- In Altadena, the Eaton fire destroyed more than 1,000 structures and killed at least five people.
- The fire has upended a cherished way of life in the eclectic community, where residents are drawn to its solitude and sense of community.
- As Altadenans reel from the devastation, many wonder whether their rebuilt town will retain its soul.
For some, Altadena’s draw has been the seclusion it offers, nestled in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, straddling the line between urban and wild. For others, it’s been the community where Black residents sought refuge decades ago amid the legacy of defunct racial redlining. And then there has always been Altadena’s sense of freedom and creativity that gave rise to an artists’ enclave and The Bunny Museum.
Whatever drew them, this unincorporated town north of Pasadena represented an alluring, magical combination of solitude and community for more than 42,000 residents, many whose families had lived there for generations in an eclectic mix of homes — from streets lined with small bungalow homes and neighborhoods of sprawling Spanish style and Colonial mansions amid graceful oaks.
Here, affordable home prices made ownership a reality. Neighbors checked in if they noticed a light on late. Full-moon parties were anticipated celebrations. Dozens jogged together on Tuesdays and Thursdays as part of a running group formed during the pandemic. In winter, residents visited Christmas Tree Lane, marveling at the lighted, drooping branches of the deodar cedar trees. The town council balanced progress with ensuring that gentrification wouldn’t force out long-time Altadenans.
But on Tuesday, the Eaton fire cut a brutal swath through the town, burning more than 1,000 structures and killing at least five residents. A cherished way of life is upended and residents are reeling in sadness. Old Altadena is gone and residents are left wondering: Can the remade town retain its soul?
In some parts of Altadena, entire blocks were razed. In others, scattered homes had burned while others were spared, leaving residents to reckon with whether they’d rebuild. In a cul-de-sac along Alta Crest Drive, where more than a dozen homes burned, neighbors wept together in the street. If no one else planned to rebuild, one neighbor later said, he and his wife might cut their losses and leave.
The rustic country club, known for its annual fireworks show, was decimated after more than 100 years. Buildings at the nearby public golf course were also gone.
The “Greetings from Altadena” mural on North Lake Ave. remained untouched, while so many essentials surrounding it went up in flames. The hardware store and the burger joint; the historic coffee shop; churches, schools and grocery stores. All lost.
Carrie Meyers, owner of Steve’s Pets store — a beloved institution — lost her home first. Then the fire ravaged her shop, killing the animals inside, including three cats, 25 parakeets and 37-year-old Pesto, her yellow-naped Amazon parrot.
Meyers is one of many who live and work in the area. In an instant, their livelihoods were taken. About 25% of the Altadena Town Council lost homes in the fire.
“I just don’t understand how an entire town can be reduced to rubble,” Victoria Knapp, council chair, said from a Pomona hotel room that has since become home. “Altadena is never going to look the same. Even when we rebuild, it’ll never be what it was.”
Searching for miracles
Residents walked among the bones of their town Thursday, taking stock of losses. Power lines dangled and small fires licked the remains of buildings. Ash-white cars had collapsed on melted tires. Several schools had been reduced to rubble.
The Pasadena Waldorf School on Mariposa Street — where Aloe Blacc sang at the recent Elves’ Faire — was unrecognizable. The steps to the quaint K-8 campus were left standing, along with the sign on the wrought iron gate.
Erin Semin-Walsh, a school administrator, said several families and at least 15 staffers lost their homes. Semin-Walsh, who lives a block from the school, was among them.
Waldorf staff had received alerts about what was happening to the school from families who live in the area. While strategizing about the school’s fate, Semin-Walsh had to evacuate from her house.
“So much was burning that there was no bandwidth, no time, no help for the things as they were going,” she said. “That’s one of the overwhelming feelings of helplessness.”
Residents looked for miracles where they could find them in the fire’s aftermath as they walked up and down Santa Rosa Avenue, known as Christmas Tree Lane, which attracts thousand of visitors every holiday season. The street largely survived, along with plastic, colorful Christmas lights still hanging on the massive deodars. Branches had fallen and a few houses on the main stretch had burned. But the trees stood firm.
“I imagined these trees would be totally burned down,” said Haris Elamin, who has lived near the lane since 1975. Like others, he’d been drawn by Altadena’s charm and “laissez faire” lifestyle.
“It was a place you could come to and people wouldn’t bother you,” he said.
Traci Kyle’s home, where she’s lived since the 1990s, was one of a few left standing on her block of Marengo Avenue. She and her neighbor, whose home was also saved, strolled past the remains of shops they had frequented, shocked by the destruction.
Kyle was sure that her 101-year-old Craftsman home would be destroyed when she evacuated. She was devastated to see so many neighbors’ houses gone — and in many cases, broke the news to them.
“It’s a strange feeling,” the 58-year-old said through tears. “We’re grateful because we got lucky, but at the same time, we’re grieving because of so much loss.”
Gone was the California bungalow on Lewis Avenue dating back to the early 1900s, where the Halpin family had lived for 35 years. Jackie Halpin, a teacher, said she and her husband, the owner of a construction company serving the Greater San Gabriel Valley area, moved to the region when she was pregnant with their fourth child. Struck by the small-town feel and an area that was more racially diverse than their hometown of South Pasadena, the family planted roots and raised six kids.
They walked through the remains Wednesday and took solace in what they could find among the wreckage — a cowbell, a Franciscan Apple china teacup and a Virgin Mary statue.
The Catholic family gathered near the statue where their home once stood to pray and sing.
“Our patron saints and guardian angels, pray for us,” they intoned together. “And for everybody in the Altadena community.”
‘Feral in best possible way’
The “Greetings from Altadena” mural — near a gutted Aldi supermarket — encapsulates some of what the town represented.
Within the letter “D” is a portrait of Charles White, a local artist who conveyed Black history in his work; a local park is named after him.
In the “E” is Octavia E. Butler, a science fiction author buried at an Altadena cemetery that caught fire.
Inside one “A,” an image of the Mount Lowe Railway shows the town’s rich history. And in another “A” and “T” are photos of Christmas Tree Lane.
The letter “N” stands for a land of beauty and wildlife, depicted by a hiker on the Sam Merrill Trail, the downtown Los Angeles skyline in the distance. A black bear is painted beside the mural.
Knapp, a native Pasadenan who moved to Altadena in 2011, described the town as quirky, irreverent and “maybe a little feral in the best possible way.” There are few curbs and sidewalks. People on horseback trot through residential streets and the McDonald’s drive-through.
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1. Picture frames atop the family’s mantel at the home of William Harris, 63, which burned in the Eaton Fire in Altadena. 2. A burned vehicle from the Eaton fire in Altadena.
This is the home of Zorthian Ranch, which dates back to 1946 and was known for its parties and guest list of artists, celebrities and scientists. Andy Warhol, Charlie Parker, Ray Bradbury and physicist Richard Feynman are among those who visited the ranch, much of which burned.
Unlike Pasadena, Altadena has no police or fire department; residents rely on county resources. Among the varied architecture: Craftsman, English Tudor, colonial, ranch style and midcentury homes — old mansions and bungalows alike.
But changes have come too. Lincoln Boulevard has in recent years seen new storefronts, including a Stumptown coffee shop and HomeState restaurant.
Before the Eaton fire, Altadena and north Pasadena had seen a new generation start new restaurants and food shops and revive old ones. Many of those small businesses were destroyed in the flames. But not everything is gone. There is hope for rebuilding not just structures but a community.
“There are very proud legacy generational families in Altadena that have passed their homes down from family member to family member that have very strong opinions about Altadena never changing versus a number of new families who have moved up into the area because it is quote-unquote more affordable than Pasadena in some places,” Knapp said. “We have to allow for some progress but we cannot force out legacy Altadenans.”
‘A mountain wave’
Residents here are no strangers to wildfire. They’ve lived through the Bobcat and Station fires. In 1993, George H. Ruth and his wife Lynnora fled the Kinneloa fire, which moved through Eaton Canyon, fueled by Santa Ana winds — that time, their home escaped damage.
But this week, weather conditions offered a precise recipe for a disastrous fire triangle, said John Dumas, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Oxnard. A wildfire needs fuel, oxygen and heat to thrive.
On Tuesday, the topography around Eaton Canyon was dry, with the last significant rainfall recorded in May. Winds were blowing up to 70 mph, limiting air attacks and spreading the fire rapidly across Altadena, with embers flying two to three miles down stream.
“The wind conditions were just, from a weather point of view, perfect. There was really high wind at the top of the nearby mountains,” he said. That creates a mountain wave, he said, where winds speed down the side of a mountain.
Soon after dusk, a neighbor pounded on Betsy Kahn’s door on Alpine Villa Drive, flames visible on the mountain behind him.
Alan Zorthian, who, along with his sister, took over the ranch after their father’s death, said they had firefighting equipment, hoses and standpipes to draw water. But unlike the 1993 fire, which took days to reach them, this one arrived within hours. And their standpipes ran dry.
He and a few others stayed as long as they could but ultimately had to evacuate.
“The most horrible thing is, we lost a lot of my father’s artwork,” he said.
The fires continued into the next day, as residents tried desperately to save their homes.
The home of Knapp, the town council chair, was one of three still standing on her cul-de-sac on Wednesday. As she gathered with her neighbors along the street, they hugged and cried. Although there was survivor’s guilt, Knapp said, “there was no sense from my other neighbors that anyone was undeserving of having their house standing.”
Instead, she said, it seemed as though there was comfort in the idea that there would be a reason to rebuild.
Knapp’s home burned down later that night. So too did the Ruth family home.
For Kahn, an eight-year resident, Altadena was a town “right on the liminal line between every urban treasure you could hope to have access to, and absolute wilderness.” Kahn’s 100-year-old home, formerly the lodge of a health resort, burned down.
“Our mountains are supposed to burn, they’ve always burned. And we choose to live there,” the 67-year-old said. “This is the price we pay. But it’s such an alluring possibility — or it was while it lasted. To be able to have your foot in both of those places at the same time.”
‘Heartbeat goes on’
The difficult process of determining next steps will likely come after evacuation orders are lifted. By Friday afternoon, the Eaton fire was still only 3% contained.
The National Guard arrived Thursday night, stationed at barricades to block people from entering neighborhoods. Cadaver dogs were being deployed to search the more than 17,000 properties in the town, Knapp said.
The business owners Knapp has spoken to have all said they would rebuild. Less clear is what residents will do.
Already, Knapp said, residents are fearful that if some leave it “would open the property up for a fire sale — no pun intended — to a developer who might have contrary opinions for what goes in there.”
Jervey Tervalon, an author, is among those afraid of an acceleration of gentrification. The 66-year-old moved to Altadena 20 years earlier, drawn by the Black community.
“There’s some fear the racial diversity of Altadena might just disappear,” said Tervalon, whose home burned down.
“I have no idea with this fire — if people don’t have steady income, a good security net, how they can get back to the community,” his wife, Jinghuan Liu Tervalon, added.
For now, residents are trying to focus on the bright spots. That many are safe. That the libraries, a necessary resource in times like this, are still standing. On one street, those whose houses survived posted love letters on the trees for their neighbors who lost their homes. In bright red paint, a message on a poster board shone: “We love you, Beautiful Altadena.”
“The residents of Altadena and the businesses of Altadena are the heartbeat,” Knapp said. “To that end, we will recover. We’re not dead, we are not dying. We feel that way for sure. But the heartbeat goes on. I truly do feel that way.”
“It’s too important to too many people to not come back.”
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