Maya Richard-Craven describes herself as “5 generations Pasadena” as a result of her household planted roots within the space roughly a century in the past and has lived there ever since. Her family are concerned to such an extent in native organizations, social golf equipment and volunteer teams, that, she mentioned, taking a stroll in close by Altadena usually means being waved down by somebody who acknowledges her mother.
But the Eaton Fire upended these customs, and doubtlessly put their future in jeopardy, when it erupted in Altadena on Jan. 7. Fueled by an excessive windstorm that sparked several wildfires at once in numerous components of Los Angeles and its adjoining counties, the lethal blaze unfold shortly over some 14,000 acres and left a path of charred particles in its wake.
Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg through Getty Images
Vast swaths of Altadena, a historically Black enclave, had been ravaged, scorching the area’s infrastructure together with its wealthy cultural document.
“Altadena represented prosperity. It represented pleasure. It represented unity and Black excellence. And for that to all burn to items, it is simply completely devastating,” mentioned Richard-Craven. “It’s like, if a historical past e-book simply lit on hearth. This is a historical past that’s deep.”
Situated simply north of Pasadena within the San Gabriel foothills, Altadena was lengthy thought-about a haven for Black households who started settling there on the flip of the twentieth century and continued trickling in because the years ensued. Some had escaped segregation within the South and took refuge in a spot that didn’t subscribe to the racist standards of the period for land possession, an anomaly even in California.
“They had been allowed to buy property,” mentioned Richard-Craven. “And that was uncommon, you understand, within the early 1900s.”
It established a basis for entrepreneurship and generational wealth that, ultimately, underpinned the event of Altadena into a various and vibrant suburb crammed with close-knit corporations. Richard-Craven instructed CBS News she is among the many legacy residents who’ve come to name its iconic Old Town district by the nickname “DNA.”
More than two dozen of these displaced by the Eaton Fire are folks Richard-Craven is aware of personally. Her cousin’s home was burned, as was her great-aunt’s — the place Richard-Craven herself additionally lived till lately.
When she spoke to CBS News on Thursday, her first morning again in Los Angeles after evacuating to a household good friend’s residence in Nevada, Richard-Craven had not but been in a position to go to Altadena because the hearth. But she feared the neighborhood facilities the place Altadena’s Black group thrived for many years may now be gone.
Authorities estimated greater than 7,000 buildings had been broken or destroyed within the Eaton Fire alone. Apocalyptic photos and video from the world present full residential blocks decreased to ash and parked automobiles melted nearly to their frames. At least 5 faculties had been severely impacted.
Scott Strazzante/San Francisco Chronicle through Getty Images
Richard-Craven mentioned she by no means imagined witnessing such devastation in her lifetime. In the week after the hearth broke out, she heard that mainstays in Altadena’s community of Black-owned companies — a barber store, a e-book retailer, a nail salon — could have been burned, too.
“A bunch of Black-owned companies burned, and people persons are counting on that revenue,” she mentioned. “They’re counting on making a living by different Black folks, by clients.”
Los Angeles officers introduced a number of legislative proposals this week aimed toward rebuilding areas that suffered profound losses within the wildfires, like Altadena, Malibu and Pacific Palisades. Tina McKinnor, a California State Assembly member, cited Altadena particularly at a information convention the place she pledged to concentrate on insurance policies that protect the county’s cultural cornerstones, partially by defending residents from predators seeking to reap the benefits of them in an emergency.
“I’ve spoken with many households, together with quite a few impacted households from the traditionally Black neighborhoods of Altadena. These Black households have been an vital a part of the historical past of L.A. County for generations,” McKinnor mentioned. “This historical past is significant — a significant a part of Los Angeles County’s dynamic tradition, and it is underneath assault by unscrupulous speculative land traders making an attempt to reap the benefits of this pure catastrophe and its related trauma for their very own monetary acquire.”
Carolyn Kaster/AP
Richard-Craven worries not everybody in Altadena will have the ability to absolutely get well, bodily or financially, from the Eaton Fire, and those who do will proceed to hold emotional scars. But the group’s origin story and spirit give her hope that there’s a path ahead.
“African Americans have survived 400 years of enslavement. We have survived mass incarceration. We have survived dropping our family members to HIV. We have survived crack being planted in our communities,” she mentioned. “Even although this wildfire was devastating, and Black-owned companies burned, and houses burned, and folks burned, we are going to persevere.”
CBS News Los Angeles contributed reporting.
