By Ethan Cohen
Danny Peters and his brother were new homeowners, living together in a house at the foothills of Sierra Madre, a city southeast of Altadena.
Having moved to the city in the third grade, the 21-year-old journalism major at Long Beach State was preparing for his last semester before graduation, balancing school, work and the responsibilities of maintaining a home.
That all seemed secondary as Peters frantically documented his belongings, snapping photos and videos of everything in the house.
Outside, the roaring Santa Ana winds carried embers from the nearby Eaton Fire towards the hills, filling the air with the sharp scent of smoke.
The fast-moving flames of the Eaton and Palisades Fires ripped through communities, destroying thousands of homes and structures and killing at least 28 people.
Propelled by fierce Santa Ana winds and an exceptionally dry climate, the conditions proved ideal for wildfires to spread at an alarming speed, causing residents to scramble as the flames approached their homes.
The remnants of Christmas decorations can be seen in Upper Hastings Ranch as the Eaton Fire burned through the area on Jan. 8. The Eaton Fire killed 17 people as the blazes rapidly took over while firefighters attempted to fight the spread. Photo courtesy of Danny Peters.
Around 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 7, Peters received a call from his grandmother. She had been following news coverage of the Palisades Fire and reached out to him with her growing fears.
“She said if anything happened, I’d have to go down and grab her,” Peters said. “I told her that’s miles and miles away. It’s no big deal. It’s not a problem for us. And so I kind of brushed it off and laughed about it.”
An hour later, his aunt called him on her way home to notify him about a new fire that started in Eaton Canyon, a small hiking area where people he knows often visit.
Over the next few hours, Peters watched the news and received calls from friends and family asking about his condition and whether he was leaving.
When he stepped outside, he was greeted by an orange glow in the sky. Trying to stay calm about the situation, Peters started putting together a duffle bag of things he would need in case of evacuation.
At around 8 p.m., his aunt called him again to inform him of the evacuation warnings for the area.
“That’s when I started running around, grabbing our safe full of important documents and stuff,” Peters said. “I started grabbing picture albums, throwing together a bunch of random knick-knacks and memorabilia…and I threw it all in my car.”
While waiting for the evacuation orders, Peters tried to remain calm. He ate dinner while watching news updates. The tension was palpable, but he focused on preparing for the worst.
Over the next 30 minutes, he meticulously photographed and filmed every room in the house, documenting belongings he might need to show insurers later.
This precaution was vital given the nature of the fires. In recent months, insurance companies canceled tens of thousands of home insurance policies across California, leaving many homeowners uncertain about how they would pick up the pieces if their homes were destroyed.
At 10 p.m., the evacuation orders finally arrived. Peters grabbed his dog, packed the last of his essentials into his car and took one final look at the home he and his brother had only recently begun building their lives in.
“It was kind of a surreal moment leaving the house because the thought went through my mind like, shoot, this might be the last time I am ever in my home,” Peters said.
Peters went to his grandmother’s house in a safer area and waited. Since he had no power, he watched the updates through his phone. At one point, his Ring doorbell camera stopped working.
“That kind of freaked me out a bit more,” Peters said. “At that point, I had no contact with my home…I had no idea if it was burning or not.”
He stayed in his jeans, kept his shoes on and prepared in case he and his grandmother needed to evacuate from her home. Eventually, he fell asleep after peering through the windows at the burning hills inching closer to his home.
At 6:30 a.m. the following day, after only an hour of sleep, Peters decided to check on his house. However, he faced pushback from the police guarding the street entrances that led to his home.
He found a back alley to drive through, speeding down the empty streets of what felt like an eerie ghost town.
“I just kind of start sneaking my way up [the road] to get to my house, and then I turn on my street to the most terrifying thing,” Peters said. “One of the first things I saw was one of my neighbors’ houses had burned down about three houses east of my house.”
As more of the neighborhood came into view, his fears abated. His home was still standing. Peters drove further into the city to check on his aunt’s house, which was also intact.
“It was a huge sigh of relief going back to my grandmother’s house and being able to sit there and have some peace knowing that everything was all right for us at least,” Peters said. “I have a bunch of friends who lost their homes, which is unfortunate, but for us, we got very lucky.”
According to Karen Clark and Company, a disaster modeling firm renowned for its post-catastrophe damage assessments, the California fires have caused at least $28 billion in insured damage, with likely additional losses from uninsured damages.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, joined by Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, Senate Pro Tem Mike McGuire, lawmakers and local leaders, signed legislation at a press conference in Pasadena on Thursday, Jan. 23.
The legislation allocated $2.5 billion in relief to support response and recovery efforts in Los Angeles.
“We are all in this together,” Newsom said. “This is about distilling a sense of hopefulness.”
For Peters, the cleanup was relatively easy. He relegated most of his free time to cleaning the debris from his backyard pool. However, he believes it will be a while before a sense of normalcy is restored to the community.
“I think it’s kind of just a waiting game for organizations like FEMA, to go in to assess [the area] to make sure it’s fine, to clear the debris and then finally, allow people to go back up and start rebuilding,” Peters said. “I mean, I feel like it’s going to be at least, probably, five years or so until some homes are kind of put back up.”
