Ask any resident or small business owner in Altadena, California, which has been ravaged by the massive Eaton Fire in the last week, about what makes Altadena special, and they’ll tell you story after story of one of the most compassionate and supportive communities in Los Angeles County.
“It's home of the old-school American Dream, in a non-political way,” Mark Douglas, a television post-producer who, along with his partner, Kara Vallow, lost their home in Altadena on Tuesday night last week. “We moved here because there is a spirit here that feels unlike anywhere else in LA. You know your neighbors who have been in their homes for 45 years. They welcome you with open arms when you move here. The people in Altadena have a neighborly kind of vibe.“ Douglas continued. “It has this old-time feeling.”
Douglas and Vallow bought their home in Altadena in 2019 after renting in the area for years. Both have been long-time Angelenos, though both came from out of state. They moved around the city from Echo Park to Eagle Rock before finally settling in Altadena, where they could afford a home with enough space for their 24-year-old horse.
Their equine (and animal) family grew to include a pony and a mini pony, a dog and a cat, all of which were successfully evacuated at 10 pm on Tuesday night as the Eaton fire blazed, driven by unseasonably high 100-mile-per-hour Santa Ana winds. Douglas and Vallow haven’t been able to get back to see the damage to their home, but a neighbor sent a video of their property showing that only the chimney remains.
To say that the LA fires have been devastating is an understatement. Current estimates put damages around $50 billion, making it the costliest climate disaster in the United States. The National Guard and emergency crews remain stationed in Altadena as the Eaton Fire is only 33% contained (at the time of writing), and the winds are expected to spike again this week, continuing to spur wildfire on its destructive path. Most residents and business owners haven’t been able to lay eyes on their homes or their stores, and they face an uncertain future as the fire continues to rage.
A diverse city full of long-time entrepreneurs
There have been hundreds of headlines and stories about the losses and damage in the Palisades fire, which has burned roughly 24,000 acres of land and displaced thousands of residents, Hollywood celebrities, and CEOs from the area.
The Eaton Fire, inland of the more well-known and much wealthier Palisades area, has consumed nearly 15,000 acres and most of Altadena, an unincorporated middle-class city, north of Pasadena with more than 42,000 residents that called it home.
Much of the city of Altadena has been burnt to the ground, and residents and business owners are not able to return to their properties as the fire continues to move and grow, thanks to the Santa Ana winds ravaging the area.
Altadena is special because of its unincorporated status and history. The city is set in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains, and it has served as a place for families seeking to escape early racial barriers prevalent in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s.
It's a vital heart of a historic black community, and one of the first places with land that was returned to Los Agneles’s Indigenous peoples, the Tongva Tribe. The city’s diversity has long been one of its draws for everyone, from entrepreneurs to creatives.
“I grew up in the area, and it’s always been a rich culture for black and white people to live and work as one,” Emeka Chukwurah, the co-owner of the cultural center and boutique Rhythms of the Village. Chukwurah and his father, Onochie Chukwurah, the founder and co-owner of the business, taught African history at Rhythms of the Village, sold African goods, and offered events, concerts, food, and more to the community before the Eaton Fire destroyed their shop last week.
They rented the space from the owner and are currently trying to navigate insurance and FEMA, while continuing to run the business out of the senior Chukwurah’s home in Pasadena. The Chukwurahs had been in the brick-and-mortar location in Altadena for 13 years and have run their Altadena performing arts company for 30+ years.
“I pray that we can rebuild,” Emeka Chukwurah said in an interview, noting that the business was the “heartbeat” of Altadena, with regular drum circles and concerts that brought people in from the surrounding communities.
“I pray that all the people who lost their homes can get what they need to rebuild the legacy that their great-grandparents left to them. I really pray they don’t lose that generational wealth and are able to have a leg up in a time when it is so difficult and so competitive to get a home and make a living after the fire.”
Chukwurah doesn’t currently know the state of his own home in the historically significant black community known as the Meadows. He, his partner, and their two-year-old son had to evacuate when the fire blew west from Eaton Canyon on Tuesday night, and because of the National Guard's presence and the ongoing fire, they haven’t been able to go back.
Barbara Shay, the owner of the Little Red Hen Coffee Shop echoes Chukwurah’s sentiments. Shay is the owner and chef at the popular coffee shop that served breakfast and lunch and boasted famous visitors like President Obama and Richard Pryor. Shay says she had just finished remodeling the restaurant in the leased space that her family business has occupied for the last 55 years.
“My mom didn’t know she was going to be in business at the Little Red Hen,” Shay said. “Everything was made from scratch,” she said, noting that the name represented her mother’s trailblazer attitude: “If there’s a will there’s a way.” Though Shay doesn’t know the current status of her own home in Altadena, she said she is hopeful that with the help of the community, she’ll be able to come back from the fires. “ Everything is gone, but we love the community, and the community loved us, so we’re going to be back, God willing.”
Resilient, creative, community solutions for Altadena
Rob Orlandini is the co-owner of Altadena Hardware, one of the many beloved businesses that fell victim to the flames on Tuesday.
The hardware store has been in operation in Altadena for more than 100 years, and Rob runs the business with his brother, Jimmy. Their father purchased the business, which is part of the True Value network of hardware stores, in 2010, and they’ve long employed local, young people in the store to help support the needs of Altadena residents.
“There are so many unknowns right now,” Orlandini said. “My staff is calling me and asking, “What can I do to help? How can we get back up and running?” and I just don’t have those answers right now.” One of the things that Orlandini is looking into, however, is finding a place where True Value can drop a trailer of hardware goods so that Altadena Hardware can start to get residents what they need to begin to recover. He also says he's looking for a location to rent, even temporarily, to get back up and running.
Kevin Hockin, the owner of the New York Times famous Side Pie pizza restaurant in Altadena, which started as a backyard Covid pop-up and gained massive popularity in the area, lost both his house and his business in the fire. He and his wife, Rosanna Kvernmo, were taking their seven-year-old daughter to Disneyland for her birthday when the fires came down from Eaton Canyon on Tuesday and hit their home and the restaurant.
While he had fire insurance on his home, Hockin says that his insurer dropped his business’s fire coverage in May, after Liberty Mutual pulled out of California last year, and he hadn’t found an affordable option before the fires came this week. In spite of it all, Hockin says he remains hopeful for rebuilding and bringing the community back.
While the fires still burn, and it's unclear when any resident or business owner will be able to return to assess the damage that Altadena has experienced, one thing is clear: The people of this quiet enclave are a resilient, community-minded group dedicated to keeping the character of the diverse, creative city alive in the face of inconceivable devastation.
“No one is stuck in Altadena,” Hockin said. “It’s a place that people gravitate to because of what it offers in a community. It has nature, it has a lot of culture,” he continued. “I hope everyone can literally rise from the ashes and get everything back to a better state than before. I am confident that with the power of this community, we will get back to some sort of normalcy. It might take five years, it might take eight, or ten, but Altadena has a soul and that soul is special. It’s filled with creative, kind, artistic, talented humans. We can recover, and it will take a lot of grit and energy and time, but it's all worth it. There’s no where in LA that I would rather be.”
