By Shanti Hubbard-Bennett, age 14
On Jan. 7 at 6:18 p.m., the Eaton Fire in Altadena, Calif., ignited. Debra Quartman, my great-aunt who is an Altadena resident, said it was very windy that day. She and my great-uncle kept getting notifications that their power was going to go out at some point in an effort to avoid power-related fires. Debra’s neighbor called and said there was a fire in her neighborhood, so she went out into her backyard and saw the fire was east of her.
Later that night, the power went out across the street. Debra still had power, so her neighbor came over to charge her phone. At 9 p.m., my great-aunt and great-uncle lost power, too. They had already put some essentials in their car, so by the time the power went out, they decided to evacuate to a family member’s house. The next day, a neighbor called and said that their house was gone, and so was Debra’s. It was a really sad day.
Fueled by the strongest wind storm Los Angeles has seen since 1950, the Eaton Fire destroyed and damaged over 10,000 structures and killed at least 18 people. The fire, which lasted 24 days, was one of the 10 different fires happening all across L.A. in January, sparked by climate change.
The toll of the Eaton Fire on Altadena, a historically Black neighborhood since the 1960s, has been massive. Most of the houses lost have been in the same family for many generations and would probably stay in the same family for many more generations to come, but the fire has destroyed that prospect. People who were affected by the fire lost everything, as did the community. Two charter schools were lost, and along with both of those schools, the principals lost their homes, as well. People also lost their businesses, like restaurants and stores.
“Right now my neighborhood looks like a war zone, like someone just dropped a bomb in my neighborhood and it blew everything up, house after house gone,” said my great-aunt a few weeks after the fire. “There are probably four houses up my street that are still intact, but the rest are completely gone.”
In the 1960s, Altadena was one of the only places that was racially acceptable for African Americans, as they faced discrimination elsewhere, according to the Guardian. “We tried to get property in Pasadena, but, of course, they redlined everyone to Altadena, so that’s how we landed there,” Trevor Howard Kelley, an Altadena resident whose family has lived there for 57 years, told the L.A. Times. “They could come here and get their businesses without having to go through a lot of red tape that they were experiencing in other states.”
Now that all has been lost, will Altadena be able to come back as a Black neighborhood, or will everything be different?
My great-aunt and great-uncle Debra and Chandler Quartman lost their home and everything in it. Their house was the home base to their nieces and great-nieces. It was the home they shared, and it afforded their great-nieces a chance to go to school in an incredible school district. One of my dad’s favorite memories in that house was my cousin’s graduation. My great-aunt and great-uncle rented a taco truck and had it in their backyard for the party. Everyone had so much fun.
My great-aunt’s house was so beautiful and magical, especially when I was a little kid. The inside of the house was very pretty, but the backyard was my dad’s favorite part. It was kind of like an open backyard, and it led into the forest behind their house. But the house itself wasn’t the only magical part, it was also the memories and the people there. All of grandpa’s parents’ memories were in that house after they died. Now all of that is gone.
The Eaton Fire has affected many families beyond my own. These families are left asking: What is going to happen to Altadena? Is Altadena going to come back as strong? Is Altadena going to continue to be a Black neighborhood? Are the people who lived there going to rebuild their houses, or are they going to move somewhere else? These are questions that everyone is asking themselves, and the answer is no one knows. Residents of Altadena are worried that it won’t go back to being the Black neighborhood it once was.
Right now it’s too soon to know where people are going to move. What I’ve heard is that people are staying at family members’ houses. I have also heard that people are going to move to places like Orange County.
Being a child at this time is heartbreaking. We went back to school a few days after the fires, and everyone was trying to make things normal again, but it was anything but normal. Three students at my school lost their houses, and two teachers lost their houses, so it couldn’t go back to normal. No one knows what they can say and how they should act.
Altadena has a long way to go and a long way to rebuild, but I believe and I hope that Altadena can go back to what it truly was. Altadena was a very meaningful place to so many people for so long, and this fire has ruined the community for now. Everyone hopes it can go back to what it was: a community and a safe place for a lot of Black families. And we all continue to ask ourselves these questions, wondering what will happen next.
