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Los Angeles, California – Bill Threadgill digs through the ashes of his home in Altadena, California, where he lived for 15 years, pulls out copper pipes and sets them aside to sell.
Only his chimney and two porch posts remained standing, but nothing else. A forest fire burned the entire structure to the ground.
Even before the flames engulfed the area, his family was struggling to make ends meet. “We were financially strapped,” Threadgill, a handyman and caregiver, said through his N95 mask.
On January 7, the Eaton Fire burned into the nearby mountains, forcing thousands of residents to evacuate. Fanned by hurricane-force winds, the fire damaged or destroyed more than 5700 structures and killed at least 16 people.
This was one of the series of flames that have ripped through the Los Angeles area over the past week and a half, fueled by climate change. All told, nearly 12,000 buildings were engulfed and 25 people killed.
The fires could become one of the costliest natural disasters in United States history, with experts estimating damages at $250 billion.
While million-dollar homes were destroyed in the affluent Pacific Palisades area, the working-class neighborhood of Altadena was also devastated.
Some of the victims were elderly or disabled and unable to escape. Threadgill himself lived with and cared for a 73-year-old friend whom he considered family. At the time of the fire, she was undergoing short-term rehabilitation. She has no home to return to.
As he walked through the debris, he searched for his calico cat, Catra. “I hope she got out because I left the back door open for her to get out,” he said.
He looked over to where his front door was. “I won't come in here like this again. Never again,” Threadgill said. “Uprooted unexpectedly. It's devastating.”
Home near the mountain
Nestled near the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, Altadena is a proud African American and immigrant community. Of its 42,000 residents, 58 percent are people of color.
The community began to take shape in the 1960s. Large numbers of black families left the US South and moved west, as part of a trend known as the Great Migration. Altadena was one of the few neighborhoods in the area where African-Americans could get home loans at the time.
Over the years, prominent black artists would settle in the community, including Academy Award-winning actor Sidney Poitier and famed science fiction writer Octavia Butler.
Butler, who is buried in nearby Mountain View Cemetery, wrote a novel called The Parable of the Sower, set in Los Angeles amid raging wildfires — something locals and fans of the book have drawn parallels to during the the current crisis.
Today, 18 percent of Altadena's residents are black, a significantly higher percentage than in neighboring Pasadena.
On January 7, the neighborhood was under a red flag warning, signaling conditions were ideal for fires.
The weather was warm. The vegetation was unusually dry for the season. And the Santa Ana winds were blowing hard.
That day, when Ethan's fire blazed in the mountains, Threadgill felt at peace. “I was 100 percent (sure) the fire on the hills wasn't going to come down here,” he said.
Then the wind picked up and blew the flames toward his home. As he gathered bags of belongings and loaded them into his truck, he could feel the heat of the flames.
“As I was walking down the street, there were embers under my feet, so I really had to run at that point. And the rest is history. Fire up,” he said.
Down the street from Threadgill, Elisa Gonzalez and her husband came home from vacation Jan. 7 to a cloud of smoke over the city. They began to unpack, but when the wind picked up, they packed again and evacuated.
When they returned the next day, they saw that the house next door had burned down. A heat still smouldered in the neighborhood.
But Gonzalez noticed several community members were in her backyard spraying her house with water. She credits them with saving her home.
“It was amazing. I couldn't believe that people in the neighborhood were just doing what they could to save the structures that were left,” she said.
Threadgill was one of the people who hosed down houses on their street after losing their own home. “I was doing everything I could to help,” he said.
While it's still unclear what started the Eaton fire, some residents who lost their homes are suing Southern California Edison, claiming the utility's electrical equipment caused the fire.
They also claim it was negligent to release electricity through the utility's power lines during a red flag warning.
“It really upsets me to know that this could have been negligence on their part,” Gonzalez said. “It really upsets me to think that it could have been prevented.”
Restoring the future
Despite the devastation, Gonzalez stressed his gratitude to his neighbors.
“The community was amazing. The community saved our house,” Gonzalez said.
As she spoke, two women wearing N95 masks pulled up in a car and offered her food. They explained that they lived in the neighborhood and wanted to help.
“It's been like this all week,” Gonzalez explained as he ate soup, sandwiches and pasta.
Mutual aid efforts emerged in Altadena. At a nearby community employment center in Pasadena, day laborers put out a call for supplies Wednesday after the fires began.
Hundreds of volunteers showed up to hand out donations to wildfire victims and clean up the debris.
On Sunday, Dongdao Riccardi, a chef at a popular Thai restaurant in Altadena, went to the labor office to stock up on takeout. Her restaurant is in an evacuation zone and remains closed to the public.
Riccardi said he did not know how long the restaurant would remain closed. “I'm so sorry for everyone.”
Her husband has had two recent surgeries – open heart surgery followed by eye surgery – and is currently unable to work. Until the fires, she was their only means of subsistence. Now her salary is gone.
Riccardi moved from Thailand to the US in 1993. The following year, she experienced the Northridge earthquake that struck Los Angeles. Although the experience was scary, she said the fires shook her even more.
“It's hard for me to sleep because it really hit me. I've never seen anything like it. The fire really shocked me a lot,” she said.
Ricciardi is eligible for unemployment benefits and plans to apply for them this week. “I hope we can reopen,” she said of the restaurant.
Her boss, she added, “will try to reopen, but no one can go there. It will take time.”
As for Threadgill, he wants to rebuild his home on the same spot. “We would definitely do that, we definitely want to rebuild.” His daughter started online fundraising to help him.
“I don't want to leave here. Altadena is wonderful, he said.
