Note: This is the second piece in a two-part series; read the first part here.
Nobody expected 2025 to start the way it did. In Los Angeles, the shrieking Santa Ana winds, arid conditions, and an abundance of dry brush created a willing host for the Palisades and Eaton Fires. As smoke began to rise over the Santa Monica mountains and then the San Gabriel hills, Angelenos steeled themselves for a disaster. Months later, more than 16,000 structures were destroyed. The region is still in recovery and, as healing continues, the scars from the blazes run far deeper than homes and material loss.
Despite the widespread damage and a spectacular lack of foresight from local government, something shifted in the heart of LA when flames engulfed houses and residents watched as nobody came to help. For lack of a better metaphor, a spark of protectiveness and care took hold and spread like wildfire.
Within hours of the blazes igniting, communities leapt into action. Grassroots distribution sites popped up in art spaces, restaurants, and small businesses throughout the city. Community-sourced donations flooded the hubs. Some individuals drove straight out to the burn lines to help people get out of their endangered houses or to clear dry brush from the street. The mutual aid ecosystem of Los Angeles — which had been steadily expanding and strengthening since the onset of COVID-19 and protest actions throughout the city in 2020 — now blossomed, soaring to new heights and capacities.
Mutual aid provided a key stopgap response to the devastation of the fires precisely because it did not rely on the government or institutions in order to operate. It was — and always is — guided and run by the energy of community members. In a moment where fire departments struggled to address expanding flames, evacuation shelters lacked basic supplies, and city officials faced the consequences of their choice to continuously cut the emergency services budget, the only viable solution for meeting the needs of displaced fire survivors was community care.
As flames ripped into the mountains on the Westside, fire fighting resources flocked to the Santa Monica mountains, an area with an exceptionally high concentration of wealth and property value. Meanwhile, on the Eastside, the Eaton Fire began to ravage Altadena — a predominantly Black, unincorporated area at the foot of the San Gabriel hills. Due to its unincorporated status, Altadena has neither a city council, nor a mayor, nor a fire department of its own. Thus it was entirely reliant on county and surrounding cities’ fire fighting support — some of which never materialized.
Heavenly Hughes, Altadena resident and Executive Director of My Tribe Rise, said that the only reason her elderly mother evacuated her house in West Altadena was because her neighbors — all senior citizens — came and got her out.
“I grew up seeing fires in Altadena. So it seemed like there should have already been a plan, there should have been some type of disaster plan in place,” Hughes said. “That was the first time that I recognized that our agencies were not taking care of our people.”
Some concerned individuals watched the neglect take place and decided to take matters into their own hands. Kaveh Naeeni, a community organizer with For the People LA and a resident of Pasadena at the time of the Eaton Fire, ran towards the active burn zone in Altadena and helped pull people out of their homes. After a few days of battling toxic smoke and fumes, Naeeni decided it was time to expand the scope of support for Altadena. He made a call to the Pasadena Job Center.
“I talked to Jose Madera [Pasadena Job Center director] and said we need people who don’t have breathing problems. There’s no fire department here. The fire department gave up on Altadena completely,” Naeeni said. “Jose said, ‘let me see what I can do.’ Three minutes after that he said, ‘I have 27 people ready to go.’ Pasadena Job Center had 500 volunteers by January 8 at 11 AM. Random people all came together and it became a huge operation.”
According to Naeeni and Hughes, people from all over Los Angeles showed up to support the community organizations that plugged the disaster response gaps in Altadena. Westside residents traveled from across the city to volunteer with the Pasadena Job Center and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) in clearing brush from streets and hauling flammable materials away from evacuation zones.
“It has been our community that has saved us,” said Hughes as she reflected on the support that those organizations received from volunteers in the acute fire response. “That’s all we have seen since January 8, the community coming out day after day and serving those affected.”
As questions and uncertainty loomed around insurance payouts, Red Cross assistance, and FEMA’s support in the aftermath of the Eaton Fire, mutual aid proved to be a reliable mechanism for getting immediate care and help to those who lost everything in the blaze. While government and larger disaster relief institutions set up shelters, they were unable to get essential items like clean clothes, hygiene products, and hot meals to people who fled the fires.
At Bernie’s Coffee Shop in Miracle Mile, the grassroots organization Community Solidarity Project received supply requests directly from evacuated families and organized a delivery system, sending volunteer drivers out to drop off items.
After he learned that the Red Cross staff at the Pasadena Convention Center were not handing out the items they had received from donations, Naeeni decided to circumvent the arbitrary barriers to accessing donations and put together a distribution effort right outside the Center. He placed a call to his friends at Bernie’s.
“With the help of Community Solidarity Project and Bernie’s Coffee Shop, we did a distribution across the street from the Convention Center,” Naeeni said. “I went and told the Red Cross staff, ‘Please send people, we are across the street. Tell your residents to come, we have donations.’”
Across the city, relief sites sprang up and launched into action to support displaced residents. An Arco gas station in Altadena became a bustling hub for community and essential supply distribution. Free haircuts, a taco grill, and lowriders painted a very Los Angeles portrait of disaster response.
Over at My Tribe Rise, Hughes and other organizers began the multi-phase process of supporting people displaced by the fire. With the monumental scale of loss, emotions were thick.
“First, we were grieving with everyone. That was our first response,” Hughes said. “With the beautiful response of the community, we were able to set up the We Will Rise resource hub. We decided to just start delivering. We had a list of items that had been donated by community members — brand new items — we were able to fill the whole hub.”
For a month and a half, Hughes and My Tribe Rise organized supply drop-offs to get items directly into survivors’ hands and kept the resource hub open twice a week. Then Hughes had an epiphany.
“I realized people wanted to see each other,” she said. “We started our power luncheons. We would invite our community members displaced to the luncheon, we would have a nice lunch and provide resources available.”
The luncheons proved to be a critical support infrastructure for Altadena folks who lost their homes. The My Tribe Rise team created individualized disaster plans for displaced residents, connected them with adjusters, and supported them with calls to the Red Cross and FEMA. Hughes and her cohort of organizers and volunteers also heard directly from fire survivors about the flaws in the formers’ response and support systems. For instance, many families attending the luncheons had several generations living under one roof — a cultural aspect that Red Cross and FEMA were not sensitive to and did not have specific programs to address. In situations like this, Hughes and My Tribe Rise listened to the feedback of folks who lost their homes and were getting denied assistance, then went to bat and advocated on behalf of these community members to secure their benefits.
“We have had over 2,800 people in the last eight months come to the luncheons,” Hughes told Knock LA, citing the profound impact that the grassroots support initiative has had during Altadena’s recovery. “But now we are dealing with forbearance and foreclosure and the county putting liens on people’s homes. It’s a different type of grief that I see people going through now. They’re still needing to be embraced.”
Both Hughes and Naeeni have not stopped organizing and fighting on behalf of fire survivors in Altadena, and show no signs of slowing down. For the two of them, the principle of solidarity is paramount, especially as new battles arise in the realm of immigration and federal agencies terrorize Black and Brown communities. Hughes said that, in light of increased violence against immigrants and day laborers, My Tribe Rise secured funding to hire undocumented folks to help senior citizens in Altadena pack up their homes.
“We are one body. We are one tribe. If one person is feeling it, we’re all feeling it,” Hughes said when explaining the ways her organization has stepped up to be in solidarity with immigrants. “After all we have been through, it’s just unbearable.”
The story of Altadena is still being written, but it would be incomplete without the inclusion of grassroots initiatives that undoubtedly saved countless lives. The experiences of Naeeni, Hughes, and Eaton Fire survivors reveal the uncomfortable but unavoidable truth that emergency systems in Los Angeles county were not willing nor capable of properly supporting marginalized people who needed help post-disaster. However, a stronger, evergreen force was ready and willing to take a stand for their neighbors — the community.
We would all do well to remember who showed up to fight fires when emergency services didn’t respond to West Altadena, who ran supplies directly out to families, and who stayed long after the fire’s containment to support people with the complicated road to recovery ahead of them. As other crises grip our region and our country, it behooves us to internalize the power of community in the face of state abandonment.
