Scroll down to read updates:
Updated Friday 10th at noon.
Updated Monday 13th at 2:30
Updated Thursday 16th
Last Update Tuesday 28th at 1:15
The precursor started in the early afternoon of 7 Jan 2025. Besides other times of the year, the “Santa Ana winds” almost always blow in January. There was nothing to indicate that this year would go horribly wrong. According fire.ca.gov the fire started at 6:18 PM. It was called just a “brush fire” then shortly after, because of the winds, it went to 200 acres, then 400 acres within two hours. Our power went out about 8:30pm, but due to the winds, not the fire.
As of 8:25 am the morning of the 9th, the Eaton Fire continued to be at 0% containment, 879 fire personnel assigned to the area and growth of the fire was significantly stopped. The fire size remained at 10,600 acres. This is per ColoradoBoulevard newspaper live updates (corrected link) If you look there start at the very bottom and scroll up as there are a log of pictures in the timeline.
I’ve personalized a couple of maps. One is an overview showing where we are in relation to the evacuated areas. The other is a close up map of the Altadena Business District.
Indented is the text that is part of the close up map.
Eaton Fire in Altadena, California, USA started at 6:18 PM on
the 7th of January, 2024.
Places of particular note that are gone from the top of the business district (Lake and Altadena Drive) down to my junior high school (Eliot) on the bottom image.
I’ll start with saddest – my church burned down:
Altadena Baptist Church top left of the bottom image, Building 2310 is Peggy’s house – unknown at this time if burned (update, it didn’t), but building 2340, Altadena Children’s Center (ABC owned), is burned. I was still in my Mother’s womb when my parents started attending ABC so I’ve been attending there literally all my life (I’ll be 77 in July). Peggy has lived in her house all that time and started attending ABC when I was a youngster. It burned on her 99th birthday.
East side of Lake, at least part of Eliot is gone, don’t know how extensive, but the bottom part of building close to Lake is burned. Update: the auditorium and the administrative offices portion of main building burned).
Across street to north, are Aldi and Grocery Outlet. In my growing up years, Aldi was Republic Federal Savings, where I had my first savings account. Grocery Outlet was Market Basket where my family did all it’s shopping. Commenters on Reddit claimed that the Jack in the Box and Grocery Outlet market were still standing (update, this stayed true).
On the west side of Lake, is the post office, then going north from there on both sides of the street, I’ve heard that much of both sides are either partially or totally burned. Middle image on east side is Fox’s Restaurant (est mid-1950s) where I waitressed as a part time job in 9th grade. Next door to south,the dry cleaners is gone, Fox’s is gone. The building north of Fox’s was the library until they moved in 1967.
Top left image you’ll see the Sheriff Station; bottom of block, unmarked, is the Fire Station. My understanding is that the property between the two burned and there is damage to part of the Sheriff Station. I don’t know about the Fire Station building itself sustained damage or if it was kept to the property between the two.
At the top right, the Altadena Congregational Church and St Mark’s are both gone, both long time churches in Altadena. I don’t know about the Christian Science church. Rite-Aid, top left is also gone.
Here’s a clip someone took of the devastation of the business district. It’s a Facebook Reel, about two minutes long. It starts along the Mariposa part of the business district, showing Altadena Hardware, then turning right and going south on Lake. About the 1:30 mark, there is a building under construction. That’s where I was born in an 8 bed “woman’s lying in” hospital (Altadena Community Hospital). Ironically, the new incantation was going to be homeless transitional housing to open this spring.
On Jan 8th, I drove along Washington to Altadena Drive. Although I “couldn’t pass go” to go north, I was able to go into the parking lot north of Risser Orthopedic (spine surgeon and ankle surgeon) and take some pictures of The Terraces where Peggy had moved into assisted living a couple months ago. That, and another convalescent place next to Risser both burned, and just north of that, the Jewish Temple.
When I first heard about my church, I was ok for close to half hour, then when I was watching the video clip again, it just sunk in and hit me all of a sudden and I started bawling. That clip is also on FaceBook. Don’t know if non-FaceBook people can see it or not. Here’s another clip, close up of the fire at the church. Here’s another. Leon, (one of the deacons) said: There were 2 fire fighters hosing down the children’s center. At the moment I was there (at least 45 minutes) Peggy’s and your [tenant] place hadn’t any signs of fire. Although, as I was driving off, another unit showed up because another apartment across the street on El Molino side was on fire.
As devastated as I am about the physical loss of my church and my childhood community, son Matthew put it all in perspective with a post of his (indented). The temporary he mentions is because the “temporary” structure was built in 1964 to augment the old church on the corner, that eventually was red-tagged because of the 1971 earthquake and subsequently torn down. I have lots of historical pictures on my SmugMug page, but it’s pass-worded. If you email me and say your association with ABC, I’ll send you the password.
In conclusion, Matt’s perspective is great.
As I’m sitting in a hotel room preparing for a professional development tomorrow, my family is safe. Our house is fine. My dad and step mom are safe as well.
We know of numerous people who lost their homes. Reports say over 1,000 structures in the Pasadena/Altadena area. Our church was also lost.
It always made me giggle to realize that the current church sanctuary was meant to be the “temporary.” I cannot begin to tell you the memories that I’ve had in this place…
One of my earliest visits when I was about five. Meeting some awesome people and calling them friends for my life. Working the sound booth for who knows how many hours. How many services and celebration band? Having my dad help me replace the basketball hoops and playing against the youth as an “old guy.” Watching George be contest guy during VBS. Bringing Amy to church the first time and Mrs DeVaughn thanking her for “bring me back.” Later, announcing to the church that we were engaged. Working with the 5k races and the LA Marathon. Hosting a free car wash for the community in the parking lot. Growing into various roles at church. Getting married, like so many of our close friends. Dedicating both of our kids. Even those we’ve not worshiped there regularly in many years, it’s still home when we return.
In our day and age, we’ve had to talk to our kids about our family/home. It’s not the four walls and the roof. It’s the people.
The building might be gone but the memories will always be there. Those memories will be passed down to each generation as our kids will tell their kids. The people are what make the congregation. ABC is the family.
2 Corinthians 4:7-9
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;
God is still in control. This building was always meant to be temporary. The lessons learned at ABC will continue to go with us. The building might be gone but the impact that the family had on us will last for generations.
As for us, at 1:40pm on the 9th, were still without power – the top of a tree next door broke off and took the power line with it. I set up the computer in the motorhome and we were running the generator. We have Starlink wifi on the roof. Dave ran a long extension cord from the generator into the house to the free standing main freezer. Things hadn’t yet totally thawed, so we made sure they were frozen solid and then he move it to the refrigerator/freezer.
Kathryn, Dave, and SunnyBoy (the Golden Conure)
Updated Friday 10th at noon
Was almost ready to post this update when I got a devastating link from my bother. I lived at 425 E Altadena Dr from age 8-16, then we moved to the Marengo house he mentions.
I don’t hold out much hope for my beloved childhood home at 2850 N Marengo given what I’ve seen in this video.
Unfortunately, you have to be logged in to Facebook to see the video. Facebook
Here’s a summary of what I can determine from following the video and comparing it to Google street view.
Heading east along Altadena Dr. from Lincoln to Lake
At the 0:49 mark you can see the Marengo sign
At the 1:12 mark you can see that the north side of Altadena drive is wiped out
At the 1:19 mark you can see 404 E Altadena, a couple of houses west of 425 on the south side of Altadena Drive
At the 1:25 mark you can see the driveway from 425 and the driveway to the east. 425 is gone.
At the 1:33 mark you can see the Santa Anita sign.
At the 1:44 mark you can see the St. James Pl sign
Santa Rosa (Christmas Tree Lane) is at 1:57
The beautiful Tudor at 2:00 looks ok. I always loved that house and dreamed of owning it one day.
Stats on the 10th: 13,690 Acres, 3% Contained. Started near Altadena Drive and Midwick Drive, Altadena/Pasadena. Resources 1603 personnel, 203 engines, 17 dozers, 39 water tenders, 17 crews.Complicating things are that many of the hydrants have run dry. They are telling people not to use the water for ANYthing due to possible contamination, and the water pressure issues. There are many places (like the Bad Weather Shelter that our church supports along with other churches in the area) that are providing donated water and food.
From all accounts Peggy’s house is ok, as is part of the Children’s center. So far, we know that 16 church families are now homeless (update, 18).
Eliot: the auditorium is the northernmost part of the main building is destroyed. I’ve seen pictures of the gutted interior. I have add those, along with other pictures I have taken, and will take, and put them on my SmugMug page.
We’re still w/o power with restoration still TBD on the city power page. Our outage only affects 18 customers.Other spots in the city, the outages affect many more. My guess is that the businesses will get restored before residences. (Update: restored sooner than expected, as it was restored about 2pm on the 10th).
Dave continued to rotate the extension cord between the refrigerator/freezer, the free sanding larger freezer, and the small free standing freezer, so we aren’t losing any of our food. We go out to the motorhome to cook in the microwave, and for his coffee. Next door neighbor has a portable generator for his most urgent needs, and he’s come over here to charge the unit. All the immediate neighbors know they are welcome here to charge things. A couple of neighbors with health issues have gone to hotels. Another has solar generated power.
Yesterday afternoon (9th), Dave plugged in the electric chain saw and cut up the treetop to restore the street to two lanes instead of one. A person from down below the freeway is roaming around to see where he could be of help. He stopped and moved pieces of the tree while Dave sawed. He was surprised at how Dave moved the wire. Dave was pretty sure the wire wasn’t live, but he treated it as if it were, and threw a fabric strap around it to move it until he was able to know for sure that was/is dead. Dave’s pretty smart that way about knowing what will conduct and not conduct so that the safest method is used.
Today (10th), I will run some errands, and do some reorganizing of the motorhome which I’ve been wanting to do for awhile. Keep watching this page for further updates during the next week.
Updated Monday 13th at 2:30
High resolution Satellite view of part of the Eaton fire area
https://soar.earth/maps/2025-los-angeles-wildfires-10-jan-2025-107279?pos=34.16476805335163%2C-118.123774751496%2C17.97
Move and Zoom around until you see Latitude 32.18407328 and Longitude -118.12943908 and you’ll see the Eliot auditorium and top part of sports field. You can navigate from there. Lat/Long is on the Eliot sports field, the intersection to the left is Lake and Calaveras. One block left is El Molino. The NE corner was Altadena Baptist. I’ve mentioned Peggy’s house and you can see it survived.
There are other parts of west Altadena that are not included in the satellite overlay, so we can’t tell about some of the houses. However, some of it is in an aerial view of the Eaton Fire’s destructive trail here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUGOl4bA2oI
Updated Thursday 16th
Altadena Baptist Church website:
I’ve started adding pictures taken by myself and others, to Eaton Fire Jan 2025 on my SmugMug page. The photos have captions of one sort or another.
If you are curious about specific addresses in Altadena and whether that address survived, there is a database, along with many pictures. That interactive map is found here: https://recovery.lacounty.gov/eaton-fire and the legend is here.
Last Update Tuesday 28th at 1:15
Today, I corrected some typos and similar things. Also added some links throughout, and some minor updates within the previous entries. Life for the Bassett household is pretty well back to normal. The water warnings (about contamination) have been lifted. The house and motorhome seemed to have been pretty well sealed as there is no smoky smell in them. The inside of the car still has a slight smokey smell, but doesn’t cause any coughing or sneezing etc. Jackets that were worn during the those few days have all been washed to rid the smokey smell. I still have periods of being weepy eyed when thinking of all the “places” from my childhood that I lost, but that is a normal part of grieving. All that is left is to be thankful that Dave and I don’t have any material loss; and pray for all those who lost their homes, churches, and businesses.