Jason Deach and Mike Griswold, two handymen at the Zorthian Ranch, an artist colony in Altadena, had escaped the fire hours earlier, rushing into the smoke. During the incident, strong winds howled, buildings burned, and surrounding trees exploded.
“We started hearing about the fire around 5:30 Tuesday afternoon,” Griswold said. “The wind was strong and flames were engulfing the canyon. There were brush fires all around us. Embers were hitting us in the face. We started loading at 3:30 a.m. and headed south.
“The house was on fire. Everything was on fire,” Dickey said. “There’s no way to stop it. It’s the end of the world.
The two men, disheveled and sleepless, their belongings stuffed into two beat-up pickup trucks, regrouped Wednesday morning in La Cañada Flintridge, a few miles northwest of Altadena. Wrapped in scarves and covered in smoke, they watched ash billowing around them as emergency vehicles and firefighters rushed toward the gray-orange glow of the Eaton Fire, which has killed five people, Pasadena and Altade There are over 10,000 acres nearby.
Dickey and Griswold, who described themselves as carpenters, machinists and shearers, gathered in the Ralphs parking lot where others had been displaced by the damage. The men come from Zorthian Ranch, a 45-acre community in the Altadena foothills founded seventy years ago by the late sculptor and craftsman Jirayr Zorthian. The ranch offers public tours and bills itself as a “natural retreat from the city,” and has long been popular with intellectuals and artists.
About 15 people, mostly artists, escaped the fire, along with four horses, a donkey and a dozen chickens, the people said.
“I don’t know what happened to the 40 sheep, pigs and Brahman cows,” Dickey said. “They ran into the woods and probably got burned.”
As the men spoke, the sky over Flintridge, Canada, turned from black to gray to mustard. The wind blew violently; the sun appeared and disappeared. A woman sits in a Mercedes filled with belongings. Another man, who only called himself Joe after violating evacuation orders, stood next to a truck piled high with family photos — from weddings and ski trips — as well as a copy of Abraham Lincoln preserved at his father’s home a few blocks away. portrait.
“I ran here from Torrance and grabbed what I could find,” said Joe, whose pants and boots were soaked with water from the hoses that hosed his father’s home. He looked at the sky, at the streets, at the empty shops. “We live in the urban wasteland interface,” he said. “It’s beautiful. That’s why we’re here. But if people think they can control nature, they’re completely fooling themselves.
Traffic lights don’t work. It was quiet in the church. Sheriff’s deputies are knocking on doors, telling people to leave this normally peaceful suburb at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains. A man slept in Ralphs’ car next to a couple who had fled Altadena but didn’t know where to go.
“There should be a shelter in Pasadena,” the man said, and his wife nodded. Some, including a man with a camera, stared at the sky, studying the way the smoke rose and moved, letting the light flicker and then close again.
“The worst was last night,” said Michael Hudson, a carpenter and social worker from nearby La Crescenta who came to La Canada Flintridge to inspect the fire. “But the wind is still pretty steady. Coming through the canyon. It’s just been shot down. You can hear our house creaking.
Hudson drove away.
Dickey and Griswold felt the wind. Weary but energized, they find it difficult to comprehend the anger and uncertainty of waiting they experience.
“The flames hit hard,” Dickey said, his hat pulled tight and his scarf puffed up. “They came down the mountain at 80 miles an hour and blasted through a Jeep like a blowtorch. It hit every building in the lower ranch and swept across the bridge.
Griswold nodded.
“I saw a barn go up in 30 seconds,” he said. “Going so fast.”
The men were hauling trailers piled high with wood. Other items were stuffed in the cab and truck bed. They didn’t know exactly where to go. Dickey said maybe they’d put the stuff in storage for a month.
