A year out from the fires in Altadena and Pacific Palisades, survivors’ anger is taking center stage. As it should be.
In the days leading up to the Jan. 7 anniversary, amid steady rainfall and eerie silence, Pacific Palisades looked every bit the scarred ghost town that much of it remains. But evidence of the community’s rage abounded: Signs staked in yards and hung on homes advertising a “THEY LET US BURN” rally were everywhere. At that rally Wednesday, reality TV personality Spencer Pratt, whose home burned in the Palisades fire, declared his candidacy to unseat Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.
During an event I attended that night in Altadena at a neighborhood burger stand (itself a miraculous fire survivor), community members passed around a microphone to share not only stories of hope and encouragement, but also their rage over the emergency response a year ago. Marialyce Pedersen, dressed as what appeared to be a devil, eviscerated the L.A. County Fire Department: “We need to lean into the fact that it was citizens who saved their homes in Altadena.”
No one at this event – and I mean no one – had anything positive to say about firefighters or L.A. County sheriff’s deputies.
Mariel Garza
The rage wasn’t always this front and center. Up until a few days before the one-year anniversary of the Eaton and Palisades fires – which killed 31 people and destroyed more than 16,000 structures – it might have looked to a casual observer as if messages of hope, rebuilding and unity, not anger, would carry the day. But that was never going to be the case.
At the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day, a “Rising Together” float carried several Eaton and Palisades fire survivors through the cheering Pasadena crowd just two miles south of properties that still lie in ruin. As the float began rolling, some of the survivors unfurled a large hand-made sign reading, “AG BONTA ALTADENA DEMANDS AN INVESTIGATION.” One Altadena survivors group is leading a charge to get California Attorney General Rob Bonta to investigate the late evacuation orders and minimal first-responder presence in the area west of Lake Avenue, a predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood where 18 of the Eaton fire’s 19 deaths occurred.
Three days later, thousands ran amid empty lots during the inaugural Altadena Forever charity race. Kathryn Barger, who represents the unincorporated town on the L.A. County Board of Supervisors and has unquestionably been the most visible elected official championing Altadena, lauded the event on Facebook as an “illustration of this community’s determination to move forward in solidarity.” Major media coverage of the run echoed that cheery solemnity, but it missed the unhappy nuances.
I overheard some runners chat about inadequate contaminant testing in the local school’s classrooms. As community members cheered runners, some held signs echoing the same message shown during the Rose Parade imploring Bonta to open an investigation.
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The group Altadena for Accountability coordinated both the Rose Parade and charity run demonstrations. Founder Gina Clayton-Johnson, a lifelong Altadenan who lost her home and was on the Rising Together float, told me the coalition exists solely to spur an attorney general investigation.
She said some of the anger in Altadena stems also from an L.A. County-commissioned report that failed to address key questions about the emergency response: "When I move back to Altadena with my little kids, I [want] to go to sleep at night and feel safe – that the next time there's a windstorm, the next time there's a fire, there's going to be fire trucks in our neighborhood, and we're going to get evacuations."
Lisa Kaas Boyle
At events marking the fire's anniversary, no one had to be sneaky with their real feelings.
"'Both sides botched this,' as Mayor Bass stated on a podcast last month," fire survivor Jeremy Padawer told the rally crowd from a stage near the ruins of a burned-out building in Pacific Palisades. "And then attempted to delete. She's quite good at deleting things" (an obvious reference to the Los Angeles Fire Department’s watered-down after-action report).
Before Pratt announced his mayoral candidacy to thunderous applause, his spouse Heidi Montag held back tears as she lamented the loss of her family's home. Then she laid into the politically charged rally's two biggest targets: "Gavin Newsom and Karen Bass will tell you the Palisades fire was an unprecedented act of nature, but nature didn't maintain the California state parks. It's unacceptable what they let happen."
Paul Thornton
At a news conference hosted by the Eaton Fire Survivors Network, Executive Director Joy Chen, a former deputy mayor of Los Angeles who turned her Altadena pickleball group chat into a forceful advocacy organization, focused more on meeting local survivors' immediate needs. She bemoaned the area's "K-shaped recovery," and with a row of news cameras looking on, survivors spoke of losing loved ones, dealing with insanely high hurdles for insurance payouts and being on the verge of homelessness.
One year on, the anger in Altadena and Pacific Palisades is palpable. Let's hope it keeps the public's attention, and not just so survivors get the accountability, answers and recovery they deserve. As Chen put it:
"Disasters are accelerating across America – wildfires, floods, hurricanes. If you're watching this, next time, this could be you. And if you live in America, if you pay your insurance premiums, if you pay your taxes and you expect to get what you pay for, then this is your fight too."
