The Story of How Our House Survived the Eaton Fire

It has been about two weeks since the Eaton Fire destroyed our town, Altadena.  On the night of January 7th, we were having dinner under a string of solar powered camping lights, which Wes had hung across our dining room in our dark home.  The wind was beating relentlessly against the windowpanes of our old house, little rocks and branches pelted against the glass and the loud sound of every gust sent shivers down my spine.  I tried to play it cool for Zoe.  I showed her how we could shine a flashlight over Magnatile towers to cast colored shadows on the floor, we played hide and seek in the dark, we ate Chinese take-out and cracked opened fortune cookies.  I suggested that we play some board games after dinner, but Wes was on edge, distant, pensive, absorbed in his mental calculations of the immediate future.  This is not new for him--in fact, it's something that often bothers me: his lack of presence in the moment and his constant preoccupation with planning the next steps.  Sensing the all too familiar, yet ominous tension, I snapped at him.  We were approaching the situation from opposite angles, and that made an already uncomfortable situation even more unsettling.  We bickered for a little bit, but then agreed that I should just focus on entertaining Zoe so that he could think, as he was in no position to sit down for a game of Bingo at that moment.  It was clear that we were both worried about the way things were going.  Just as I was deciding to pack an overnight bag to take Zoe to my parents' house so that we could at least get some decent sleep, we found out about the wildfire that broke out in Eaton Canyon, only five miles away.  Wes said that he didn't think that it would blow in our direction.  Then, he took a cursory glance out the back door window and saw the mountains to the East, etched in a bright orange glow.  "Shit," he said. 

I immediately stopped talking to Zoe and went over to look.  I swear that I could see the tips of the flames, bright yellow, just peeking out.  That was it for me.  I packed our duffel bags hastily, throwing in our travel toiletries, clothes for the next morning, Zoe's stuffed fox, our water bottles, my laptop and chargers.  Still, we didn't mention the fire to Zoe.  It seemed too unreal--an outlandish risk that was not worth scaring her about.  Even I was in denial, though I was a hundred percent sure that I was not going to take the gamble and stick around for the night, even if Wes wanted to stay.  In the back of his head, Wes must have already been planning his defense strategy... gearing up for the biggest fight of his life.  We didn't even kiss each other good-bye as he loaded my trunk with our bags and helped buckle Zoe into her car seat, amid howling winds and trees furiously swaying in the dark.  A steady stream of cars was headed South, down Lincoln, away from the mountains, out of Altadena.  I was shocked to see this... it felt a little bit apocalyptic.  The horizon still glowed orange to the East.  I just wanted to be out of there.  I told Wes fervently, that if there was any doubt in his mind, he should get out.  I told him that he has to stay awake so that he would find out if there ends up being an evacuation order for our area.  I told him not to get invested if it came down to him versus the fire... that his life is much more important than our things.  We agreed that he only had to move three things into his car if he thought that the fire was going to make it to us: our important documents folder, our external hard drive with photos from our entire relationship saved to it, and Zoe's memory box.  I hadn't even thought of our wedding rings or any of the jewelry passed down to me over the years.

Zoe cried in the back seat, knowing that this was not a normal good-bye.  She continued to cry and wail as I pulled out of the driveway to join the throng of cars, resolute that we were going to be safe together in Irvine.  I explained to her that we just are going where it's safe, and Daddy will be safe, too.  I truly believed it in my gut--Wes is resourceful, knowledgeable, logical, even-keeled, and nimble.  But a little part of me was still very, very concerned.  Sometimes, accidents happen, and you can be unlucky.  Altadena may go up in flames, in the off-chance that the winds change directions and the fire blows down into the streets.  With gusts as high as 100 mph, anything can happen.  I hit the dark and busy road, devoid of street lights, filled with people in cars with their loved ones escaping to places all over Southern California.  Debris pattered against the frame of my car as I dodged branches in the middle of the road.  I rounded the bend and drove onto the freeway onramp, only to come in full view of the Eaton Fire, raging in the mountain.  I gasped, I was taken aback by the way it looked so close and so deadly.  I immediately told Zoe.  "Zoe, when I go around this bend, you will see that there is a fire in the mountain.  It will be outside your window, and it's orange and bright."  She had already stopped crying, and immediately piped up with her endless questions.  I solemnly told her that this fire is also the reason why we had to leave Altadena, because it's close.  She connected the dots very quickly.  She asked if it would burn our house.  

We had just gotten back from a trip to Sequoia National Park, where we saw burnt tree trunks and learned about how in nature, sometimes there are wildfires.  In the little museum, she had seen a short clip of a fire burning at the base of a tree, and that image must have been seared into her memory because she watched it non-stop, and had so many questions and concerns about fire that day.  We assured her many times that if there were to be a fire in Sequoia, we'd be aware and we'd leave.  We even showed her a picture of the General Sherman Tree wrapped in foil.  Now, a real, billowing fire was right here out the car window.  She got quiet when it came into view.  I knew that she was processing the surreal, again, just like how she was frozen in place when watching that video clip in Sequoia.  I quietly drove on.  Then, she commented on the moon looking orange, the zig-zag pattern that the fire was etching into the side of the mountain looking sort of like the letter F, the smell of the smoke in the car.  I responded as calmly as I could, keeping it factual, assuring her that we are all safe.  Slowly, the fire shrank into the distance as we continued our drive South.  When she could not see it anymore, Zoe said that she did not want to see it again, and that it looked scary.  We diverted our attention to the Wicked soundtrack, which filled the air and our minds with music for the rest of the long drive.  I thought about texting Wes about the fire, but didn't--of course, he must already know.

Once in Irvine, Zoe took a long time to fall asleep in a makeshift sleeping situation in one of my parents' bedrooms while I responded to a slew of text messages from friends who were concerned for us.  I calmly assured everybody that Zoe and I had indeed left the area, while Wes hung back to keep an eye on the situation.  I texted Wes, asking him to please keep me posted through the night by texting me every hour if he could.  Then, I fell asleep next to Zoe.  I woke up at 7:00 AM to these text messages from Wes:

1:33 AM - All is good still

1:47 AM - Looks like Echo Mountain might be on fire now

1:50 AM - Picture from the dining room window:

2:00 AM - They haven't changed any evac orders westbound yet so even Farnsworth is still not even at a warning but I feel like it should be

2:23 AM - Picture from the back yard:

3:20 AM - Getting more smoky here now. Ventured to the garage and got the P100 respirators.  Air purifiers in our house working on full blast but their sensors are still reporting good air quality so it might just be me smelling my clothes.

4:01 AM - Got evac orders but I think it's because of the smoke. No embers. My car is packed and parked at the end of the driveway ready to go.

4:02 AM - Got air purifiers running on max inside and also wearing a P100 indoors as well. Purifiers are still showing blue.

4:36 AM - Picture from next to the garage:

5:14 AM - I evacuated.

5:15 AM - On my way to south pas super chargers

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I could not believe it--he evacuated.  It must have been bad... it must be bad.  I texted him: "How are you?"

His response (7:15 AM) - Sigh.  There is a whole story.

And we FaceTimed right then and there.  When we connected, I was just relieved to see that he was sitting in his car, somewhere safe, in one piece with no injuries.  But his eyes were watery, I could see the imprints of facial protective gear on his temples and cheeks, and he looked very, very serious.  I got my dad to sit next to me as he told us what happened.  His opening words were, "Rosemary's house is gone.  So is the music teacher's."  He stopped speaking and sent videos for us to watch...  horrifying, hellish, unreal footage of what had occurred between 5:15 AM and 7:15 AM.  

My dad and I watched these videos, in disbelief.  Wes continued to recount to us what had happened.  It was all still fresh.  Before leaving our house just after 5:00 AM, he had wet the roofs of our house and garage, wet all of the grass surrounding our house, moved all combustible furniture and things away from the house and into the middle of the lawn, and set up the sprinklers to stay on continuously by using a pocket WiFi, which he hooked up to a power generator.  There were already embers flying overhead, audible explosions, the smoke was so thick that he could barely even see for a few feet in front of him.  It was a true firestorm, with homes and businesses standing defenseless, and people having been warned to evacuate only an hour prior.   When he actually left our house with the three most important things in his trunk, he knew that the fate of our home was sealed... unless he did something to intervene.  Minutes after parking at the superchargers in South Pasadena, he thought, "No, I can't abandon yet.  It isn't that bad yet."  He told me after the fact that he only left because he was keeping his promise to me.  He consciously decided to break that promise, and turned around, driving straight back up North.  

Circumventing blockades and taking side streets that he knew, he drove through even thicker smoke and made it back at 5:50 AM, just in time to see that a palm tree directly behind our fence was lit up like a giant torch.  He thought, "Oh shit, this is real."  He grabbed his ladder and wasted no time unhooking the patio string lights connecting the trees to the roofline.  He grabbed the hose and started to spray everything that the embers were landing on: Zoe's wooden play structure that he had built all by himself last year for her birthday party, the North neighbor's roof that was right next to our garage, the base of the fences where flames were creeping in from the South neighbor's lot.  The embers were raining down, hitting him in the face, but he had his goggles and P-100 mask on.  By 5:59 AM, the entire length of the palm tree was brightly on fire from top to bottom, and the South neighbor's lot was ablaze, with the rooftop already burning.  He heard a voice calling out to him over the howling winds, "Hey Wes!" He looked over and saw Dinky, our neighbor to the East, with his garden hose in hand, dousing a tree that was between our properties.  Wes yelled back, "You be safe, man."  I was so moved to know that he wasn't the only crazy one out there in this windswept inferno, trying to save his home by himself.  

Ever since we became homeowners, Wes has poured so much effort, time, and energy into making our house the beautiful haven that it was for us and our friends.  He loved spending time out there in the yard, tinkering with things, keeping up with the plants, doing projects like running electrical and installing landscape lights, constantly improving the aesthetic, and setting up for big outdoor parties.  During the pandemic, he built ladders for the squirrels to climb down from trees to access our yard, and he photographed the various types of native birds that would land in our trees.  Now, entire fence panels were loose, flapping, and threatening to fly off (some eventually did).  There was a large tree down on its side--knocked to the ground between the time that he left and the time that he came back.  As the ranger of our yard, he knew how to get around efficiently, which way the trees leaned, and where to position himself to limit his risks.  He gripped the hose while still following the wind patterns with his eyes, to see where the fire would go next.  He was always assessing, while fighting the fire simultaneously.  I know that he remained calm and collected.  That is the only way to have gotten it done.  I was not very aware of this until now, but he had taken some preventative measures before this storm thanks to our local weatherman, Edgar's predictions.  He had been trimming the low-hanging branches and thinning out our trees over a week in advance.  I always have asked him why we don't just hire a gardener, or why he must endlessly fixate on every little thing out there.  I never could understand why he spent so much money on high quality yard equipment such as his extra-long, lightweight, durable polyurethane hose as opposed to heavy rubber...  or the fancy high-pressure hose head and reel.  I also could not understand why he purchased expensive power generators when, in my mind, clearly we could survive on candles during any black-outs.  The P-100 masks seemed excessive, when he got them for us to wear during a large wildfire that happened when I was pregnant with Zoe during the pandemic.   I rolled my eyes when he was obsessively watching firefighting documentaries way back when. It was hard for me to get behind his Tesla purchase earlier last year.  He had spent two nights in the Tesla after the fires ended with the built-in HEPA filter on to guard against looters, and also was using the Tesla as a power unit to charge all of his generators to keep himself fed and functioning over the next week. I guess all of it makes sense, now. 

At 6:48 AM, about an hour after the fire had been raging up against our property, the first fire engines showed up on our street.  Wes figured that he would let them handle it, so he got into his car and drove away.  This was when we went on the phone for our FaceTime conversation.  But after our call, he was watching the news and saw footage of our corner, still burning, but without firemen present.  Once again, he wasted no time and drove North, back to our house.  He found it intact still, thanks to his efforts, but in a highly risky situation.  Both neighbors' homes on that southern corner of our block had vanished into nothing but chimneys and rubble...along with all of the other houses behind them to the East.  He picked up the hose again and put out flare-ups for the next couple of hours, while explosions continued and sirens blared.  Then, he waited and watched, staying vigilant, knowing that the firefighters were stretched too thin and not to be relied on for saving our home.  He saw more trees catch fire, more houses burn... houses of our dear neighbors who had no idea.  Media trickled in and asked to interview him, to which he declined all.  At 1:00 PM, he told me that the hose had run dry, as our entire water system was actually drained.  Neither of us knew that this was even possible.  At this point, he began to clear debris, throwing away any possible tinder on our property like sticks, dry leaves, and other random things that had blown over.  By this time, the winds had calmed, and the fires had already eaten up everything in its path, with nothing left to burn.  The smoke lifted and it became clear that what was left of Altadena was reduced to miles of just chimneys sticking out of the ground... the destruction was so total.

I wanted to cry so, so badly.  It was all so insane... unimaginable.  The tears did not come, though.  I was in a state of shock.  I wanted to cry with relief that Wes had been through such a traumatic experience and made it out with a story to tell.  The tears did not come.  When we hung up our FaceTime call, I turned my attention to the flood of text messages that I was receiving nonstop.  I saw the news, still in a state of utter disbelief.  I thought of my neighbors who must all be wondering if their homes burned down.  It was apparent that if Wes hadn't been there to defend against the fire, our house would have burned down.  This evil fire was ruthless and swift.  I reached out to people as they popped into my head.  As their responses came back, I was made aware of a gut-wrenching truth: my house survived, and almost nobody else's did.  At this point, I wanted to cry again.  My entire community... gone.  The people of Altadena did not deserve this.  Did Wes and I deserve to still have ours?  What kind of life would we even return to, if we had to live in our house without the community that we've built and loved.  I felt so empty, even though our house was still standing, intact, with all of our earthly possessions safe inside.  Wes also told me that he was experiencing survivor's guilt.  This was too much.  Our lives had changed forever in the span of just a few hours.  Still, I could not summon the tears to cry.  

We had to tell Zoe.  I remember hearing her laughing and talking with my mom in the kitchen when my dad and I were hanging up the phone call with Wes.  She was completely oblivious to the whole thing, and I could not imagine how I would be able to explain to her what happened.  I knew that it would be a long process for her to grasp the extent of the situation... it felt extremely overwhelming, but I had to start somewhere.  I told her first and foremost, that Daddy is safe.  Next, I asked her if she remembered the fire that she had seen out the car window last night.  She said, yes.  I explained, in as straight-forward a way as possible, that the fire came to our neighborhood in Altadena.  She asked, "Did it burn our house?" I said, "No, but it burned so many houses."  I paused in anguish as I thought about all of the many parents who would have a very different answer for the same question.  I felt so much guilt, yet so much gratitude, as well as rage and grief.  

Repeatedly over the last two weeks, I've talked to Zoe about how lucky we are, how fortunate, how thankful we are to Daddy for being there with his hose.  Repeatedly, Zoe has asked to see videos and photos of the destruction and the fire-fighting, with fascination initially, and now with much more of an understanding of how frightening and sad it is.  Repeatedly, at her request, I have had to show her the Youtube video of a piece of paper burning.  I inserted fire, wind, and fire-fighting into our pretend play schemas.  I read picture books with images and content about fires, evacuating, and rebuilding.  I wanted her to know the hard truth, but realized that there were so, so many nuanced points, and I did not want to cause undue anxiety.  She is still at an egocentric developmental stage, where most of what she understands comes from an angle of: what do I lose or gain in this situation?  Emotional awareness is something that does not come automatically at her age, so it was challenging for me to maintain patience as I was trying to process and cycling through the stages of grief myself.  For example, she was entirely upset when she heard that Wes had moved some of those Magnatiles we had built so that he could clean up the house in the days after the fire--never mind the fact that she still even had toys to move out of the way.  She was angry that her birthday party at our house had to be postponed.  She wanted to keep looking at pictures and videos of burned down houses, which felt almost sadistic to me, but I knew that she was just trying to process and confirm a highly unbelievable truth.  She would ask questions nonstop about why her best friend's toys turned into ash, and where all of the debris would wind up once clean-up started.  After a few days, she began to finally say things that made sense.  One day, she said to Wes over a FaceTime call, "Daddy, you should come to Irvine because it's scary over there.  Daddy, put on your goggles.  Daddy, I want to put water all over you, so that the fire won't burn you."  She told me that she wanted to give a toy to her best friend, but not a toy that we already had--it had to be a new toy bought from Target.  She said that she wanted to help him build his house again. Just today, she told a lady at the hotel we're staying at that her birthday is tomorrow, but that her party will not be happening because our home was in the burn zone.  She's even talking about PM2.5 particles and how those will get into her lungs if she doesn't wear a mask.  

This is going to be a long road.  It's only been about two-and-a-half weeks, but it's already felt like an eternity.  We've had some positive experiences with family and friends throughout all of this, and I've never realized how a disaster like this brings out so much love and compassion from those near and far.  Our family of three is now back together, we're staying in a hotel in Arcadia.  Though it felt like such a refuge in Irvine with my parents, we knew that this was what we needed to do to try to get back to some semblance of normalcy.  Yesterday, Zoe said that she missed home and wanted to go back.  This week, she has had a very rough time each morning at school drop-off.  But on Friday, when I told her excitedly that she would have no school tomorrow, she whined that she wished that she could go to school.  This is all progress--little by little.  We are still displaced, unable to return to our house until it gets cleaned, until the water becomes safe to use again, until the rains come and flush out those toxins in the air, until I make closure with the survivor's guilt, until I feel brave and optimistic enough to carry on with life over there again.  I am already writing another blog post about my first time returning to the wreckage and witnessing it all firsthand, and how that has helped me move forward.  Right now, we are safe, we are alive, we are taking it a day at a time.