A Sheriff’s ‘Fun Run’ Was Canceled by Disaster. What Replaced It Is Drawing Thousands Today.

A portion of the Woodbury Building’s facade is still standing today. The hardware store that once occupied the building is gone, along with most of the block and much of the surrounding neighborhood. When Victoria Knapp,  co-chair of the Altadena Forever Run, asked the building’s owner to leave the skeletal remains upright through this weekend, he agreed.

This morning, at 8 a.m., 3,100 runners will gather in front of that charred monument at 849 E. Mariposa Street—a deliberate tribute to what was lost across Altadena—and begin moving through a community that is measuring its recovery in permits issued, foundations marked, and replacement homes starting construction.

“A visible reminder to folks who had not ever been here, about what happened here,” said Knapp.

The Run was not supposed to be this. It was supposed to be a sheriff’s station community event, scheduled for February 1, 2025, the kind of modest community run that might draw a couple hundred participants on a Saturday morning.

Captain Ethan Marquez, who leads the Altadena Sheriff’s Station and a marathon runner himself, wanted to host one because no such run had been done in Altadena before.

Then the Eaton Fire erupted on January 7, 2025. Everything changed, forever.

It burned 14,021 acres, destroyed more than 9,400 structures, and killed at least 19 local residents, making it the second most destructive wildfire in California history. The February run was cancelled.

“Obviously. For many reasons,” Marquez said. “It wasn’t appropriate.”

What emerged in its place is something else entirely.

When organizers rescheduled for January 4, 2026—the beginning of the week marking the fire’s one-year anniversary—registration exploded. Runners signed up from across Los Angeles County, from across California, from as far away as New York.

The final count (as of Saturday): 3,100 registered participants, roughly 15 to 30 times what a typical sheriff’s station run attracts.

“Typically, when the sheriff’s stations put on runs like this, they get 100 to 200 runners,” Knapp said. “For us to have 3,000 runners shows the commitment to Altadena.”

The course will take them through a landscape transformed.

Altadena is now 100 percent cleared of debris—1.4 million tons removed from more than 5,600 properties by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which finished the work on August 29, four months ahead of the original two-year estimate, according to Supervisor Lindsey Horvath.

Where wreckage stood, 500 single-family homes are now at some stage within the process of construction.

Runners will start at Mariposa Junction, directly beneath what remains of Altadena Hardware. They will travel east, continue on Mariposa to Altitude Drive, descend to Mendocino, cross back over Lake Avenue, and wind through the western neighborhoods—a route Marquez designed to show both the devastation and the rebuilding without blocking residents from going about their Sunday.

“You’ll get to see some of the community on what would be east of Lake,” Marquez said, “and then continue down to Mendocino, come back west, cross back over Lake, and then get to run through many of the neighborhoods on the more western part of Altadena and really get a perspective of how devastating the fire was, but also how beautiful the community is.”

The opening program begins at 7 a.m. SoCalGas, the title sponsor, will be represented by its CEO, Maryam S. Brown. Sheriff Robert Luna and Supervisor Kathryn Barger will offer remarks. KTLA’s Wendy Birch will emcee.

Two helicopter flyovers from LA County Fire are scheduled, weather permitting—one for the 10K start at 8 a.m., one for the 5K at 8:15.

Proceeds will be split between the Altadena Eaton Fire Relief Fund, which grants directly to fire survivors, and the Sheriff’s Support Group of Altadena.

The relief fund was established in February 2025 with help from Tim Cadogan, CEO of GoFundMe and a 20-plus-year Altadena resident.

The path to this point has not been smooth. Three months after the fire, zero rebuilding permits had been issued. Supervisor Barger introduced emergency measures to create a unified permitting authority. The first permit went to a Habitat for Humanity property on April 9; the first residential groundbreaking followed on April 28. By October, more than 470 permits had been issued—but the average processing time was 77 days, well above the county’s 30-day target, and more than 300 plan sets had been returned to homeowners requiring revisions.

“We are simply not meeting the mark,” Barger acknowledged at a June community meeting. “I hear your frustration, and quite frankly, I share them.”

Still, the visible signs of progress are now unmistakable. Knapp ticks through them: the cleared lots, the construction crews, the homes rising. And on Sunday, 3,100 people will run past all of it.

Marquez, a 26-year veteran of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department who was promoted to lead the Altadena station in August, has spoken with some of the residents who will be among them—including some who lost their homes.

“They thanked me, but it was really everybody involved in the race, the run, for doing something like this for the community,” he said. “The community really needed it.”

He and Knapp plan to hold the run again next year. And the year after that.

“The Eaton Fire forever changed Altadena,” Knapp said. “Next year and for the foreseeable future, we will always commemorate the anniversaries.”

The event’s tagline is “Where Resilience Meets the Road.” On Sunday, that road will begin in the shadow of a façade that organizers made sure would still be standing—a reminder, before the first step is taken, of what this run is actually about.

“Altadena is a strong, tight-knit community,” Knapp said. “We have legacy and generational families here. We want folks to know that they’re supported by the greater community and that they’re able to rebuild if they want to.”

The Altadena Forever Run begins at 8 a.m. Sunday at Mariposa Junction, 849 E. Mariposa St., Altadena.