Altadena: Four Stories
March 28, 2025 at 12:42AMMyriam Gurba, Moriah Ulinskas, Carolyn Castaño, and Merrill Feitell are members of the community in Altadena, California. There, 17 people died and 9,000 buildings were lost after the Eaton Fire ravaged the area in early January. For Places Journal, each offers a personal recollection of the event and its aftermath—four perspectives on the legacy of the fire in their lives and their community.
Many of Butler’s readers refer to her as a prophet, but she insisted that her ability to make accurate predictions was the result of her study of history. Her speculative fiction eerily anticipated many of the calamities we now face, including wildfires caused by climate change. Published in 1993, her novel Parable of the Sower opens with an accidental blaze set in February 2025: “We had a fire today. People worry so much about fire, but the little kids will play with it if they can. We were lucky with this fire. Amy Dunn, three years old, managed to start in her family’s garage.”
This January, a blaze began in Altadena’s Eaton Canyon. From my porch, I watched as the brightest orange overtook the San Gabriel Mountains, turning them the same color as the marigolds that I brought to the cemetery in November. Santa Ana winds moving more than 100 miles per hour carried embers into neighborhoods where wooden bungalows ignited, palm trees combusted, and coyotes panicked. More than 9,000 buildings were destroyed. To quote Butler, we were lucky with the fire. When I evacuated, I took a small bag with me. In it was a small jar filled with plants harvested from the forest that was now burning. This was my small way of trying to save the forest by preserving her seeds.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2025/03/27/altadena-four-stories/
via IFTTT
Watch