‘Devastating’: Wildfire ravages historic black community in Los Angeles | News about the climate crisis

Los Angeles, California – Bill Threadgill was picking through the ashes of his house in Altadena, California, where he had lived for 15 years, pulling out copper pipes and setting them aside to sell.

Only its chimney and two portico pillars remained standing, but nothing else. A forest fire burned the entire structure to the ground.

Even before the fire swept through the area, his family was barely making ends meet. “We’re financially strapped,” Threadgill, a handyman and caregiver, said through his N95 face mask.

On January 7, the Eaton Fire ignited in the nearby mountains, forcing thousands of residents to I’m evacuating. Fueled by hurricane-force winds, the fire damaged or destroyed more than 5,700 buildings and killed at least 16 people.

It was one of the down the blaze that has been ravaging the Los Angeles area for the past week and a half, exacerbated by climate change. All in all, almost 12,000 buildings and 25 people were destroyed killed.

The fires could become one of the costliest natural disasters in the history of the United States, with experts estimating the damage at $250 billion.

While multi-million dollar homes were destroyed in the affluent Pacific Palisades area, the working-class neighborhood of Altadena was also destroyed. devastated.

Some of the victims were elderly or disabled and could not escape. Sam Threadgill lived and cared for a 73-year-old friend he considers family. At the time of the fire, she was undergoing short-term convalescence. There is no home to return to.

As he walked through the debris, he looked for his calico cat, Catra. “I hope she got out, because I left the back door open for her to get out,” he said.

He looked at where his front door was. “I will not enter here like this again. Never again,” said Threadgill. “Uprooted unexpectedly. It’s devastating.”

House near the mountains

Located near the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, Altadena is a proud community of African Americans and immigrants. Of its 42,000 residents, 58 percent are people of color.

The community began to take shape in the 1960s. Large numbers of black families left the US South and moved west, as part of a trend known as the Great Migration. Altadena was one of the few neighborhoods in the area where African-Americans could get home loans at the time.

Over the years, prominent black artists would settle in the community, including Oscar-winning actor Sidney Poitier and famed science fiction writer Octavia Butler.

Butler, who is buried in nearby Mountain View Cemetery, wrote a novel called The Parable of the Sower, set in Los Angeles against the backdrop of raging wildfires – something locals and book fans alike have drawn parallels to during the current crisis.

Today, 18 percent of Altadena’s residents are black, a much higher percentage than in neighboring Pasadena.

On January 7, the neighborhood was under a red flag warning, signaling conditions were perfect for fires.

The weather was warm. The vegetation was unusually dry. And the Santa Ana winds were blowing hard.

That day, when Eaton’s fire blazed in the mountains, Threadgill felt relaxed. “I was 100 percent [certain] that the fire burning in the hills will not come here,” he said.

Then the wind picked up and carried the flames towards his house. As he gathered bags of stuff and loaded them into his truck, he could feel the heat of the flames.

“While I was walking down the street, there was heat under my feet, so at that moment I really had to run away. And the rest is history. It caught fire,” he said.

Down the street from Threadgill, Elisa Gonzalez and her husband arrived home from vacation Jan. 7 to a cloud of smoke over the city. They started to unpack, but when the wind picked up, they packed their bags and evacuated.

When they returned the next day, they saw that the house next door had burned down. The embers were still smoldering in the neighborhood.

But Gonzalez noticed that several community members were in her yard spraying her house with water. She credits them with saving her home.

“It was amazing. “I couldn’t believe that the people in the neighborhood were doing everything they could to save the buildings that were left,” she said.

Threadgill was one of the people who washed away the houses on his street after losing their own home. “I did everything I could to help,” he said.

While it’s not yet clear what started the Eaton fire, some residents who lost their homes are suing Southern California Edison, alleging that the utility’s electrical equipment caused the fire.

They also claim it was negligent to release electricity through the utility’s power lines during a red flag warning.

“It really upsets me to know that it could have been negligence on their part,” Gonzalez said. “It makes me very upset, thinking it could have been prevented.”

Rebuilding the future

Despite the devastation, Gonzalez emphasized her gratitude to her neighbors.

“The community is amazing. The community saved our house,” Gonzalez said.

As she spoke, two women wearing N95 masks pulled up in a car and offered her food. They explained that they lived in the neighborhood and wanted to help.

“It’s been like this all week,” Gonzalez explained as she accepted soup, sandwiches and pasta.

Mutual aid efforts have sprung up across Altadena. At a nearby community job center in Pasadena, day laborers called for supplies Wednesday after the fires broke out.

Hundreds of volunteers showed up to hand out donations to fire victims and clean up the debris.

On Sunday, Doungdao Riccardi, a chef at a popular Thai restaurant in Altadena, went to the job center to stock up on food to take home. Her restaurant is in the evacuation zone and remains closed to the public.

Riccardi said she did not know how long the restaurant would remain closed. “I’m so sad for everyone.”

Her husband has had two recent surgeries – open heart surgery followed by eye surgery – and is currently unable to work. Until the fire, she was their sole breadwinner. Now her salary is gone.

Riccardi moved from Thailand to the US in 1993. The following year, she experienced the Northridge earthquake that hit Los Angeles. Although the experience was terrifying, she said the fires upset her even more.

“It’s hard for me to sleep, because this hit hard. I’ve never seen anything like this. The fire really shocked me,” she said.

Riccardi is eligible for unemployment benefits and plans to apply for them this week. “I hope we can reopen,” she said of the restaurant.

Her boss, she added, “will try to reopen, but no one can go upstairs. It will take time.”

As for Threadgill, he wants to rebuild his home in the same spot. “We would definitely do it, we definitely want to rebuild.” His daughter started online fundraising to help him.

“I don’t want to leave here. Altadena is wonderful,” he said.