""If you just dropped in from another planet and you didn't know and you started looking at L.A. wildfires ... you would think the only area that was hit was Pacific Palisades," said Earl Ofari Hutchinson, president of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable. "West Altadena has gotten lost in the shuffle." The historically Black community, made up primarily of working-class families, didn't receive evacuation alerts until the fire had already descended on their neighborhoods."
"More affluent areas received prompt warnings and orders. Times investigations uncovered the alert failure in January of last year, and later found that almost no fire trucks were in that side of the community as the inferno raged through. Nearly all of the 19 people who died in the Eaton fire - all found within two square miles of one another - lived in this western section of town. It also experienced some of the most widespread fire damage."
The Los Angeles firestorm of January 2025 burned thousands of homes and killed dozens across Pacific Palisades and Altadena. National attention has concentrated on Pacific Palisades while Altadena received far less scrutiny. Celebrity victims and influential critics amplified concern about the Palisades fire, while congressional and administration attention has focused on that neighborhood. West Altadena, a historically Black, working-class community, received evacuation alerts only after the fire arrived and saw almost no fire trucks as the blaze swept through. Nineteen people died in the Eaton fire, most within two square miles in west Altadena. Residents report feeling overlooked and demand accountability for emergency failures.
Read at Los Angeles Times
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