the community and beyond — both by those who are familiar with its history and by those just learning of it. Major societal change came during the Civil Rights Era. Racist property-use laws became unenforceable and later legal actions banned housing discrimination outright, helping end de facto practices that locked Black families out. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Altadena Historical Society (@altadenahistoricalsocietyca) the first Black actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor named for the canyon where it first sparked 13 had burned more than 14,000 acres in Altadena and parts of northeast Pasadena It is one of the deadliest fires in California history the flames had mostly died down in Altadena and the winds had calmed mopping up smoldering hot spots in the rubble of homes reduced to charred foundations Porsha Large spoke to LAist last week while standing at the corner Woodbury Road and Navarro Avenue waiting to get to her grandmother’s home nearby which she said her grandmother bought in the 1960s for under $10,000 The seven family members who lived there made it out safely was part of a wave of Black families who moved to Altadena during the Great Migration that started in the 1910s as they fled racial discrimination in the southern U.S she was the first Black grocery clerk in Sierra Madre,” Large said became a focal point for her family and the area “I'd say about five generations were raised in that house,” she said My grandma opened her doors to anyone that ever needed anywhere to stay… The family members found shelter in an Ontario hotel room at first then later in a two-bedroom apartment they own in Pasadena and one that keeps them removed from the community they loved and that may never again be the same a bunch of grandmothers and grandfathers that raised us all,” said Whitney Large “We played football and basketball and we raced up and down the streets." Many other houses on the same street did not there's like six houses that were burned to the ground,” Carroll said Carroll said her parents bought the home in 1966 When the fire approached the house early Wednesday She said she just didn’t expect it to get so bad we used to come out in the street and play,” Carroll recalled it’d be pitch black and we would try to see who could stand the longest without moving in the winds “We've never had any type of fire like this — they've always been in the mountains,” Carroll said said despite the orders to evacuate he stayed as flames burned around his home I worked for this house,” Martinez said as he stood outside his home last week “I wasn’t going to let it burn to the ground.” said the house is much more than just property “This is where my two kids were born and my third was almost 5 when we moved here,” she said At a community meeting about the Eaton Fire on Sunday afternoon residents said they worried their community will change into something they don’t recognize when and if residents can rebuild rising prices have already changed the demographics of many of these neighborhoods who lives in the Meadows neighborhood with his 94-year-old grandmother said he worries the fire will only accelerate that “ We already had people start moving out of here because of the prices,” Mair said “But now the fire…so it's just…I don't know promised the community she wouldn’t let that happen that she would promote policy to prevent developers from replacing single-family homes with luxury condos so I’m going to be looking at what we can do to protect those that are going to be priced out,” Barger said "I’m going to speak with the governor to…suspend legislation that’s made it easy for developers to build dense condominiums…so that we can maintain Altadena the way it belongs.” At least 100 people were at the meeting at Pasadena City College “We’re not gonna let what happened in Lahaina happen in Altadena,” Barger promised referring to the situation after the 2023 fires in Hawaii Even for those who didn’t lose their homes there’s a lot of uncertainty about whether they’ll stay  "My intention was to continue leaving this home to the next generation,” Carroll said very difficult for people to become whole again.” Print Altadena’s slow reawakening Festival of Books cooks and lots of restaurant openings The open sign appeared last week at Altadena Beverage and Market for the first time since the Eaton fire in January burned so much of the neighborhood (Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times) Ever since the Eaton fire destroyed much of Altadena I’ve been on the lookout for signs of recovery I often drive up Lake Avenue where so many small businesses burned leaving twisted steel frames and slumping walls This is a neighborhood I used to walk. It’s not far from my home in north Pasadena, and just two days before the Eaton and Palisades fires began I spent part of that Sunday afternoon enjoying an excellent cappuccino in the color-splashed back garden of Café de Leche‘s now-destroyed Altadena location. As I wrote in January the fire came “at a particularly vulnerable moment for a food community that was in the midst of renewal” with “a fresh generation of small-business owners .. starting new businesses or reviving old ones.” One of those businesses was Altadena Beverage & Market on Allen Avenue Week after week I would drive by the superette looking for the plastic goose mascot that always signaled that the shop was open for business I’ve been watching for activity at David Tewasart and Clarissa Chin‘s Thai restaurant Miya where I loved the khao soi and crispy snapper and at Leo Bulgarini‘s gelateria and Italian restaurant Bulgarini These business owners also saw their homes burn while their restaurants survived But surviving the flames, as former Times reporter Cindy Carcamo wrote in late January doesn’t mean the businesses can easily reopen “We’re not a winner at all in any of this,” Bulgarini told Carcamo “You’ve lost your home so you’ve lost your sanctuary and you really have lost your business right now because it’s not going to be around for a while.” He estimated that with so many of customers displaced would be “pretty much dead for at least a year.” Army Corps of Engineer teams have made headway in the debris cleanup And while the green Servpro vans that popped up for smoke and ash remediation are still a common sight a few businesses have begun to open their doors Maggie Cortez‘s popular restaurant El Patron began serving its classic Mexican American dishes again El Patron restaurant in Altadena survived the Eaton fire but didn’t reopened for business until mid-March (Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times) I stopped by last Friday for fish tacos and found the sunlit restaurant busy at lunchtime Yet there were two conflicting scenes out the picture glass windows lined with colorful papel picado banners Through one window was greenery from a pocket park untouched by the flames on the block where the pizzeria Side Pie used to be the fire’s wreckage revealed itself like an open wound I spotted something new when I was leaving Armen Market on Allen Avenue (owner Armen Gharibi managed to open quickly after the fire with only a minor noticeable glitch one day when the credit card connection wasn’t working) The plastic bird wasn’t in its frequent resting spot along the sidewalk across from Armen; it was perched on the wood bench outside Altadena Beverage & Market I walked over and found the store up and running “We couldn’t have imagined how much would change and that it would take 100 days and so many tears and so much uncertainty to come back,” read the shop’s most recent Instagram post from this week announcing a May 3 reopening celebration But your support and words of encouragement pushed us forward.” It’s true that some of the shelves and one of the refrigerator cases were nearly empty. No Maury’s bagels yet. But there was some tempting dishware from the shop’s still-closed sister business, Zinnie’s Table When I asked if they would be getting any Bub & Grandma’s bread deliveries soon they said they’d already started and had sold out for the day I’ll be back this weekend for bread and maybe some bagels I’ve got my eye on a colorful confetti-patterned cutting board that could go well with my new kitchen cabinets Is mole better aged and rich or young and tart? This was one of the questions we contemplated this week at the sold-out residency of Enrique Olvera‘s acclaimed Mexico City restaurant Pujol at his L.A. outpost Damian in the Arts District. Olvera is celebrating the 25th anniversary of Pujol, which, as Food’s Stephanie Breijo recently wrote is closed in Mexico City until May 5 for a quick remodel of the restaurant’s terrace (At Olvera’s taqueria Ditroit behind Damian but know that there will probably be a long line.) the first of the nine-day dinner series that ends April 30 and skewered baby corn coated in a coffee mayonnaise flecked with chicatana ants One of my favorite dishes of the night was pulpo en su tinta with a blackened octopus tendril wrapped around a silky mash of incredibly flavorful ayacote beans But the plate everyone was waiting for was the mole madre aged and maintained like a sourdough starter for more than 10 years — or 3,675 days and counting on Tuesday night Our server told us that some 90 kilos of the mother mole was flown to L.A The inky-dark sauce had several layers of complexity In the center of the circle of mole madre was a smaller circle of burnt orange mole nuevo it was made with several fruits that gave the sauce an intriguing tartness Instead you took freshly made hoja santa tortillas and swiped it into the sauce scarpetta-style It was hard to decide which I liked better All I can tell you is that by the end of the course there was barely any sauce left on the plate Laurie Ochoa is general manager of Food at the Los Angeles Times. Food Nearly four months after the devastating Eaton Fire swept through the hills of Altadena reducing entire neighborhoods to ash Margot Steuber stood on her cleared lot on Palm Street Monday morning to mark a hopeful milestone: the groundbreaking of what may be the first home to begin reconstruction in the burn zone She stood on the cleared ground as bulldozers idled in the background alongside LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger “The journey was painful,” Steuber said “My friend Mark and I made it through that terrible night he was the one who told me: everything on Palm had burned.” Steuber lived in a modest home on West Palm Street for 18 years in an area known by locals as “Janes Village” — a “little old dance cottage,” as she described it with the help of her architect and a self-described glass half-full attitude “Today is the first day of my new life,” she said Los Angeles County Fifth District Supervisor Kathryn Barger joined Steuber at the site for the ceremonial groundbreaking describing her as a homeowner of “incredible tenacity” who acted quickly after the fire to begin the rebuilding process she already had an architect developing plans,” Barger said “What brought us here today is Margot herself… this achievement is truly for her While only four building permits have been pulled in the fire-affected zone to date Barger said Steuber was the first to receive one — and likely the first to break ground “This milestone is significant to me because it demonstrates that by working together we can indeed make progress happen,” Barger said She added that the county is working to reduce permit turnaround times from 56 days to 30 or fewer the design of her new home is a vision realized “I’m extremely happy,” she said “I have a vision and [my architect] put it into design.” Though the footprint will be similar to her previous home she called it “a small heart,” filled with hope for the future “I’m really glad that I’ll not be alone back here in the neighborhood,” she said “I’ll be with similar people who will still be my community.” and then we exchange whatever our ideas are we support each other,” Steuber said Originally from Germany and having faced multiple challenges throughout her life Steuber emphasized the importance of community during difficult times “Try to get as much support as possible from the Public Works but also from your neighbors and from your friends,” she advised you can bring the force every day to face the influences and face this and that and whatever As crews prepared the foundation behind her Steuber looked ahead to the coming months with cautious optimism “We hope to be ready in January,” she said Supervisor Barger noted Steuber’s resilient spirit saying that while she didn’t plan on starting over from scratch she now sees this as a “new opportunity “I’m celebrating this milestone but there’s a lot of work ahead of us,” Barger said it took Steuber about 56 days to receive rebuilding permits from the start of the fire Her office is actively monitoring permits to ensure they get issued to property owners efficiently and will work to address any roadblocks The supervisor pointed to the county’s One-Stop Permit Centers opened near the Eaton and Palisades fire burn areas to help guide residents through the rebuilding process “We are continuing to refine how to make the permitting process go more smoothly,” Barger added She mentioned bringing forward a motion to allow self-certification similar to an initiative Los Angeles officials announced last week Barger is not currently considering waiving fees related to rebuilding due to county budget concerns and ongoing labor negotiations with SEIU Army Corps of Engineers cleared fire debris off of Steuber’s property before construction began Monday said that Steuber moved particularly fast in her rebuilding process noting that most people take time to make decisions about interim housing and whether to rebuild Steuber decided on a “like-for-like rebuild with the addition of an accessory dwelling unit.” Barnett noted that using pre-approved plans may help expedite the rebuilding process More information about rebuilding is available at recovery.lacounty.gov/rebuilding and a total of four building permits issued specifically for the Eaton Fire burn area according to the website’s permit dashboard exactly a month after the devastating Eaton Fire the Baileys gathered at the site of their family home in Altadena to look through the rubble The wildfire had reduced their pale yellow four-bedroom ranch-style house to heaps of melted metal and gray ash hosting a small group ministry in their home for nearly a decade “We have a friend that used to call our house the party house But in the immediate weeks after the Eaton Fire “It's hard because you go through a thousand emotions when you look at the devastation,” said Al Bailey “When you're in the second stage of life and you see it's going to take a year to maybe even three [to rebuild] .. Al and Charlotte Bailey first rode into Altadena in 1977 They recalled how brightly the stars shone in the night sky and how they fell in love with the mountains and small town feel But there were systemic barriers to Black couples buying a home it was common for real estate agents to not sell houses in certain neighborhoods to people of color As part of discriminatory practices known as redlining and white property owners often specified in their deeds that they wouldn’t sell or rent to people of certain races These practices continued informally for decades — even after racial covenants were no longer held up by the courts and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Federal Fair Housing Act prohibited discrimination in housing “ There was a lot of white flight out of Altadena during those times And so it left a huge housing market that Black people were able to come in and settle,” said Marne Campbell  associate professor and chair of African American Studies at Loyola Marymount University Lake Avenue was the community’s racial dividing line When the Baileys called about listings on the east side of Lake Avenue they were told the houses had sold and were redirected to homes west of Lake which is why Altadena’s Black community was concentrated in west Altadena “It still affects our lives today,” said Veronica Jones president of the Altadena Historical Society “There's less trees on the west side of Altadena than the east side There's more liquor stores on the west side “ Altadena is a really great example of the lemonade that Black people made out of the lemons they were given,” LMU's Campbell said “It's taken a long time for Black families to build and have this kind of generational wealth.” Altadena’s residents are 58% people of color Experts have attributed the drop to gentrification and rising home prices They said they’ve noticed fewer Black neighbors throughout the years and that the sense of Altadena’s community had started to erode Al Bailey considered selling the house to move to Fresno where housing and the cost of living is cheaper but ultimately the Baileys decided to stay the question of whether Altadena was going to rebuild Homeowners reported getting text messages with offers of all-cash payments for their properties “What I hear from the Black community is they want to be here; they want to stay; they want to build back,” said Jones of the Altadena Historical Society Residents have to face factors including their insurance coverage the length of the cleanup and rebuilding process and their willingness to wade through bureaucratic questions and a yearslong timeline 57% of Black homeowners in Altadena are over age 65 the Baileys also said that the Eaton Fire has renewed a feeling of community in Altadena They’re on a new group chat with all the neighbors on their block “There's a reason now to come together and have some dialogue,” Al Bailey said at least sit down at the table and start talking.” LAist followed up with half a dozen Black residents of Altadena who seemed to be in a similar place as the Baileys — looking around at their neighbors trying to decipher what decision everyone else was going to make after visiting the site of his former house Al Bailey said he was thinking back on the decades he spent in Altadena He had visited one of his regular restaurants that morning “This is where people care,” added Charlotte Bailey a historic and prominent Black neighborhood in L.A She says that she and her neighbors in other predominantly Black neighborhoods are watching Altadena too "We're all watching Altadena to see what happens,” Campbell said “We know how magical and rare to have such a big rebuilding comes with an opportunity to correct the wrongs of the past I don't really want it to come back the same I would like the west side and the east side to look more alike,” said Jones “To correct those things [from redlining] that happened in the '60s and '70s.” Many Altadena residents are still deciding what they’ll do “My prayers that both my wife and myself are able to see what happens That we're still here when Altadena gets rebuilt," Al Bailey said To listen to the Imperfect Paradise episode