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Deep Reads: L.A. fires burned their block. For each, the disaster was just beginning.
00:31:11
The Los Angeles wildfires leveled entire neighborhoods, but perhaps nowhere suffered more than west Altadena. This is an account of three families’ grueling recovery — the part of the story most people never see.
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- [00:01]
Constellation Narrator
At Constellation, we bring the energy powering America's growing economy every minute, every day. As the nation's largest producer of clean and reliable American made energy, Constellation is wherever you are.
- [00:15]
Reece Thibault
Hi, I'm Reece Thibault. This is Post Reports weekend. It's Saturday, September 13th. I'm a reporter on the America team. And what you're going to hear in a moment is is a story about one block in one neighborhood in a town called Altadena, California, which is a suburb just outside of Los Angeles. And you might recognize the name Altadena because that's where a massive wildfire burned down thousands of homes in January. This reporting is part of a Washington Post series called Deep Reads. It's part of our commitment to narrative journalism. I reported and wrote this story with three of my colleagues, my Nick Kirkpatrick, Melina Mara and Alice Lee. I'll be narrating it and instead of me just reading the quotes, you'll hear some audio from our many interviews with three families in particular, who all live on this one block of West Las Flores Drive in Altadena. I live in Los Angeles and so does my colleague Nick. Melina and Alice live in California, too. So when the Eaton and Palisades fires broke out basically in our backyards this year, we knew we would stay to document the long and painful recovery process when the flames were finally put out and the spotlight faded. And we've spent hours and hours with the three families you're about to hear from. They opened their lives to us at an impossibly difficult time, and we're incredibly grateful to each one. Our reporting team plans to continue following their stories in the months to come. Okay, here's the story. The hulking yellow excavator lumbered across charred ground and raised its arm above a blackened heap of metal and ash. It was a machine built for unearthing, but this moment felt more like a burial. Here lay the remains of 295 West Las Flores Drive and the house that for more than a century had amassed milestones and memories. Its brown brick chimney, all that survived the flames, towered over the lot like a tombstone. On this early spring day, the sun already blazed high and hot. The block was short on shade trees, now scorched and leafless, so the small crowd of onlookers squinted toward the rubble. A crew from the Army Corps of Engineers stood by in white Tyvek suits and hard hats. Two people kept their distance. Leslie Anderson Aitken, who owned the home, and Darren Anderson, her son and tenant, who dressed in all black for the occasion. Leslie looked on, her gaze steely. Darren dragged on a cigarette and turned away. As at any funeral, there are those who are ready to move on and those who are not.
- [03:24]
Leslie Anderson Aitken
So you have to be realistic, not dream about your reality.
- [03:36]
Reece Thibault
The Eden Fire tore through the Los Angeles suburb of Altadena, part of an infernal storm that killed 19 people. It became one of the most expensive natural disasters in U.S. history. But the ultimate cost won't be tallied in dollars and cents. That will be calculated on a different ledger, the number of residents who returned to this block of West Las Flores and the countless others just like it. The Washington Post has spent months with three families from this Altadena street, the epicenter of the wildfire's destructive path, and we followed their separate journeys as they've asked themselves excruciating questions. They've struggled to imagine their futures in a place they fear will never again feel like home. The heavy machinery that showed up at Leslie and Darren's house that April morning was therefore debris removal, a rite that unfolds quietly in any disaster zone, far from the spotlight and long after the catastrophe itself. A community cannot truly begin its recovery until the detritus of lost homes is hauled away. The Army Corps knew this part of West Las Flores well. All but two of the 28 houses on the block had been destroyed. Somewhere in the ruins of what used to be number 295 were the unrecognizable fragments of the kitchen where Leslie had given birth to Darren more than four decades earlier. The countertops were melted, the tile floor vaporized. Darren wanted to remember every inch. Over and over he had panned the powder of his former life, looking for nuggets he might recognize. He measured what was left of the foundation. Maybe someday, he thought, he could recreate it exactly as it was. He pulled one of the workers aside and described a family watch he wanted them to look for. It. Might have made it, he said. His mother sighed and called to him.
- [05:41]
Leslie Anderson Aitken
Darren, we gotta let it go, man. We gotta let it go.
- [05:47]
Reece Thibault
The excavator was ready. Its steel bucket hung there, suspended for a moment between their cherished past and a precarious future. For some, debris removal signals a new beginning, the first step toward rebuilding. For others, it is the last act they will oversee as homeowners before they sell their cleared lot and move away for good. Leslie and Darren weren't sure which path they were on. They wanted to stay but feared that Leslie's insurance payout wouldn't cover the gap between dreams and reality. Their neighbors were all doing their own versions of the same agonizing arithmetic. Next door, at number 281, the Valdez family was realizing the numbers wouldn't add up. They owed too much on their mortgage, received too little from insurance, and had young children and an aging mother to consider. That meant putting the property on the market, recouping what they could, and starting over. Elsewhere on the Corner at number 323, Jenny Bridges owned one of the only houses left standing. From the outside, her place looked virtually untouched, but toxic smoke had seeped through cracks, ash had mounded on the floor, and carcinogens were embedded in the walls, the insulation, the furniture. Jenny wasn't sure when she would go back or what would await her when she did. She wondered if it might have been simpler to lose everything. West Las Flores was now unrecognizable. Residents kept taking wrong turns driving back to the block. All the old landmarks were gone. When the excavator finally toppled the chimney, Darren wandered over to his driveway, picked up a shard of broken pottery, and whipped it toward the wreckage. He took in the place that once held his life.
- [07:45]
Darren Anderson
I mean, now home is just gonna be a hole right now.
- [07:49]
Reece Thibault
He said. Now home is just going to be a hole in the ground. Chapter 1 Safe Haven Altadena was always a refuge. Nestled in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, the suburb quickly became a destination for health seekers trying to get away from the skeins of smog hovering over Los Angeles around the turn of the 20th century. After the civil rights era, the town became a stronghold of black homeownership. Families displaced by urban renewal projects and redlining practices could buy property on Altadena's west side. By 1980, more than 40% of residents were black. Even after the town began to gentrify, it remained eclectic and diverse, a more affordable option for artists, resources, retirees, and middle class families. West Las Flores epitomized that Jenny bought there in the mid-1970s. Leslie and her first husband moved in three doors down the next year. Their children grew up playing together. Danny Valdez and her parents arrived in 1999. Her sister Ronnie joined them later. Over time, neighbors lives intertwined, friendships formed over Little League practices, block parties brimmed with music, and kids ran barefoot through yards. Front doors often went unlocked. The street had an unofficial mayor, Todd Betts, at number 252-who-new everyone and took most of their trash cans to the curb each week. Danny said it was headquarters.
- [09:38]
Danny Valdez
It was the safe havens.
- [09:42]
Reece Thibault
When fire was first reported just after 6pm on that first Tuesday of 2025. It still felt far from West Flores, but the Santa Anas were blowing hard, sending embers flying for miles. Pacific Palisades, a community 30 miles to the west, was already being consumed. Jenny could tell the wind was going to knock out the electricity. Her son, working a graveyard shift, wasn't home. She grabbed her passport and tablet and escaped to her grandchild's house. The block wasn't under an evacuation order, but more residents began to flee. Leslie left. Darren lingered. He tossed clothes and shoes into his car. He loaded some things for his two kids, who lived part time with their mom in Texas and had just flown there. He was annoyed that he'd need to unpack it all when he returned home the next day. That's how nearly everyone left. As though they'd be back, leslie said.
- [10:42]
Leslie Anderson Aitken
While we were running for our lives, we didn't believe we were.
- [10:49]
Reece Thibault
Rani and Danny looked toward the mountains and saw an orange glow. It kept getting brighter, and their packing grew more frantic. By about 11pm Fire had sparked in West Altadena. The news spread quickly the next morning, through group chats and social media. The grade school and the hardware store both gone. The temple and the mosque, gone. Entire streets again and again. Gone, gone, gone. Inexplicably, Jenny's property had been spared. She felt relieved. Blessed. She said. God put his hand over our house. She wasn't prepared for the agony ahead. The ground was still hot when neighbors started trickling back. Skirting barricades, they began going through the ashes. In the early days, Darren went back often. He had the floor plan memorized. He knew when he was in the place that used to be the dining room or the hallway. On one visit, he found part of his dresser drawer and used it as a shovel to dig through the debris. He filled the trunk of his car with charred mementos, his boy's blue piggy bank, his mom's salt shaker shaped like the Empire State Building. Next door at the Valdez house, a melted white picket fence enclosed part of the yard. A welcome mat sat on the front stoop. It read, hello, you. This is my childhood, said Danny, surveying what little remained. Already the family was thinking about the future. Could they afford to rebuild? But Altadena was all she knew.
- [12:29]
Danny Valdez
Danny said, you know, that's just kind of how I felt like, where else are we going to go?
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Reece Thibault
Chapter 2 Dazed and displaced, the block was what bound the families of West Las Flores together. Now they were scattered to distant neighborhoods, a diaspora of fire Refugees living out of suitcases and trash bags. Their only belongings were whatever they had thrown in cars before driving away from their homes for the last time. Jenny's insurance company provided rooms for her and her son at a Hampton Inn in Arcadia, about 10 miles from Altadena. Leslie was in the same city, sleeping on her oldest daughter's sofa, while Darren was farther away, crashing in a friend's garage apartment. Ronnie and Danny, plus three kids and an elderly mother, found an Airbnb in Los Angeles. The first month cost more than $10,000. A family friend helped to pay for it. The four bedroom house was decorated in shades of white and gray. Dani said her three year old knew something was wrong.
- [13:42]
Danny Valdez
She refuses to call this home. This is not home. She will correct you like, no, no. My home burnt down in the fire. She'll tell you quick. This is the place.
- [13:54]
Reece Thibault
Even so, the temporary housing bought time. Everyone would need it. The paperwork was endless. They filed insurance claims, made exacting lists of every lost item, and sought assistance from an Alphabet soup of federal agencies. They applied for grants from a thicket of charities, swapped links to donation drives and posted personal stories to online fundraisers. Ronnie, who is 44 years old, and Danny, who is 32, took a break from their event planning business. Their inventory of faux flowers, silverware and linens lay among the ashes of their home and they focused on their new full time job. Late nights, they sat together at the dining table, parsing fine print and puzzling over their options. Each family's most consequential calculation stay or sell. Ronnie, who is the older sister, took charge of dealing with their insurance company.
- [14:53]
Danny Valdez
Said this there's so many decisions you.
- [14:55]
Ronnie Valdez
Have to make so fast. What are you going to do with the property? Are you going to rebuild? Are you going to sell? Are you going to do this? You know, then you have to deal with the emotions of everybody not being on the same page. And you, you can get lost in it, but you know it has to be done.
- [15:14]
Reece Thibault
Jenny was alone in her room at the Hampton Inn. She knew she should feel fortunate that her house survived. But dealing with a structure soaked in toxic smoke had become its own disaster. Nobody could agree on what inside was safe to keep and what wasn't. One assessor told her she could clean everything. Another said most would have to go. Her handwoven pillow covers from grease, her hundreds of porcelain figures, even her new massage chair. I'm being torn in 20 different directions, Jenny said, her voice strained with frustration. She was 78 with a son who has limited mobility. They weren't taking any chances. They wouldn't move back until they could be assured the house was clean. They settled in at the hotel, where Jenny stocked her cube of a fridge with takeout and kept extensive notes reminding her of all that needed doing. A close group of friends repeatedly invited her out, but she turned them down.
- [16:09]
Jenny Bridges
I don't like to share that much. Not because it's secret, but because it makes them feel bad. You know, like, what can they do? It's depressing.
- [16:22]
Reece Thibault
Most weeks she moved through the orbit of the Hampton Inn and the strip mall chain restaurants across the street. Day after day she watched murder mystery shows on hln, lost sleep and lost weight. Over and over she washed the clothes that she had recovered from her home. She could still smell the smoke. By March, the Valdez family was running out of time. They could afford only two months at their pricey Airbnb and had to find something longer term. Yet the area, beset by a housing crisis even before the fires, was now one of the tightest rental markets in the country. The sisters filled every interstitial moment with their search. They got relocation money through insurance, but a shaky credit score made landlords hesitant, and at every open house they ran into more people from Altadena.
- [17:18]
Danny Valdez
Ronnie said, we're not going to stand out. Like there's nothing different. You know, nobody's going to say, oh, I feel so bad for you. Let me choose.
- [17:32]
Reece Thibault
Chapter 3 Fire Nightmares the disaster followed them everywhere. For Leslie, it invaded sleep. Fire nightmares, she called them. She woke from the first with an unshakable sense of dread. Though she couldn't remember the details, she could tell something was changing. PTSD had replaced adrenaline and shock. She wrote about it on her Facebook page, what's up? In Altadena, where she was spending hours posting news updates for wildfire survivors, she described a fog settling over her, slowing the synapses in her brain. She'd become forgetful, trailing off mid sentence, and was having trouble balancing. At 71, she felt the instability of her new life with every step. Thousands of others could understand the struggle, the pain, the uncertainty, the exhaustion. It's visceral, it's gutting, and people are never the same afterward, said Jennifer Gray Thompson, who leads after the Fire, a non profit that advises communities recovering from wildfires. People will heal, but that's far off. Right now, it's like walking through mud with cement shoes. Leslie's son felt it in the wind. The 45 year old Darren used to love it when a breeze would blow hard, seeping in through the cracks of their house's old windows. But since the fire gusts made him panic, money was tight. Even with his chef's job at an upscale restaurant in Pasadena, Even as he stayed on with his friends. He'd expected to be there only a few weeks. Instead, it had been months. His grief snuck up on him at the dmv, the grocery store. The one thing that seemed to help was going back to West Las Flores, to the slab of concrete, to number 295. Darren would drop by evenings after work when a stark quiet fell over the empty neighborhood. He put a pair of speakers in the road. Who was going to complain about the noise now? He played Led Zeppelin, cracked a beer, and sat on the latticed driveway, alone on the block. Chapter 4 Uneven progress Rani and Dany had a stick together. Even when it seemed impossible to find an affordable rental with room enough for all six of them, even when it would have been easier to split up, they chose to stay close. Like everything they did, recovery would be a family affair. The Valdez's finally found a place in central Los Angeles, a two story house near uncles and cousins. At a time when many fire survivors were feeling isolated and pressured, they would be surrounded by loved ones. They signed a year long lease. Ronnie said as she and her family were moving. My mind. I can actually finally now rest my mind. Or maybe not. The sisters hadn't had much time to process what they'd been through. And like a debt deferred payment eventually comes due with interest. Rani paused as she packed a bag full of kitchen supplies and considered the silence that awaited them in their new space.
- [20:57]
Ronnie Valdez
I'm afraid everything might hit then, you know.
- [21:00]
Reece Thibault
I'm afraid everything might hit then. Dani was already struggling as the younger sibling. She was the one who had truly grown up in Altadena, and her days now were full of reminders that she was far from West Las Flores. She still took her kids to school in the area, making a three freeway drive into the past every morning. It was as if she was being pulled back. I just want to be out here, she said. After three months on her daughter's couch, Leslie found an apartment in her price range. Its 162 square feet allowed a mini refrigerator, mini microwave, and little else. In her cramped quarters, she ruminated on numbers she feared would never add up. She had lost her homeowner's insurance the year before, one of thousands in Altadena and the Palisades, whose plans were canceled when private firms deemed them too risky to guarantee. So she was stuck with the state backed California Fair plan, ominously known as the insurer of last resort. The payout was simple. The implications were not. Leslie would receive $500,000. She owed half that amount on her mortgage, and if her lender demanded it, she would be left with just over $200,000 to rebuild. Not nearly enough. And she had already been living on the edge. Long retired from jobs in retail and consulting, she'd relied on Social Security, food stamps, and what little she made renting her second floor to Darren. Leslie thought about how hard she had worked to keep that little bungalow in its rambling garden. She had moved in at 22 and and raised three kids, mostly as a single mom. To go back, she'd have to get creative. And probably lucky. How much could a shipping container home really cost, she wondered. What about a couple of tiny homes? One for her, one for Darren? No matter what, she knew it was going to take time, maybe close to a decade, before anything like the Altadena she remembered would return. And at her age, every year would be precious.
- [23:14]
Leslie Anderson Aitken
Leslie said, I definitely want to rebuild. I want to rebuild. Everything inside of me rejects the idea of not okay, but can I?
- [23:31]
Reece Thibault
Jenny, a retired software engineer, measured progress in increments. Lately they were amounting to something. She'd called the power company, wrangled an electrician, upgraded the house's wiring, pestered the water agency, met with an air conditioning specialist, got one quote to repair a retaining wall and then got another. The headway helped her relax, reconnect. She met friends for lunch at Chili's and got together with high school classmates. On the 61st anniversary of their graduation, she was again walking around the Rose Bowl, a four mile loop, and making the long drive from her hotel to church on Sundays. No longer did it seem like she was just sitting in the Hampton Inn, waiting. Jenny said, before, all I could think.
- [24:16]
Jenny Bridges
Of was being home. Being home. Now you know I'm expanding a little bit. A little bit.
- [24:33]
Reece Thibault
Chapter 5 Letting go in the end, the Valdez family's decision was straightforward. Ronnie made the call. They would wait for the right time and then put the place up for sale.
- [24:48]
Ronnie Valdez
I love Altadena, but I'm okay with letting go. About setting up or with my life and just everything, putting all this behind me.
- [24:56]
Reece Thibault
Their insurance payout wouldn't cover a full rebuild, so it was a financial decision. But it was also what Rani felt like was best for their 72 year old mother, whose early stage dementia had progressed since the fire. The house where she'd lived for a quarter century had been a source of stability Ronnie had to keep telling her they weren't going to rebuild. During a stop at the property in May, Ronnie said, this is depressing.
- [25:22]
Ronnie Valdez
This is depressing and I don't want to be in it. I don't want to be in it. I don't want to be around it. And I don't want to deal with the process of trying to wait till it gets back to Caltadena. You know, who knows how long that's going to take? Yeah.
- [25:41]
Reece Thibault
It was time to move on. From beyond the red caution tape rolled out by the Army Corps, Darren watched the hole at 295 WestLas Flores grow.
- [25:53]
Darren Anderson
I will find a way to build the house back as it was. And there's nothing wrong with having some crazy dream like that.
- [26:02]
Reece Thibault
Leslie had a different goal. As Darren watched, she told the crew to start scraping clear as much as.
- [26:08]
Leslie Anderson Aitken
Possible because I don't have insurance money to cover nothing except not even a whole build.
- [26:15]
Darren Anderson
So, yeah, not yet. Not yet. Mom. I don't think those are going to be coming.
- [26:21]
Leslie Anderson Aitken
Coming into a windfall.
- [26:23]
Darren Anderson
Mom, don't count.
- [26:24]
Leslie Anderson Aitken
Life is not Monopoly.
- [26:26]
Darren Anderson
Mom, stop. Stop being so negative.
- [26:28]
Leslie Anderson Aitken
Just you do not pass.
- [26:29]
Darren Anderson
Mom, stop.
- [26:32]
Reece Thibault
Later, Leslie said. It breaks my heart, but I can't be sentimental now. I've got to go on the path of least resistance. Still, dreams are stubborn and hope dies hard. Just three weeks later, her phone rang in the early morning. Leslie usually ignored unfamiliar numbers. Scammers had been calling constantly. This time she answered, a non profit she had met with months earlier had an offer she scarcely dared to to cover the cost of her rebuild. Leslie said, I'm gobstopped. I think I finally found the correct time to use that phrase. She burst into tears and called her family. She didn't consider herself a believer, but she thought this must have been God's work. It would change everything. Maybe. This is Leslie 2.0, she said. A week passed. The man from the organization had promised to get back to her with more details. When they finally talked, he said there had been a misunderstanding. Yes, there might be some assistance, but nothing was guaranteed. She'd have to apply for a grant. More forms, more paperwork. Another long shot. Life is not Monopoly. On the phone, her voice flat and resigned, she said, there's a little piece.
- [27:53]
Jenny Bridges
Of child in all of us that wants to believe in that. You know, that's that thing that keeps people, keeps hope alive, doesn't it? So we want to believe in that magical, happy, happily ever after fairy tale.
- [28:10]
Reece Thibault
But ever after, it turned out, would be just like ever before. She'd cobble together a living, buy herself more time, figure out later whether to rebuild, sell, stay, or leave. It was her way of coping, of hoping. Her son, meanwhile, was looking for a fresh start. Recent visits with his kids had given Darren more perspective. He still dreamed about a future in Altadena, but but he knew it would be his mom's decision. His friends would soon need him out of their apartment, and he began talking about moving to Texas. Maybe, he considered, some distance from the block would do him good. By July, a new Altadena was beginning to take shape. Hundreds of residents had already sold their properties. Yet more had requested permits to rebuild on West Las Flores. For Sale signs had been posted in front of several addresses. By early September, a Post survey of the street's homeowners found 11 who intended to return and five who did not. Five more weren't sure. At number 323, a team of cleaners had just spent two weeks scrubbing and swabbing Jenny's interior. It was a loud and intricate process. They opened every CD case, wiping each disk individually. They emptied all the drawers, scouring the knick knacks, the spare keys, and the TV remotes. After they cleaned the ash, soot, and microscopic particles off an item, the technicians put it back just as they had found it, just as Jenny had left it 174 days earlier. Elements of the house were preserved Pompeii, like in a pre fire state. Toothpaste still on the bathroom counter, a colander still in the drying rack, magnets still on the fridge. Other parts, beds, carpets, couches couldn't be cleaned and had to be thrown out. As Jenny walked through her home inspecting their work, she tallied the things she still needed to do before she could return. She said, I know it's a war zone, but I just want to go home. I'm so sick of looking at the four walls of my hotel. Standing in her garage with a door thrown open, Jenny could see burned out cars in one neighbor's driveway. Beyond it were the empty parcels where number 295 and number 281 once stood. Sometime this fall she would move back to the block, but looking at it now, she knew she wouldn't recognize anything. Thanks for listening again. My name is Reece Tebow. I narrated this story and reported it with my colleagues Nick Kirkpatrick, Melina Mara, and Alice Lee Bishop. Sand produced the audio for this piece.
- [31:26]
Constellation Narrator
At Constellation, we bring the energy powering America's growing economy every minute, every day. As the nation's largest producer of clean and reliable American made energy constellation is wherever you are.