Having steered clear of Altadena since late March 2025, shortly after the Eaton fire tore through the community, I decided to return this past weekend. My hopes were high for a sustained recovery. The town is just three miles east of our home in La Cañada Flintridge. Both communities are nestled in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, their peaks often described as the crown framing the Los Angeles basin and valleys below.

I had been assigned to cover the wildfire’s impact and previously wrote two articles for Carrier Management on the disaster that consumed Altadena. The first described the terror of the four-day mandatory evacuation my wife, Jenny, and I experienced, alongside our intrepid plans to fire-harden our house, an expensive but vital investment, we concluded. The follow-up article detailed a trip to see the devastation firsthand. As Jenny drove slowly through the charred remains of the formerly bustling, beautiful neighborhood, I took notes. Where craftsman homes and grand mansions had stood for more than a century, nothing remained but a graveyard of chimneys, rising like tombstones from the bare earth.

Our own nightmare began on the evening of January 7, 2025, when the Watch Duty app buzzed to warn us to gather our important documents, medications, pet food, cash, and clothes. Hurricane-force Santa Ana winds kept us awake all night. At 4:58 a.m. the next morning, the app issued a definitive command: Evacuate. Our city’s air-raid siren blared as we loaded our possessions, two dogs, and cat into our cars under an ominous orange sky.