‘No one really talks about it anymore’ — A teenage Eaton Fire survivor’s long road home

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

As her family prepared to evacuate their West Altadena home, Claire McLaughlin picked up her favorite snow globe, a music box featuring a mother hummingbird and two babies. She considered packing it, then put it back.

“I left it because I thought, ‘My house isn’t going to burn. I’ll come home later,’” Claire told The LA Local.

Claire never saw her favorite snow globe again.

West Altadena did not receive its evacuation order until after 3 a.m., hours after other parts of Altadena and Pasadena were told to leave. Despite that, Claire urged her family to evacuate after a friend in Pasadena called to warn her to do the same.

“I felt like I was being dramatic,” Claire said, “because we got no notification.”

Eventually, Claire, her mother, father and two older siblings saw flames surrounding their neighborhood from their driveway. Without any official word, they knew it was time to go. Their house burned down a few hours later.

Of the 19 people who died in the Eaton Fire, 18 were in West Altadena, and two of them were Claire’s neighbors: Anthony Mitchell and his son, who needed help evacuating. “I wish people knew that,” Claire said. “No one came to help the west side of Altadena.”

The students who lost their homes

Claire McLaughlin and her siblings outside their old house. Claire is the youngest, on the bottom left.

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Courtesy Claire McLaughlin

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More than 1,000 students in the Pasadena Unified School District lost their homes, and more than 10,000 were ordered to evacuate during the Eaton Fire. Claire was one of those students. At Pasadena High School, however, she said she didn’t know any friends who lost homes. 

“Even though it happened to thousands of people, I felt alone because I was the only kid I knew,” she said.

The fire coincided with major milestones for Claire: prom, graduation and the start of college. “Before the fire, it felt like I was still a kid, growing up,” Claire said. “But then it just sped it up, and it was like, ‘Oh, I’m an adult. I need to do this.’”

At graduation, Claire was so happy that, for a moment, she forgot about the fire. “I realized I wasn’t thinking about it,” Claire said. “It felt strange. I felt like I should be thinking about it.” Looking back, she wishes her school had focused more on the fire during the ceremony.

Now, Claire is in her first year at Pasadena City College.  She is living with her family at her mother’s former boss’s home in Pasadena while their house is rebuilt. Claire found a job at a bowling alley after the restaurant where she worked, Fox’s, burned down. She is excited for the end of the year, when she hopes her family can move back.

Rebuilding what was lost

One of the signs in an empty lot in West Altadena near Claire McLaughlin’s home.

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Rachel Metzger

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The LA Local

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It has been more than a year since the Eaton Fire, but the emotions still linger for Claire. The news coverage has, in Claire’s words, “slowed down.”

“No one really talks about it anymore. Everyone’s moved on. But it just felt like I was stuck. I just keep thinking about it. I should be moving on, but I still feel sad.”

Claire still thinks about her neighbors, her street, her home and her musical snow globe, which she has tried and failed to find on eBay.

She misses her kitchen, her room and the sycamore tree in her front yard, which survived the fire but was later cut down for construction. Claire loved that tree. It’s where she would sit while her boyfriend washed her parents’ car. Her mother and brother would lie under the tree, usually after mountain biking in the San Gabriel Mountains behind their home, with their bikes strewn across the lawn. Claire would join them in the shade.

The tree is gone, but Claire’s house is starting to look as it once did. The last time Claire visited the site, the layout felt familiar. She could see the outline of her room in the same place and size as before.

Feeling lucky

The McLaughlins after buying their home in West Altadena several years before the fire.

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Courtesy Claire McLaughlin

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Nearly all her neighbors are hoping to return. But Claire is worried about investment firms buying lots from families who have lived there for generations and cannot afford to come back. She has attended protests with her mother to raise awareness about West Altadena.

“When I think of the situation with West Altadena, I feel really disappointed and angry,” Claire said. “But when I think of my house, I feel hopeful. Because now I’m going home soon.”

Above all else, Claire is grateful to be able to return. As she said, “You don’t find this sense of community everywhere.”

Right before the fire, on New Year’s Day, while the Rose Bowl was on, Claire’s neighbor was outside with his kid.

“I was messing with him,” Claire said. “The little kid was trying to chase me down the street, and I was running with him, and I thought to myself, ‘I’m so lucky to grow up here.’”

For Claire, nothing can change that feeling.

“I love that place with all my heart,” she said. “I still do.”