Support for LAist comes from
Audience-funded nonprofit news
Stay Connected
Audience-funded nonprofit news
Listen
A quietly defining milestone: Watching my Altadena lot cleared post-Eaton Fire
As thousands across L.A. County undergo the process of debris removal in the burn scars, our reporter shares her family’s experience.
The photo depicts a construction or demolition site with A yellow CAT 325F excavator is prominently positioned in the middle of the scene. The area is filled with debris and partially demolished concrete structures.
Watching the remaining walls of our house demolished.
(
Josie Huang
/
LAist
)
(
Josie Huang
/
LAist
)

With our free press under threat and federal funding for public media gone, your support matters more than ever. Help keep the LAist newsroom strong, become a monthly member or increase your support today during our fall member drive. 

On a cold drizzly morning in my Altadena neighborhood, I stood behind red tape, watching an excavator heave and groan through the burnt remains of our home.

Inside the cab was a long-haired, goateed man who swung the excavator’s arm forward, tearing down the few standing walls like sheets of paper.

There’s no real roadmap after your home burns down. But as far as milestones go, having your destroyed lot cleared is a quietly defining event shared by tens of thousands of people who lost homes in January’s wildfires.

Listen 4:29
Listen: After the Eaton Fire
Josie Huang, LAist Weekend Edition host, watches as the lot of her Altadena home is cleared

Support for LAist comes from
Gone was any chance — however slim or non-existent — of stumbling across a missing ring, a yellowed family photo, a scrap of quilt. It’s OK, you tell yourself, you’re lucky. Your family is safe and sound.
— Josie Huang

For months, our family had been waiting for this day with a mix of dread and hope. Ours was one of the last lots on our block to be cleared. When we got the call saying our home was next on the list, we knew it was time to move forward. If only things didn’t feel so final.

Gone was any chance — however slim or non-existent — of stumbling across a missing ring, a yellowed family photo, a scrap of quilt. It’s OK, you tell yourself, you’re lucky. Your family is safe and sound.

Debris removal, as it’s called in the disaster economy, is a big business. Supervisors from four different entities — the Army Corps of Engineers and its contractors ECC, Tetra Tech and Anvil — met me on our property, talking me through the process, and patiently answering my many questions about what they were taking (the foundations of the garage and house) and what they were leaving (a fence, the driveway).

The rain that made my skin clammy was actually a boon to the workers who had to constantly spray down the property and excavator with water to control the dust and ash kicked up by the digging.

A man in a white protective coverall and helmet watches a bulldozer move on a property destroyed by fire.
A team clears debris from another home destroyed in the Eaton Fire in March in Altadena.
(
Mario Tama
/
Getty Images
)

One by one, trucks lumbered up our sloped, skinny driveway, their engines running as the excavator dropped piles of dirt and rubble into their plastic-lined beds. Often, another truck idled on the street, waiting its turn.

Support for LAist comes from

Sixteen or 17 trucks, I’m told, is what it took to lug away what was left of our home. They would join the daily procession of dump trucks traversing Altadena and Pasadena on their way to the freeway — a funeral march of sorts.

As the heaps of debris dwindled by the hour, I felt somewhat detached, fixated on the scene of an excavator trying to navigate our narrow lot on its steel tracks.

It was only a couple days later — when I returned after the clean-up was done — that the emotions hit.

In the months since the fire, the ragged outline of the few walls still standing helped me demarcate our old life. That wall was where the living room was. The kids’ bunk bed was pushed up against that other wall.

But now all I saw was a lot covered with undulating waves of reddish-brown dirt.

At least we still had this plot of land, and two trees — a Chinese elm out front and a grapefruit tree in the backyard.

Support for LAist comes from

But just days ago, we got a call from a contractor saying that our grapefruit tree had been tagged for removal. He offered to chop it down.

A couple, with their backs turned to the camera, look at the foothills surrounding Altadena.
Altadena was a piece of heaven for those who flocked to the foothills of the San Gabriels.
(
Josie Huang
/
LAist
)

I hemmed and hawed, and asked for more time to mull it over. An arborist I hired months ago had warned me that things looked bad, but I held out hope.

On my day off, I went to look at the tree, scanning its blackened branches for any leaves or even a single green shoot. Nothing.

Bark had peeled off the trunk, revealing a creamy wood marbled with black that was cool to the touch. I patted the tree on its exposed wood, thankful for all the fruit it bore and the shade it gave.

That was probably my good-bye to the tree. I don’t think I can watch it get taken down. As my husband pointed out, the tree was there before we were.

Like our old house, I’ll remember where it stood and what it meant to us, until the edges of those memories start to blur.

At LAist, we believe in journalism without censorship and the right of a free press to speak truth to those in power. Our hard-hitting watchdog reporting on local government, climate, and the ongoing housing and homelessness crisis is trustworthy, independent and freely accessible to everyone thanks to the support of readers like you.

But the game has changed: Congress voted to eliminate funding for public media across the country. Here at LAist that means a loss of $1.7 million in our budget every year. We want to assure you that despite growing threats to free press and free speech, LAist will remain a voice you know and trust. Speaking frankly, the amount of reader support we receive will help determine how strong of a newsroom we are going forward to cover the important news in our community.

We’re asking you to stand up for independent reporting that will not be silenced. With more individuals like you supporting this public service, we can continue to provide essential coverage for Southern Californians that you can’t find anywhere else. Become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission.

Thank you for your generous support and belief in the value of independent news.

Chip in now to fund your local journalism
A row of graphics payment types: Visa, MasterCard, Apple Pay and PayPal, and  below a lock with Secure Payment text to the right
(
LAist
)

Trending on LAist