Jan 8th

As I was out at a coffee shop working on the 7th, got a new fire alert at Eaton canyon close-ish to my home, about a 15 minute drive to the east. Kept an eye on the fire alerts on the map while at the coffee shop. Suddenly, around 7pmish the winds were getting bad at the coffee shop in Burbank, where winds aren't AS bad as Altadena where I live (the previous night, they were goin up to like 80 plus miles per hour at times), so I knew the winds were much worse up the mountain and it was time to get the hell back home and see what's goin on with my housemates. As I drive home I can see the fire on the mountainside, still a ways away from our place.


I arrive home, and housemates Tom (lived in this home since 70s) and Laura are okay, the evacuation line was still not moving towards our specific area of the neighborhood. Tom tells me that he has seen brush fires for decades that burn on the mountainside and never reach the neighborhood, also at the time the wind was blowing eastward (we were west, upwind of the fire and smoke) so he wasn't worried but Laura was worried and packing up essentials, so I decided to pack up essentials and the few family heirlooms Ive managed to get from my Dad's place, toiletries, some clothes, etc. and go hang in the living room with them. We kept an eye on the news and kept a watchful eye on the fire map evac zones and any changes to ours. Our zone was still in the yellow- just a warning zone.

By now it's about 10PMish, me and Laura hear some explosions in the distance, and we think it's the 60-80ish mile and hour winds and gust blowing down huge heavy objects.


I have friends a bit north in an area called Castaic (by 6 flags) who are checking up on me and saying that I can totally crash at their place if I need to get away. I say I might take them up on the offer, but wanted to stay as long as possible to help my housemates wrangle their daughter Rose's cats Freya and Willow if necessary (both are older, 60s,and I wanted to stay around and help if they need as Rose's cats are very timid when she's not around and might prove difficult to put in carriers. Rose was out of town, drove to San Francisco to see a friend. Laura has one cat, Kiki, who is older and easily placed in carrier.


The power goes out, stays out for just like 20 minutes, comes back on. We hang out a bit longer and the fire evac lines start getting closer down the mountain towards us, but not our zone yet. power goes out again and doesn't come back on, it's about 12AM now so we decide to try getting shut eye for a bit. I retire back to my room. By now though, there is a smokey smell in the house. I'm hoping the converted garage studio I live in is better at keeping it out as my sinuses are absolutely fucked and I literally have no membrane in the right side of my sinuses so any smoke burns me. 


I try resting but the smoke filters in worse and by now it's about 1:30amish, I decide to message housemates that I'm heading out to my friends' place in Castaic and they wish me a safe drive.


I drive away from the house with just the barest of essentials, and priceless family stuff from Dad's. My thinking was that I was just escaping smoke and Ill be back once the fire is contained. I go north a bit to see the fires a little better, to see exactly where it is as the fire maps are not the most accurate. I reach the evac zones and turn further west, away from the fire. The fire had crept north above our home and west now, as the wind was blowing southwest and that's why the smoke was seeping into our home.


As I finally make it as far west in Altadena as I can, I post up and map out my route to my friends in Santa Clarita. Unfortunately, ANOTHER FUCKING FIRE has popped up on the bottleneck choke point of the highway that I needed to take to reach my friends (the 5 freeway), and decide that I will just study fire maps, wind direction, and air quality maps and find a motel where there is no chance of my sinuses and throat burning, and where power wasn't knocked out. Friends in Castaic didn't have power as winds knocked it out, but no fires near them luckily.


I settled on Santa Ana (ironically, since the hell-winds are called the Santa Ana winds), as the smoke is blowing well out of the way from there and air quality was in the green. I end up driving down there pretty fast as it was about 3am when I left. Search for motels for a bit there, any that would let me check in at 4ish am for under 75$.


By about 6AMish, I find a place I can pay online with paypal as my card is lost. As Im waiting for this motel room to become available, I see that our zone in Altadena has finally become an evac zone. Earlier, as I was searching motels in Santa Ana, I was looking at the map and literally a horseshoe shape of evac zones were forming around OUR zone, but we didn't get the evac notice til about 5 to 6amish?


Before grabbing the motel, I decide to call Laura and see how things are going.


I call Laura, she answers and is hyperventilating, barely able to talk. She tells me Tom couldn't catch Rose's cats Willow and Freya (she left early in her own car while Tom would drive following his own down after catching the cats), and then the neighbor's tree directly across the street directly north of the house had caught fire. The wind is blowing at fucking 60 to 99 miles per hour in gusts altering speeds southwards. Tom was trying to hose that tree fire down and he refused to leave right away. He was using the garden hose to put out small fires around our house in the yard.


So I IMMEDIATELY rushed back to Altadena to try and force him out of there and try catching the cats. I had $13 in cash and change, drove to the nearest gas station and put in some gas after a panicked emotional moment throwing the change on the counter and the clerk kindly counting it all. Then my fucking car wouldn't start (happens when the fuel level is real low consistently) but I force the ignition anyways and it starts, then I fly north back to Altadena. I call Rose after Laura puts me on hold to talk to Tom, Rose tells me Tom has couldn't find the cats, he tried keeping the doors open when he left but the winds literally slammed them shut. (or maybe Laura told me this, my panicked brain is mixing up some of these details!)


I was absolutely not going to sit in some fucking motel while the family that has immensely helped me out, provided me with such a peaceful place to stay for 4 years (and Rose had been a wonderful friend too before I moved up there, AND helped me through my heavy depression in 2019), was experiencing the most hellish moment of their life. I knew that I could get there in 38 minutes and am agile enough to help Tom find cats and convince him to leave if I need to.



As Im driving closer to Altadena, it's almost 7am, Im heading westbound towards it. I see a massive plume of sickly gray smoke coming from the mountainside, obscuring everything southwestward down the hills all the way to the ocean. Unfathomably expansive. I pray that it only burns the uninhabited places and people are okay. I pray our home is untouched, Tom is safe, and we can get cats out. As I approach the smoke, I use knee to drive for a second as I quickly take off my undershirt and soak it in water, wrap it around my face. I tried finding my gas mask earlier as I was packing essentials earlier to help with smoke, but couldn't find it anywhere.


Literally a few miles out of Altadena, my car fuel light came on, it was running near empty. Then I take Allen exit and am in the smoke, I drive up road towards the home. People are evacuating and heading south, I know the neighborhood like the back of my hand so I take the side roads to avoid evacuees and authorities. As I approach our house, the smoke gets thicker, the sky is darkened, and embers are flaring around sparking all over the place, scattering into people's yards. There were embers being blown from the fire on the mountainside all the way into the neighborhoods. 


It was hell. It was absolute hell. I get even closer, taking alleys to avoid downed power lines and fallen trees in my way. There are now entire homes in flames, some reduced to husks. Tree and plant debris lining all of the sidewalks and streets. I dodge around a flaming car to take a side street but the heat from the houses down that street that were completely on fire was too much, wasn't risking that so I quickly turn around. The quality of light was eerie, the only source of light being from the fires of homes, trees, and cars bouncing off the smoke sky.


I eventually make it to the house. The neighbor across street north of us had their roof on fire completely. All around me there are explosions. Gas tanks in cars, propane tanks, and homes' windows bursting from backdrafts. The explosions are happening in intervals of about 30 seconds to 2 minutes, consistently. I hear homes and business structures groaning as their walls collapse, the roofs fall in, it is awful. It feels like I have been transported to a warzone. It did not feel real. I am terrified. 


I park, facing downhill ready for fast escape, KEEPING CAR ENGINE RUNNING as the fucking thing had been not starting when my gas is low, like it did earlier in Santa Ana. I also have my windows rolled down as my car has recently been locking itself when I am out of it and the engine is running.


Our home thankfully wasn't on fire. First thing I do is try the doors but they were locked. I try kicking in the front door but am not strong enough, so I take furniture on the deck on east side of house and literally smash them into pieces as I hit them into the 2 glass window doors. Unfortunately, I break through the double pane glass into the wrong door, it wont open, and realize it might take too long to break in the other door. I DO have my house keys in the ignition but literally cannot risk taking my keys out (fastest way to do it) as my car might not start again. So I run back into car, manage to take off house key, then open door. I spend the next hour looking for cats. 


I start by opening all the doors and propping them open with chairs from the kitchen table, so hopefully the cats might run out. I search everywhere for the cats, crawling under beds and tables and find one, Freya, deep under the tiny thin space under Rose's closet.


I grab her firmly by the scruff to pull her out of there, poor thing is terrified, and as she struggles I try putting her in a blanket and she starts attacking my hand. Unfortunately, in my panic and desperation, I drop my phone light, the only thing illuminating my search (the house is completely dark without power, the only light coming in is close to the doors from the firelight). Freya escapes and I am so fucking pissed at myself. 


I also found Willow, but she constantly moves away from me through the rooms. I eventually found her under the 2 person reclining mechanical couch, but as I try reaching for her she walks quickly away. The last thing I see she is walking fast towards the two double doors on the deck, never see her again for the rest of my search.


I alternate from searching the house for the cats, to going into my studio and grabbing some things. Valuables I can sell later. First things I grab are my family photos from when we lived in Texas, photos of Dad and me and family. I figure the time I spend doing a fast sweep of my studio will calm cats down a little bit so maybe they might be easier to find when I go back to searching for them. 


About 20 minutes into my alternating cat search in house and grabbing my items from my converted garage studio, I see this older man 70s or 80 years old drive up and parks at the house directly across from us on east side of our house (deck and double door facing side). He calmly walks out looking up at the blazing sky, looking around, glances at me offhandedly and says nonchalantly "What an adventure, huh?". It fucking felt like I was in the Twilight Zone.


He walks down driveway towards his house and I resume my search/ frantic grabbing of my possessions. During this, I've also grabbed and untangled the garden hose and was trying to spray inside the rooms in main house, I also clogged up each sink in the main house and my own in the garage studio with toilet paper and stoppers, and clogged the overflow drainage holes too in some desperate attempt to flood the house while I left.


There was also a dead tree stump in the front yard Tom was using as a stand for a pot of succulents (I think it was actually my old succulents I brought when I first moved in), and the dead stump was catching fire from the inside. I kept spraying it putting it out then eventually tucked the hose under the succulent pot over the cracks so it would consistently just trickle in and put the fire inside out.


 All the while, I've been monitoring the house directly north of us across street with the tree that was on fire that turned to the roof being on fire. Soon, the window (thankfully facing east, not the ones facing south right at me) explodes from a backdraft and a small tornado of fire erupts from the house. Hellish. Only ever seen that in movies and now I witnessed it in real life from the beautiful little white house I would park across from every day. for 4 years. fuck fuck fuck.


About 30ish mins into my search/grab, the neighbor's house diagonally behind ours in the backyard (caddy corner?) has smoke starting to come out of the attic vents. Their house's roof was less than a foot away from the 1 bed 1 bath house on Tom and Laura's property (they were renting it out to an elderly musician Jimmy), and that house was connected to the carport that Tom turned into his personal storage for things, the roof of which was also less than a foot away from the converted garage studio I was living in. The studio is directly attached to the house.


I tried turning on the hose in the backyard to try spraying down Tom’s storage carport area, but barely any water was coming out this time. I knew time was even more limited in finding the cats, the search continued. About 45 minutes into search, Tom's carport storage area's roof caught fire. My studio was next. I abandon the grabbing of my things in the studio completely and focus the rest of the time I had on searching for the cats.


Another thing that happened about halfway through this hell was some shit out of Black Mirror - two guys on dirt bikes in helmets arrived at the house the weird old man was parked at, for some reason I thought they arrived to help the guy or random people. Them and the old man all talked for a bit and one of the guys took out his phone and started recording, I thought he was just documenting things but then he starts talking in this mock reporter voice saying "we are now live in Altadena, Californiaaa" LIKE IT WAS A FUCKING JOKE. Like the destruction of hundreds of lives in this neighborhood was fucking entertainment. My body and brain were prioritizing survival and getting cats but I was fucking infuriated. the piece of shit walked down driveway with the rest and I took a recording of him and the motorcycles' licenses. Arizona Plates. idk why, but I was angry, ran back to house to continue.


Near the end of the hour ordeal I was out there, during the last 15 minutes after seeing Tom's carport storage catching fire and I was focusing on just the cat search, I found Freya again- she was under the other couch- the three person mechanical recliner one. It was impossible to reach through and get her out, she was deep in it, I try lifting it but it seemed too heavy.


I run back out to ask old man to help, he immediately waves me off saying his back is messed up and cant. By then, a young couple was frantically packing a car full of stuff out of the apartment directly next to old man and shitty dirt bike kid's house. I ask them for help just lifting the couch for a second so I could get my housemates’ cat out from under it, and they say sorry we can't we have to grab our stuff.


So I run back inside and this time, I grab cat carrier and lay it in the living room. I just fucking slowly lift the whole heavy couch by myself and look over and see Freya leave around the other side, I am careful to not drop it in case she went to the other side, did not want to crush her. so I slowly place it back down upright. 


Thankfully Freya went from under the couch to the far corner of the room, and managed to get stuck in between wall and the pile of blankets and pillows. I had easy access to her from above, grab cat carrier place it next to me. This time I place my phone with flashlight in a way it kind of lights the area, with both hands I calmly grab her around from the top, and she struggles less this time and gets in the cat carrier. In that moment, I felt one of the most intense feelings of being thoroughly grateful Ive ever experienced in my entire life. I immediately place her in passenger side of car. 


By now, the neighbor's house directly north of our home that was ablaze had the roof collapsed, and the walls were falling outwards into the street towards our house. I spent the last sweep looking for Willow just in case she didn't leave, but like I mentioned earlier, she ran towards the double doors of the deck and I never spotted her again. Still searched just in case.


This last time, I was deepest in the house in Tom and Laura's room (shares a wall with my garage studio), I rip off the blackout curtain they have in front of their sliding glass door to the backyard and was about to open their bathroom door to the backyard (just more escapes for Willow in case she was still in the house) when I hear a man yelling into the house. He was saying to get out over and over again until I ran out. It was a fireman. He told me the roof of OUR house had now caught fire and I needed to get out.


I told him there might be a cat inside and if there was any way they could spray the house, there was still time to save it, but he straight up told me that they didn't care about cats, that I needed to get out and evacuate. He got in a smaller emergency truck and takes off.


A power line from a downed electrical pole was hanging, blowing around a bit north of my car in the street, a full sized firetruck comes down the road and I point at the cord trying to warn them and their front left wheel almost gets caught in it, then they back up and manage to drive over it. They disappear down the street.


As the firetruck was taking off, the shitfucks on the dirt bikes walked by me wordlessly, got on their bikes and while looking at me revved their engines realllyy fucking loud a mere arms' length away from me and then took off down the street. I had ash and dirt and soot on my face above the wet shirt I tied around my nose and mouth, must've looked disheveled. No "how are you" or "are you okay" or anything just fucking weird and cold fucking freaks.


I was standing by the old man, lamenting about how they could just spray our house right now and save the cat and our home. He was now weirdly kind, he put his hand on my shoulder and told me I need to just take care of myself now. I ask him who the guys were and he says his neighbor Ian's sons. I take note of this.


Then I ask him if he has any cash on him as I have literally nothing and will barely be able to make it out of Altadena if at all. He kindly gives me $11 from his wallet. Wishes me luck. 


Like some last sick joke this hellscape wants to pull on me, a thick plume of dark smoke comes barreling down the street southwards towards us. I look at our home one last time, get in my car as the dark cloud envelopes me and the car, and slowly drive away. As I drive towards main road to get out of there, I see more houses had caught on fire, collapsed and explosions still going off here and there but mostly just blazing structures everywhere.


On the main road as I'm driving down, I see my favorite little grocery store on fire, coffee shops, restaurants, the thrift store that was in the historic railway building ablaze, it was absolute hell. At first, when I approached our house my brain just felt like I was transported into a war zone or another nightmare dimension. Upon finally leaving, seeing these buildings that greeted me as I drove countless times on my way to and from events, work, gigs, coffee shop adventures, everything, FOR FOUR YEARS, it finally hit me - the reality of it all. 


The true horror of what was transpiring wasn't witnessing the physical destruction of buildings, hearing explosions, seeing backdrafts burst windows. That's the initial fear, a more base human instinctual fear of fire hurting you. Still horrible. The real hell was when my brain saw these stores, homes, and buildings that made up my neighborhood burning to ashes while driving down the main street out of Altadena. My brain finally realized that my literal entire neighborhood was being destroyed. Me and thousands of others across Altadena will never experience our town again. That it was all gone.


I make it to the gas station, then accidentally park in wrong spot (diesel only fuel pump), stupidly turn off car and the guy tells me to move my car to #2 as it was free, I give him the $11, as I get in car it WONT START AGAIN of course, but I force the key and twist it even harder and it starts, then SOMENE TAKES #2, so I park on pump #8. The pump I always always get gas on, it just has always been open. This time I wasn't happily on my way to a friends place, or to wor a gig, or to an event. I am distraught and crying now as I pump the gas.


The gas ends up going to $20, and I look up and a Hispanic woman who I saw on her phone on speaker this whole time by her car comes up to me and asks me if it went to $20. She tells me that she added some money to help me out. I thank her profusely as this was almost enough to get to Santa Ana.


So I head to Santa Ana as that is also where Tom and Laura are heading, they were staying at Tom's brother Dan and his wife Ann's place out there. I call Laura, who is worried sick wondering where I was, I tell her I have Freya, and she is immediately so grateful. Worried and angry I went back but so happy I was okay and that I somehow managed to get Freya. I ask what the address is and take off. Almost make it and then my sister is able to send me money via Western Union. Rose calls me as well and thanks me for getting Freya, I still feel horrible I couldn’t get Willow with me. I was an intensely emotional drive down. Finally make it, Dan's wife Ann greets me so warmly, she takes Freya and hugs me and I get to shower off the soot and ash and smoke and finally get a few hours of fitful sleep around 12:30pmish. January 8th. Got my first bit of sleep in over 24 hours or something.