Hope after fire? “It’s the people who care”

Anne Tipton was pointing out normal, everyday parts of her home. “I  sat in that chair and did a puzzle. There was the ironing board. Those were our camp chairs.”

But her home is now made up of ashes, and her belongings so burnt they’re only shaky outlines of what they used to be.

Tipton lives in Altadena, in California’s San Gabriel Valley, on a street where nearly every home burned in the Eaton Fire in January.

Downtown & surrounding neighborhoods of Altadena Full Circle Thrift. The thrift shop did not sustain too much damage unlike the surrounding buildings.

Two months later, on March 8, Tipton and her husband moved into an apartment. Until then, they lived with a friend of the family.

The night the Eaton Fire—fueled by 90 mph winds—burned more than 9,000 structures, Tipton first evacuated to her parent’s house, also in Altadena. When the fire came within one mile of that house, she helped her parents evacuate even further out of town.

She waited to see if her home would survive, watching footage on television and straining to recognize homes when the fire made national news. Then she got a text from a neighbor: her house was gone. She FaceTimed her husband and her 20-year-old daughter, who was home on a break from college break, to share the terrible news.

“To watch my daughter’s face—was devastating,” Tipton said. Her older daughter, 22, lives in Seattle, and her parents waited until she got home from work to tell her that her childhood home was gone.

Tipton knows she wants to rebuild, and she can’t imagine leaving Altadena. She finds comfort in her church family—Pasadena Mennonite—and her friends and family. “What gives me hope? It’s the people who care about us.”

Still, some days Tipton, who works as part of the administration at a local school, finds it hard to even start pretending to lead a normal life. “You’re re-entering the world carrying these heavy things,” she said.

She wants Altadena to come back. She knows the community can’t be the same—too much is gone—but she wants the people who make up the heart of the community to stay and rebuild. “Altadena has a very mixed income, and mixed races and ages,” she said. “What I want people to know is that, here, the average family is still trying to live their lives every day.”

While it’s hard to visit the burned remnants of her home, Tipton returns often, checking on neighbors who might happen to stop by their properties at the same time.

“I just come back to stand here—because my body knows it’s home,” she said.