With firefighters stretched thin, Altadena residents battle to save homes from flames
- The Eaton fire in unincorporated Altadena and nearby Pasadena burned more than 10,000 acres by Wednesday afternoon.
- Five people were dead of unknown causes, authorities said.
- The fire destroyed more than 100 structures.
As the winds whipped out of the north, and embers began to rain down, almost everyone had left J.C. Matsuura’s neighborhood in Altadena.
But Matsuura had no intention of following the evacuation order issued as the Eaton fire rapidly spread Tuesday night, engulfing homes and businesses that stood in its path. Even after Matsuura’s wife left, taking the family dogs, the 65-year-old stood his ground.
Five people have died, more than 2,000 structures have burned and at least 130,000 residents are under evacuation orders because of the wildfires burning across Los Angeles County. “We are absolutely not out of danger yet,” Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley said.
Armed only with a garden hose and determination, Matsuura kept the embers and flames away from his home of 20 years. It was not until a ghastly dawn that a fire crew from the U.S. Forest Service arrived. By then, homes on two sides of Matsuura’s had caught fire.
With firefighters stretched thin, with three major fires burning in L.A. County as of Wednesday afternoon, residents such as Matsuura decided to stay and wage a battle to save their homes.
“We’re doing the very best we can. But no, we don’t have enough fire personnel in L.A. County between all the departments to handle this,” L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said at a Wednesday news conference in downtown L.A.
The Eaton fire had burned more than 10,000 acres near Altadena and Pasadena by Wednesday afternoon. Five people were dead, and several others were seriously injured, according to a spokesperson from the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department. More than 100 structures have been destroyed, Marrone said.
Fire and law enforcement officials strongly discourage people from staying in their homes, because it can put residents and first responders in grave danger. Marrone said officials have seen “a high number of significant injuries to residents who did not evacuate” from the Palisades fire about 24 miles to the west, which has charred more than 15,000 acres.
Matsuura said he wouldn’t leave, couldn’t leave, because of everything that his modest home on New York Avenue meant. He had built a business there — repairing motorcycles of all kinds, including collectors’ Ducatis and Harley Davidsons.
“I stayed because this is my home, it’s my business. It’s a lot,” he said. “I didn’t want to lose it. I didn’t want my equipment to be burnt down. So I figured if I stayed long enough, I might be able to save it.”
As other residents fled the unincorporated community of Altadena on Tuesday night, they encountered an apocalyptic scene. Streets congested with evacuees. Windshields covered in ash. Downed trees. Lawns and homes catching fire around them.
A fire that broke out in the foothills near Eaton Canyon around 6:28 p.m. has quickly grown to 400 acres.
Among the casualties? The Altadena Community Church. The local post office. An untold number of homes.
Carter Johns was in his bedroom on Roosevelt Avenue when he heard sirens about 7:15 pm. The 17-year-old looked outside and saw the mountainside north of his family’s Altadena home was a sheet of flame.
Embers were sailing down on roofs, Johns recalled. He ran down the street banging on doors.
“People had no idea,” he said.
One frantic neighbor had a baby and no car, he said. Johns’ father took the woman and child with their family to his job site near the Rose Bowl, where they waited out the night.
As the fire spread Tuesday night, Casey Nunes, 28, drove from a band rehearsal back to his rented home in Altadena in an attempt to save some of his belongings. The sky was red and the air choked with smoke.
“It was pretty apocalyptic and cinematic in a weird way,” Nunes said.
While trying to navigate streets, Nunes watched a lawn catch on fire. His truck became engulfed in embers as he sped down roads, dodging fallen tree branches. When he finally reached the house, the fire was just 300 yards or so up the hillside. When Nunes stepped out of his car, he said, it felt as if someone had left a heater on. The howling wind sent ash into his eyes.
He grabbed family photos, his computer and valuable instruments, including guitars, recording equipment and speakers. As he left, he spotted a neighbor who told Nunes he planned to stay.
“I’m not going to let people rob my house,” the neighbor told him.
“That’s crazy,” Nunes said. “What’s there to rob if it burns down?”
Authorities later said two people were arrested for looting in the area of the Eaton fire.
After evacuating Tuesday night, Denise Norden and her husband, Greg, arrived to find several fires burning around their Altadena home before dawn Wednesday.
Firefighters scrambled to corral a fast-moving wildfire in the Los Angeles hillsides dotted with celebrity homes as a “life-threatening, destructive” windstorm hit Southern California, fanning the blaze seen for miles while roads were clogged with cars as residents tried to flee.
Seeing no firefighters on their street, the couple — along with other residents — grabbed garden hoses, buckets and shovels. They hosed down their roofs and those of their neighbors. They soaked the plants and front yards as embers set off small fires around the neighborhood.
“We realized if we did not make a stand we would lose it all,” Denise Norden said.
Early Wednesday morning, Steve Salinas called his neighbor Jimmy Orlandini to say Orlandini’s front yard was on fire. Orlandini evacuated his family to Rancho Cucamonga but arrived back home in the early morning darkness to find other neighbors dousing homes.
When a home two doors down from Orlandini’s house caught fire, he and another neighbor climbed onto the roof to spray it down.
The heat and smoke rolled into Orlandini’s face. He sprayed his head with water and covered his face with his shirt.
“If the fire department would just get here, they could save it all,” said one woman, who declined to give her name.
About 8:30 a.m. a Los Angeles County fire engine appeared down the street. Exhausted neighbors cheered. One woman sobbed and ran to the corner pointing, crying out, “Please, save our homes.”
Firefighters were able to save the home where Orlandini and Salinas had made their stand. The side of the home was damaged, but it remained upright.
Others were not as fortunate.
On Wednesday morning, Kevin Tyson watched the smoldering wreckage of the medical buildings his family has owned for decades.
Piled outside the Two Palms Nursing Center were soot-stained gurneys and wheelchairs. Gutted and blackened by fire, the nursing home belched smoke as a fire crew doused the last stubborn flames lapping at what remained of the roof.
Next door, an AltaMed medical facility had collapsed on itself, its metal roof twisted in the heat of the flames that swept through Tuesday night.
Tyson, a retired internal medicine doctor, came that night to check on the medical compound that was once his family’s home.
“When my folks first moved to Pasadena in 1972, this is where we moved,” said Tyson, 54. “This is our family story.”
One of the family’s buildings wasn’t touched by flame: Crown City Rehabilitation, where Tyson’s sister still works.
“In the hopscotch of fate, you never know what’s going to survive,” he said. “This is the tragedy of fire.”
On Altadena Drive near Altadena Community Church, a sheriff’s deputy sat in a patrol car to keep drivers away from a downed power line. The church was engulfed in flames, and plumes of black, acrid smoke blanketed the intersection.
Nearby, Ned Fakhoury watched in panic as the church fire threatened his nearby Chevron station. He had been up since 4:30 a.m. helping friends evacuate. But now the gas station, which had been in his family since the 1980s, would probably be damaged.
Across the street, the Bunny Museum was on fire, its 46,000-plus rabbit-related items in grave danger.
“This is devastating,” Fakhoury said. “The whole city just got erased.”
At his home on Wednesday, Matsuura remained focused on his desperate task, dressed all in black with nothing but a black bandanna to filter the noxious air. He had persisted, even as the wind ripped composite tiles from his roof and sent branches, dirt and debris whipping through the air.
His home seemed safe, but Matsuura gestured at flames that still crackled less than 50 yards away.
“That’s what I’m worried about right there,” he said. “It ain’t over yet.”
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