By Anissa DurhamWord in Black
For many years, Altadena functioned as a uncommon fixed within the Los Angeles space: a spot the place Black households owned properties and handed one thing on to their descendants. That each one modified with the Eaton Fireplace.
One yr after the fireplace tore by Altadena and neighboring communities, destroying hundreds of properties and displacing households who had lived there for generations, the neighborhood stays in flux. Rebuilding has been sluggish, uneven, and costly. Some residents are urgent ahead. Others, discovering it too troublesome, have left. However collectively, their choices might decide whether or not certainly one of Los Angeles County’s most steady Black enclaves endures.
Zella Knight understands that uncertainty all too properly.
“Although the bodily hearth is over, the remnants of that fireside nonetheless continues,” she says.
Knight misplaced her household’s Altadena dwelling within the Eaton Fireplace. The home had been in her household for many years. It was the primary place her dad and mom moved after migrating from Jim Crow Mississippi within the Sixties. In Altadena, they discovered a neighborhood the place Black of us had been capable of purchase and personal.
Knight, who’s 62 and now lives 20 minutes west in Solar Valley, had already endured profound loss earlier than the fireplace. Her mother died in 2022. Her father adopted in 2024. 5 months later to the day, hearth decimated their household dwelling.
Knight is certainly one of 4 siblings. Her youthful brother, Robert, who lived with a incapacity, had been residing within the household dwelling, with in-home care assist. The association, Knight says, was meant to provide him a way of independence.
On Jan. 7, 2025, Robert was evacuated from the home. Two days later, the house the household knew and cherished was ash. Within the months that adopted, Robert lived with Knight. After which, in August 2025, Robert died.
“Given the truth that he couldn’t return to the one place he knew … he was very distraught and upset about that,” Knight says. “It created a variety of trauma and stress and I feel that was a contributor to his passing.”
The remnants stay
For a lot of the twentieth century, discriminatory housing insurance policies dictated the place Black folks might dwell in Los Angeles County. Within the Sixties Altadena was a 95 % White and 4 % Black group, as a result of redlining and racially restrictive covenants. However, in the course of the Civil Rights Motion, these racist legal guidelines turned unenforceable. The unincorporated group within the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains turned one of many few locations providing dwelling loans to Black and Brown folks.
By 2022, the Black homeownership charge in Altadena was about 30 % increased than different elements of Los Angeles County. There was additionally practically a yr over yr improve from 2018 to 2022 for homeownership locally. In response to the Related Press greater than 81.5 % of individuals owned their properties in Altadena in 2023 — an outlier in a area outlined by housing insecurity and rising rents. Lots of these properties had been held by households like Knight’s that had lived there for many years.
Church buildings, faculties and organizations mirrored long-standing friendships and relationships. Neighbors knew one another. Households stayed.
The Eaton Fireplace disrupted all that. The official reason for the Eaton Fireplace has but to be decided. However the U.S. Division of Justice has blamed Southern California Edison for the fireplace. And the Los Angeles Instances reported that the utility supplier didn’t restore growing old transmission strains.
It burned greater than 14,000 acres. 19 folks died and greater than 9,000 properties and buildings had been destroyed in Altadena. The fireplace took 25 days to extinguish. A yr later, the demographic penalties are more durable to measure; it’s unclear what number of Black residents stay.
Gov. Gavin Newsom requested $33.9 billion in federal catastrophe support, however the cash has been sluggish to succeed in Altadena residents. In response to reporting from The Related Press, as of late 2025, fewer than one dozen properties have been rebuilt within the space burned by the Eaton Fireplace. And a current report from Redfin exhibits traders are scooping up practically half of the tons in Altadena.
Final yr within the aftermath of the fireplace, Vickie Mays, professor of psychology on the College of California, Los Angeles, advised Phrase In Black she was fearful about what is going to occur to the Black residents of Altadena. It’s comprehensible that folks need to stick with their close-knit group, she stated, however Altadena residents are going to expertise a brand new regular.
“Not everyone has the abdomen to rebuild in the identical place. Some folks don’t have the cash,” Mays stated. “So, what you’re is, your neighborhood as you knew it’s most likely not going to be your neighborhood of the longer term.”
The price of rebuilding
William Syms misplaced his dwelling within the Eaton Fireplace and at the moment lives in Glendale, a former sunset city simply east of Altadena. The 41-year-old spoke with Phrase In Black final yr simply days after dropping his dwelling when he was nonetheless absorbing what had occurred. One yr later, the husband and father of two younger kids says the loss introduced his household nearer collectively, however he admits it’s taken a toll. However, he’s nonetheless decided to rebuild the home that burned down.
To him, Altadena is a group he plans to proceed to lift his kids in.
Syms is busy submitting plans for approval to rebuild his dwelling. Fingers crossed, he hopes to get the greenlight by the top of January. He anticipates the construct will happen between June and December of this yr. In a really perfect situation, the household would have a good time Christmas 2026 of their new Altadena dwelling.
“Life is nice as a result of we’re right here and we’ve got the prospect to create one other chapter within the legacy of this household and group,” he says.
Within the meantime, life has been powerful. Although the Syms household finally secured long-term non permanent housing, for months they’ve shuffled luggage between properties, typically maintaining garments in other places. He by no means considered himself as homeless, although, he says. And although his kids are exhausted, they’re a number of the most resilient folks he is aware of.
One of many greatest challenges? An absence of reasonably priced and out there housing. “Costs, mysteriously, in a single day acquired astronomical,” he says. And coping with insurance coverage corporations has been a sluggish trickle. Whereas they’ve been responsive, Syms says, it’s an arduous and cumbersome course of.
“It virtually feels just like the equipment is located to push you out or make you give up,” he says. “The rebuilding strategy of simply discovering housing has been a barrier. However having the group round us has allowed us to push ahead.”
In current months Syms has run into group members at church and different occasions which have bolstered his perception within the energy of Altadena. A couple of weeks in the past, a beloved custom continued in Altadena: Santa Rosa Avenue, affectionately referred to as Christmas Tree Lane, had its annual lighting — the mile-long stretch of street is dwelling to the oldest large-scale out of doors Christmas lighting show in the US.
“My dedication to the group, my love for the group, has deepened due to how we’ve come collectively,” Syms says. “We aren’t going anyplace. Neighborhood can heal. However we nonetheless need assistance.”
This text was initially printed by WordinBlack.com.
