1 month after
The windstorm started early Tuesday, January 7, 2025, strong enough to knock down a giant oak tree onto a neighbor’s car. All day, we watched the trees sway, bracing for the power to go out. It finally did at 5 PM, just as Megan wrapped up work.
We had been following updates from Edgar McGregor—a hyper-local meteorologist, now being celebrated nationally for helping Altadenans act quickly once the fire broke out—and his Altadena Weather and Climate Facebook group and knew the winds would get worse through the evening. With fire risk so high, we decided to pack our cars just in case. Living in California, we had braced for the possibility of an evacuation at some point and one of the most helpful things was a list on the fridge of what to grab: memory boxes (prepacked for moments like this), photo books, art, jewelry, computers, camping gear, and more. When our minds were too scattered to think clearly, we were able to lean on that list and pack the cars calmly.
The list of the important things to grab.
We had made plans to try Bernee, a brand-new Altadena restaurant, with friends that night. Since moving here four years ago, we’ve seen many new spots pop up—Prime Pizza, Altadena Beverage, Miya Thai, Side Pie, Good Neighbor Bar, and now Bernee, the fanciest of them all. It’s the only restaurant in town that takes reservations. But the wind made us cancel. Twelve hours later, Bernee would be one of the only businesses on the block still standing.
By nightfall, the wind was intense. Trash bins floated down the street, and the oak trees behind our house swayed ominously. When RJ got home, we agreed it was safer to head to his mom’s house for the night. Just as we started packing, we saw a post about a fire in Eaton Canyon, five miles away. Minutes later, we lost cell data, leaving us unable to check updates. The smell of smoke grew stronger, and we noticed a glow on the horizon. Then we got a text: “Are you okay?” That’s when we knew things were serious.
We loaded the cars, said goodbye to the house, checked on neighbors, and left.
A selfie taken moments before evacuating.
The usual 10-minute drive to RJ’s mom’s took 30. As we drove, we could see the hills burning, the smoke smell getting stronger. We called friends Lauren and Michelle to see how they were doing. They were packed and ready in case they got an evacuation warning. They let us know that we weren’t in the evacuation zone at that point. Our area wouldn’t officially get evacuated until 3:30am.
Flames on the mountains as we drove to Jo’s
When we reached RJ’s mom’s house, we realized she was in an evacuation zone. So, we packed her up and drove to a hotel in K-Town. Standing in the smoky lobby, Megan ran into a friend from college she hadn’t seen in 13 years. It was surreal—like living out a disaster dream she’d had before (she often dreams of natural disasters... 🙃).
We fell asleep Tuesday night, knowing our house was still outside the evacuation zone. By Wednesday morning, all of Altadena had been evacuated, and much of it had already burned.
On Wednesday, we had to drive to the Bay Area for a medical procedure Megan had scheduled months ago. Leaving felt strange, but we knew there wasn’t much we could do by staying. While we were gone, Mikey and Alex went to our house to gather more of our belongings and confirm it was still there.
The western fire border is along Lincoln Avenue, two blocks to our east. Google maps has updated their satellite view and it shows the current state of Altadena. In the image below, you can see that the homes on the west half (left side) of the image are still standing but most of the homes on the east half (right side) are destroyed. Who knows what saved our little nook of Altadena. Edgar, the local Altadena Weather legend, has a theory about wind patterns. There are other theories about our proximity to NASA’s JPL.
We know so many people who lost their homes and everything inside—our friends Lauren and Michelle, several of RJ’s co-workers, dozens of families at his school, close friends’ parents, and our neighbor’s parents. Others we know stayed behind to fight the fire and now have the only house standing on their block.
We’re among the “lucky” ones. Most of our town burned—trails destroyed, soil contaminated, neighbors displaced, water undrinkable, and many of our belongings ruined by smoke. Yet our house is still standing, on a block spared from structural fire damage. Just two blocks east, though, it looks like a war zone—houses we used to pass on our morning walks with Tango are now gone, replaced by ash and rubble. It’s hard to process. The devastation is so close, yet the random, whack-a-mole nature of this fire has left our block untouched, giving us a different reality from those just a couple blocks away.
The road ahead is long. 9,418 structures have been logged as destroyed by the Eaton Fire. It’s considered a “mega-fire”, along with fires like the Lahaina fire, the Camp Fire in Paradise, the Marshall Fire in Colorado, and the Tubbs Fire in Napa/Sonoma.
What’s next?
One of our biggest questions now is: when will our house be safe to live in again?
While structurally sound, our home has ash inside and smells like chemical smoke. Professional cleaning will be needed, and luckily, insurance should cover most of the remediation. FEMA is also offering resources for things insurance doesn’t cover, like chainsaws for clearing debris and air purifiers.
We’ve visited our house a few times for various insurance tasks. There are downed branches but no structural damage, just ash and smoke inside.
LA can learn from past disasters like 9/11 and Colorado’s Marshall Fire about the long-term health risks of urban fires. We’re in a Facebook group where folks who lived through the Marshall Fire are answering questions of those impacted by the LA fires. What we’re hearing is unsettling, and while we are taking the risks seriously, we’re also trying to manage our mental health and not spiral into constant worry. As we think about what we can salvage and when our home will be safe, it feels like early COVID again—full of unknowns, when we’d wonder things like: Should we wear masks? Should we be washing all our groceries? Now we’re wondering things like: Do we need to wipe Tango’s paws when we come inside? Can smoke wash out of clothes? What isn’t measured in the AQI? Do we need a remediation expert or an industrial hygienist?
A few weeks ago, we moved into an apartment in Monterey Hills, not far from our old neighborhood in South Pasadena. A generous Sequoyah parent offered us their lightly furnished apartment, and we are incredibly grateful. We’re here until the end of February. We’ll spend March and April (and possibly longer) at a furnished studio in Eagle Rock (another LA neighborhood).
We’ve started working with insurance to begin the process of making our home “habitable” again. We’re making a list of things that can’t be remediated (mattresses, couch, upholstered furniture, wood cutting boards, the nightguard Meg very sadly forgot to pack, maybe all our porous ceramic dinnerware?...). Once we know what insurance will replace, we’ll have a remediation company come in and clean everything else. After that, we’ll have a certified industrial hygienist (oh, the things we didn’t know existed!) test for contaminants. Once the house is free of contaminants, it should technically be safe to return.
However, other factors complicate the timeline. Our local water utility—one of the 3 or 4 water companies that service Altadena—is still working to make the water potable. When the pipes ran dry during the fire, they pulled in toxic air, contaminating the system. They just announced that they found elevated levels of Benzene, a carcinogen, in water tests. Will they need to replace all the pipes? Will they be able to just flush the system? One of the many things we don’t know!
A screenshot of the Lincoln Avenue Water Company Notice
On top of that, living so close to the burn zone comes with its own challenges. As toxic debris from the fire is cleared over the next year, dust and contaminants will inevitably be kicked back into the air (although there are processes to minimize this). Even if our house is declared safe, the thought of being in that environment is unsettling. So, our personal definition of “habitable” may go beyond just having a clean house.
Tango has been surprisingly adaptable and is settling in to our Monterey Hills apartment
All in all, we are doing okay and we know we will get through this one day at a time.
We’ve felt so much kindness these past weeks—free shops in LA have providing clothes, bedding, and other essentials. Our YMCA waived our gym fees, South Pas Fitness gifted us a membership, Joy (a Taiwanese restaurant) gave us a meal, friends brought care packages and treated us to Wi Spa, and family sent gift cards. These small acts of generosity have made such a big difference when our world was turned upside down overnight.
It’s a long road ahead for many in Altadena. This community has a unique history that shaped it into what it is today. Racially, Altadena is one of the most diverse areas in LA County, with 60% of residents identifying as people of color—but that wasn’t always the case. Up until the 1950’s, Altadena was predominantly white. As redlining excluded people of color from buying homes in other places in the region, many first-time homebuyers found refuge in Altadena. Today, Altadena’s Black homeownership rate is nearly double the national average.
In the 1950’s, RJ’s grandparents bought the home we have lived in since 2021. They were the first in their families to become property owners in the US and were among the first Japanese Americans to land in the otherwise white neighborhood. Like our home, many homes here are legacy houses—passed down through generations, helping Black, Latinx, and Asian families build and sustain generational wealth. Now, with the fires, much of that wealth is at risk.
Many of you have asked how to support recovery efforts. Here are some locally based organizations working to support an equitable rebuilding of Altadena while honoring its rich and unique history. We know many of you have already given, or might not be in a position to give money right now, but we wanted to share some of our favorite local organizations.
Greenline Housing Wildfire Relief Fund: Greeline Housing tackles the legacy of housing discrimination by providing down payment grants, home maintenance grants, and financial education to qualified people of color.
Pasadena Job’s Center / National Day Laborer Organizing Network: The Day Laborer Center supports and protects day laborers. The organization is playing a huge role in fire recovery as you can see in one of their recent posts.
Octavia’s Bookshelf: Octavia’s Bookshelf is a bookstore that opened last year to celebrate and connect readers with works by BIPOC authors. They are really stepping up to support the community in the fire aftermath. You can volunteer, donate to Black families displaced by the fires, or support the bookstore directly.
Outward Bound Adventures: Outward Bound Adventures helps youth of color get out into nature, addressing inequities that can limit access to the outdoors. They are fundraising to support the families they serve who have been impacted by the fire.
Keep your loved ones close, get to know your neighbors, and put your plan on your fridge.