One Week After the Fires, It’s All Ashes in Altadena | Photos

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“This last week all I’ve wanted to do is knock on my neighbor’s doors and see if they’re OK. But of course, there are no doors,” Kirsten Schaffer tells TheWrap

Tess Patton

January 17, 2025 @ 6:15 AM

When Schaffer first visited her home after the fires, she saw her stone Buddha sitting upright against the rubble. The head had broken off, so she took it with her as a "souvenir."(Photo by Tess Patton)

It was after dark. The power was out. And fires were already raging on the west side of Los Angeles.

Kirsten Schaffer saw a pink glow from her kitchen window in her Altadena home on the evening of Jan. 7. She grabbed her computer, her family’s passports, her 15-year-old daughter Olive and left.

By 8:30 p.m. that night, the Eaton Canyon fire had spread to over 200 acres. By Wednesday morning the flames had burned up over 1,000 acres, including Schaffer’s house that she shared with her wife Linda Kennedy and two daughters — now left in a pile of ashes.

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