Generational Black Homes in LA Reduced to Ash Amid Growing Wildfires

As multimillion-dollar mansions in celebrity enclaves dominate headlines, Black communities in Altadena face an uphill battle to rebuild their lives.

by Adam Mahoney  January 10, 2025

A woman is aided by her family as she leaves her home during the Eaton Fire in Altadena, California, on Jan. 8. More than 1,000 buildings have burned in multiple wildfires that have erupted around America's second-biggest city, forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes. (Robyn Beck/AFP)

Throughout Los Angeles, ash, smoke, wind, and flames are rewriting the landscape and, although less publicized, Black history. 

As of 9 a.m. on Jan. 10, the fires ravaging neighborhoods across the western and northeastern parts of the city have swelled to become the most destructive ever to hit Los Angeles. The convergence of more than four large fires spreading across the country’s largest metro area has created a mega-catastrophe for Southern Californians. 

At least 10 people have been killed, but many of the burned neighborhoods haven’t been searched yet — in part because the two largest fires, the Palisades and the Eaton fires, were both under 10% contained.

While many have focused on the multimillion-dollar mansions reduced to ash in west Los Angeles celebrity enclaves, some of the oldest Black neighborhoods in the region, including a suburb known as Altadena, have been burned to the ground. The first identified victim of the fires was Victor Shaw, a 66-year-old Black man who died with a garden hose in his hand trying to defend the home that had been in his family for nearly 55 years.

Social media has been flooded with GoFundMe’s for Black families who’ve lost their generational homes, some dating back to the 1930s when the first wave of Black Southerners reached Los Angeles. Some of the region’s oldest Black institutions, like churches and restaurants, have been reduced to rubble. 

Recovery will present unique challenges for Altadena. Over the past four years, most major property insurance companies have stopped offering coverage in the city, and older homeowners have faced difficulties affording rising property taxes. The situation has left residents turning to California’s basic state-run insurance plan with funding challenges. The agency said last year that a major disaster like this would threaten to run the agency dry.

Across Los Angeles County, the fires will continue to impact the most marginalized for weeks to come. As we’ve reported, with wildfire smoke blanketing the air, Black communities face the most acute impacts: rising asthma attacks and respiratory illness cases, disrupted access to jobs, and mental health challenges resulting from being cooped up in unhealthy atmospheres. 

In south Los Angeles, the wildfire smoke has already begun to roll in, sneaking through the cracks of aging apartment buildings already hemmed in by freeways and warehouses. Studies show that wildfire smoke helps compound the health disparities plaguing urban areas, particularly places without access to health care and where workers cannot afford a day off.

In addition, there’s the sobering reality of California’s wildfire fighting system: Imprisoned people make up roughly one-third of California’s wildland firefighting workforce. 

With California’s disproportionate Black incarcerated population, it follows the United States’ long history of using its Black citizens to do the dirty work of firefighting. During World War II, as the Japanese army used “balloon bombs” in attempts to destroy America’s western forests, an all-Black U.S. Army paratrooper group known as “smokejumpers” spent months saving the American West and fighting fires. According to the state, there are 29 fire crews comprising 395 incarcerated firefighters making less than $5 per hour risking their lives to fight these quickly growing fires.