Drive up Lake Avenue from Pasadena, the city of roses, into the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains, and it grows eerie. The stink of smoke clings to the smoggy air months after the embers of the massive Eaton fire fizzled out. It creeps into clothes and into your hair and grows more pungent as you approach the community of Altadena.
“It defies imagination,” says Michele Judd, ’87, who is driving her white Subaru through what’s left of her hometown of 21 years. The landscape is covered in mostly empty lots, with the occasional chimney still standing as a marker for a home that, like Judd’s, has burned to the ground.
The Eaton fire struck one year ago, on January 7, the same day as the catastrophic Palisades fire consumed the coastal community of Pacific Palisades 35 miles west. Fed by fierce Santa Ana winds, it ripped through the drought-stricken Eaton canyon, its namesake. Judd points through the car window to the canyon’s entrance with the “temporarily closed” sign still posted on it. Altadena is a special place, she says, a forested oasis perched above the hustle of the L.A. basin where neighbors leave homegrown lemons on doorsteps. The fire stole more than buildings and possessions, she says. It destroyed a way of life.
“It’s going to take us about 10 years to rebuild here,” says Judd. “I’ll be 70 by then. I’m hoping Chelsea and I will still be thinking about our next neighborhood get-together.” Chelsea Cartwright is one of Judd’s dog-walking buddies, who also lost her home in the fire. A few days later, Judd and Cartwright, both suddenly displaced and in shock, did what came naturally: Plan a gathering.
The idea was simple: to provide a space to keep Altadenans together, even if just for a few hours each month. Everyone was scattering: west to Simi Valley, east to Monrovia, south to Highland Park. Judd texted out invitations to every neighbor whose contact info was in her phone: former colleagues from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, book clubbers, fellow dog walkers. “We just said, look, here’s what we’re going to do,’” Judd says. “It’s not about trying to get you to join a lawsuit. It’s not an information dissemination committee. All we want is to not lose our community by making sure we stay in touch.”
‘Sometimes it’s like, should we leave? Then we go to the neighborhood meetings, and no, we know we want to stay here with our people.’
Nine days after the fire, the Order of the Phoenix—a reference to both the mythical bird rising from the ashes and the fifth book in the Harry Potter series—held its first meeting at a pizzeria in Pasadena. “It’s OK to be a hot mess,” Judd told them. The group of about 25 laughed. Then they started to make plans. As the group has grown to about 200, they remain committed to one bedrock goal: Being present at the groundbreaking on each member’s rebuilt home.
“Michele’s vision has been simple yet profound: create a place where we can relax, share a meal, and enjoy conversation without the constant weight of rebuilding plans and looming deadlines,” says a member of the Order named Shami, who has lived in Altadena for more than 50 years. “It’s been such an emotional roller coaster, the endless details of rebuilding. Sometimes it’s like, should we leave? Then we go to the neighborhood meetings, and no, we know we want to stay here with our people.”
The ashes
One of the most destructive urban wildfires in California history, the Eaton fire killed 19 people and destroyed 9,413 buildings. It flattened neighborhoods, burned schools, destroyed landmarks like the 90-year-old hardware store where Judd and her 87-year-old father liked to hang out. It ruined a bunny memorabilia museum, a country club, a pizza parlor, churches, a mosque. It scattered the residents of Altadena, an unincorporated town of 43,000 known for its blend of artists and scientists and its strong tradition of Black homeownership.
The speed of it was the thing, says Judd, as she cruises through Altadena’s tiny downtown. People move to Altadena for the view of the mountains and the hiking trails, the thick foliage and the owls hooting at night, she says. Each of the homes is unique, as are the people, she says, pointing to what used to be a bungalow, then a colonial-style mansion. After more than two decades here, it’s the neighbors she’s staying for. Her dog-walking group who showed up after her knee surgery to walk Xena, Warrior Princess. The neighbors who brought her food and puzzles and took out the trash while she was going through chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer.
Judd first heard about the start of the fire while out to dinner. She rushed home to wake her parents, who were asleep in the casita she had built for them in the back of her 1,500-square-foot home. Judd decided they should drive to her sister’s house in Simi Valley, just to be cautious. Early the next morning, the frantic texts started pinging in from neighbors—stories of driving through flying embers to escape with their lives.
“We were pretty sure our house was gone by then,” Judd says. “But my dad was like, ‘I have to go see.’”
“I was still hoping,” says her dad, Paul, at a meeting of the Order of the Phoenix, where he’s sitting next to his former neighbors. Judd’s parents remain at her sister’s house, while she is an hour away from them in a Pasadena rental. “God, the look on my dad’s face when he saw the burned house—just utter devastation,” she says. “He’s a master carpenter, and he built a lot of the house, and his heart just broke.”
The bonding
“There is something wonderful about being able to break bread together,” says Judd, speaking at the August meeting of the Order. As the Altadenans dig into potluck casseroles, salads, and brownies, she and Cartwright start the rallying cries.
“We are people who lost our homes, not our hope,” Cartwright says. “This is one place we can air our grievances and not freak our other friends out.”
“We are strong,” Judd says. “What kind of strong?” The group joins in: “Altadena strong.” Members of the group are milling about, dropping off potluck dishes, hugging old neighbors, laughing. In one corner of the large space are piles of quilts free to members, which a father and daughter are searching through.
“Our home didn’t burn down, but it was contaminated with lead,” he says. His daughter stands quietly next to him, hugging her quilt. “We can’t live there. We’ve had to move six times.” A woman next to him looks up from the quilts, ready to commiserate. “Our house was water-bombed by helicopters,” she says. And the two start talking about the problems of toxins on the land, and the high cost of repairs that insurance companies are refusing to pay for.
HELPING HANDS: Judd, center, and other members of the Order are buoyed by community gestures such as homemade quilts. (Photo: Tracie White)
“There’s a term we talk about called social cohesion in the disaster world—the more that people know each other and get together the better,” says Luke Beckman, ’09, the Red Cross disaster director for California. “The more you have neighbors talking to neighbors and neighbors helping neighbors—it’s one of the necessary conditions to recovery and neighborhood resilience. Large organizations can never fill all of the void, and at the end of the day, the true first responder is the person you see when you walk out your door. The person who you go to to borrow a cup of sugar.”
As the Order has expanded, its monthly meeting has moved from the pizza parlor in Pasadena to the auditorium at La Cañada Presbyterian Church. “We are so close to Altadena,” says associate pastor Cindy Frost, ’85, who knows Judd from a book club. The members of the congregation, some of whom had been evacuated themselves, wanted to help.
“We believe in community,” Frost says. “This is all about community. I know Michele is going through the wringer, and yet she’s giving to others. Michele works like crazy to pull this off.”
The rising
The fire stole so much, sometimes it takes time to realize just how much. Sometimes it hits in the middle of the night when you suddenly remember the loss of your father’s journals, Cartwright says, or maybe just wandering the aisles of Target, the realization that you needed to buy nearly everything. The fire destroyed both the cherished and the mundane—a favorite mug, a toothbrush, and the blooming plumeria trees that brought Judd’s mother so much joy.
“You can’t fathom that much loss,” says Cartwright. “I literally just threw a couple of things in an overnight bag. At the last minute, we grabbed our wedding rings. The next day, all you’re doing is doomscrolling on your phone—the hardware shop gone, the pizza shop is gone. Your brain can’t piece together the amount of loss. It would be different if it was just your own loss. But we were having this massive loss together.”
Not everyone is rebuilding, Judd says. She understands this. The costs can be exorbitant. Time is a factor; there’s pressure to finish construction before the rent allocations from insurance run out—usually within two to three years. Building from the ground up is a massive job. The endless planning and replanning, the insurance forms, the phone calls and meetings with the architects and the builders. Each step forward gets met with new permit problems, or concerns about toxins in the ground. Then there are the scammers calling to offer help, Judd says, who need to be weeded out from those calling who really can help. Judd recently retired from her position as executive director for the Keck Institute for Space Studies at Caltech. Rebuilding is now her full-time job. For many working folks, it’s a second one, she says.
‘When they cleared the lot, it was one of the last times I cried for my house.’
In the spring, the Army Corps of Engineers brought in excavators to remove the ruins left behind by the fire. They carted off the tons and tons of debris, all those crumbling walls and piles of hazardous materials, leaving behind empty lots.
“When they cleared the lot, it was one of the last times I cried for my house,” says Whitney Haggins, ’87, a classmate of Judd’s who lost her home of 13 years. “Now it’s an opportunity to envision something new, safer and fire-resistant, and still maintain that beautiful view of the foothills and the sense of neighborhood. I’m moving forward. I’m going with a craftsman bungalow. It’s just adorable.”
Haggins participates regularly in the Order of the Phoenix. “No matter all the anger, the grief, how crazy my schedule is, I make a point to get to the meetings just to talk to people,” she says. In July, the group celebrated its first groundbreaking, and about 30 members were on hand to help celebrate. Haggins can’t wait for her own celebration.
Cartwright and Judd visit their empty lots regularly, watering the plants that survived the fire. Envisioning their new architectural plans coming to life. Visiting old neighbors whose homes are still habitable and new friends from the Order who are getting ready to break ground. Both plan to continue organizing the monthly meetings as long as it takes to rebuild—and after.
“We are all on this strange journey we never thought we would be on,” Cartwright says. “It’s the club you never want to be a part of, where we all lean on each other for support. I’ve met so many people I didn’t know before the fire. I’m so excited for when we are all back, doing our monthly gatherings on our new patios in our new backyards.”
Tracie White is a senior writer at Stanford. Email her at traciew@stanford.edu.
