Jason Deitch and Mike Griswold, two handymen at the artist collective Zosian Ranch in Altadena, fled the flames hours earlier, hurtling through smoke, winds howling and buildings collapsing. It caught fire and the surrounding trees exploded.
“We started hearing about the fire around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday,” Griswold said. “The wind was blowing hard and flames were consuming the valley. Brush started burning all around us. Embers were hitting us in the face. We started loading at 3:30 a.m. I headed south.”
“Houses were on fire. Everything was on fire,” Leach said. “There was no stopping it. It was apocalyptic.”
They packed two beat-up pickup trucks, looked battered and sleepless, and reconvened Wednesday morning in La Cañada Flintridge, a few miles northwest of Altadena. Wearing scarves and smelling smoke, they watched ash fall around the Eaton Fire as emergency vehicles and firefighters sped toward the gray-orange glow. The Eaton Fire killed five people and burned more than 10,000 acres near Pasadena and Altadena.
Deitch and Griswold, who describe themselves as carpenters, mechanics and sheep shearers, gathered in Ralph’s parking lot with others displaced by the destruction. They were from Zosian Ranch, a 45-acre community in the foothills of Altadena, founded 70 years ago by the late sculptor and craftsman Jiraiah Zosian. The ranch offers public tours, bills itself as a “natural retreat away from the city,” and has long been popular with intellectuals and artists.
According to the men, about 15 people, most of them artists, escaped the fire along with four horses, a donkey and more than a dozen chickens.
“We don’t know what happened to the 40 sheep, pigs and Brahman bull,” Leach said. “They ran into the forest and probably suffered burns.”
As the men talked, the sky above La Cañada Flintridge changed from black to gray to mustard. The wind pulled hard. The sun appeared and disappeared. A woman was sitting in a Mercedes fully loaded with luggage. Another man, who gave his name only as Joe because he was violating an evacuation order, brought a box of family photos, including weddings and ski trips, and a portrait of Abraham Lincoln that he had saved from his father’s house a few blocks away. I was standing near a truck full of stuff. .
“I ran up here from Torrance and grabbed everything I could,” Joe said. His pants and boots were soaked with water from hosing down his father’s house. He looked at the sky, the street, the empty storefronts. “We live on the border of urban wilderness,” he said. “It’s beautiful. That’s why we’re here. But if people think they can control Mother Nature, they’re a complete joke.”
The traffic lights were not working. The church was quiet. Sheriff’s deputies were knocking on doors and asking people to leave this normally quiet suburban area at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. One man was sleeping in his car at a Ralph’s near a couple who had fled Altadena but didn’t know where to go.
“I’m sure there’s a shelter in Pasadena,” he said, and his wife nodded. Several people, including a man with a camera, watched the sky as the smoke rose and moved, giving off a flash of light and then closing again.
“The worst part was last night,” said Michael Hudson, a carpenter and social worker from nearby La Crescenta, who had come to La Cañada Flintridge to check on the fire’s path. “But the wind is still steady. It’s coming through the canyon here. It’s just going to shoot down. You could have heard our house creaking.”
Hudson drove away.
Deitch and Griswold felt the wind. They were tired but full of life, finding it difficult to comprehend the fury they had lived through and the uncertainty that lay ahead.
“The flames hit me hard,” Deitch said, tightening his hat and blowing away his scarf. “They came down the hill at 130 miles an hour and cut through the Jeep Wagoneer like a torch. It hit all the buildings on the ranch below and swept it across the bridge.”
Griswold nodded.
“I saw the barn go up within 30 seconds,” he said. “You left so quickly.”
The men were carrying a trailer loaded with wood. Other belongings were packed in the cab and truck bed. They didn’t know exactly where to turn. They’ll probably keep the luggage in a storage unit for a month, Deitch said.
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