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A week after the Eaton fire destroyed thousands of homes in Altadena, the scope of the disaster is starting to come into focus, but still feels unreal for one multi-generational family.
Three generations of Danielle Stone’s family lost three homes in the fire. An untold number of memories and photos are gone, but like many homeowners in Altadena, that horrible reality still feels like a dream.
“It does feel weird that we can’t go home,” she said. “It doesn’t feel as real. You go to sleep and you wake up and you’re like, ‘Is this real?’”
The neighborhood nestled in the foothills sits smoldering, leveled, unrecognizable and off limits to the local residents with 16 confirmed dead and more expected to be found as emergency officials search the wreckage. More than 4,700 structures were destroyed, displacing thousands of families, in some cases uprooting multiple generations from a community they called home for decades.
Danielle (“Dani”), 37, and her husband Bryan Davila, 35, bought their first home in 2022 on Wapello Street, about half a mile from where the hiking trailheads lead into the Altadena hillsides, and about a mile away from her childhood home, where her parents now live.
It was important for her to put down family roots in Altadena, where her parents raised Stone and her sister, and where her grandmother raised six children. All three homes are within two miles of each other.
The year after they moved into their home, Stone and Davila welcomed their daughter, Melina. It was the home where she learned to walk, and every morning they showed her the nearby mountains from their wooden deck.
“We would take Meli out and call them Meli’s mountains, because it was such a beautiful view,” Stone said.
But that view turned into a horror on the evening of Jan. 7, when Santa Ana winds ripped through the foothills and a fire ignited in Eaton Canyon.
There was little time to think that night. Like so many others in the foothill community, the couple packed their essentials. They called her father, Rene Stone, to come over and assess the situation. They also tried to put their daughter to bed.
For some in Altadena, the fire took away their place of work and their home.
Davila told his wife she needed to pack as though she was never going to see her home again.
“But even as I was saying that, I’m thinking with that mindset ... you still don’t really believe it,” he said. “A lot was lost, because honestly in my heart I thought I’d be coming back home.”
Stone and Melina drove to her parent’s house, about a mile away, on Terrace Street, thinking they would be safe moving further southwest. Her father and Davila stayed behind to water down their house and the wooden deck.
The Eaton fire cut a brutal swath through Altadena and a cherished way of life in this eclectic foothill community it upended.
As they left the home on Wapello Street, Stone subconsciously said goodbye to the house as Meli’s mountains glowed red with fire and smoke.
The power also went out at her parent’s house and the cellphone service turned spotty, leaving the family to piece together information while sitting in the dark. She tried to go to sleep in her parents’ bed with her daughter, with her parents offering to sleep in the living room.
By early morning, it was clear that the fire was approaching her parents’ home as it filled with smoke.
The air outside was choked with ash. They put Melina in a carrier and tried to shield her with a blanket, but the everyday routine of putting her into the car was filled with terror with the firestorm approaching.
It was clear that the family had to leave, but it took some time to convince Stone’s 89-year-old grandmother, Helena Montanez, to leave her home of 60 years, located nearby on Glenrose Avenue. She was opposed to the idea. Stone’s mother, Dana Stone, wanted to make sure that everyone would leave together. The family’s roots in the San Gabriel Valley stretch back over 100 years, when Stone’s great-grandmother Andreita Gonzalez opened a small grocery store in Pasadena.
Sometime around 3 a.m. a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy announced on a bullhorn that it was time to evacuate and Montanez relented.
Eventually, the family fled in a caravan of cars, stopping to regroup at Caltech in Pasadena where Rene Stone has worked for more than 35 years as an equipment mechanic. The family, including Montanez, relocated to Davila’s sister’s home in Hacienda Heights.
All three family homes were destroyed in the fire, the family learned on Wednesday, along with countless other homes.
Dani Stone understands what happened — the neighborhood that was home to generations of her family is gone — but that reality does not line up to her memories: of family holidays at her grandmother’s house, walking barefoot through her frontyard, walking the hiking trails, or the time she and Davila spent with her parents during the pandemic to try and save money for the house they would eventually buy.
Her family’s story, along with the rest of Altadena, is one of working-class people finding a refuge in L.A. County and creating a community for Latino and Black neighbors.
“My grandma sacrificed and did everything she could to build a safe home for her and her family,” she said. “My parents, you know penny for penny, saved and worked super hard to do whatever they could to create a safe home for me and my sister. For Bryan and I.”
Davila, the son of Nicaraguan immigrants, and Stone want to do the same for their daughter.
There’s no doubt in Stone’s mind that her family wants to rebuild in Altadena, because their home on Wapello Street had a rose garden, which they hope to plant again. Melina’s middle name is Rose, named after Pasadena and Davila’s grandmother, Rosita.
“It’s very beautiful,” Stone said, recalling the image. “That was one of the reasons that we fell in love with the house.”
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