Roundtable Tonight Turns Altadena’s Fire Recovery Toward the Land Itself

A public roundtable on rebuilding the land beneath Altadena — not just the houses on top of it — will convene Tuesday evening on the patio of Good Neighbor Bar, drawing together Indigenous land stewards, regenerative landscape designers, soil scientists and the sawmill milling fire-felled local trees into salvage lumber.

The event, called Alt:LAND, runs from 7 to 9 p.m. and is the second installment of a three-part roundtable series produced by the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design. Per press materials supplied to Pasadena Now, panelists are drawn from the San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians — also known as the Gabrieleño-Tongva Band of Mission Indians — Altadena-based regenerative landscape firm Studio Petrichor, the Altadena Seed Library, the soil-health consultancy Soil Wise, and Boyle Heights sawmill Angel City Lumber.

According to the LA Forum, the discussion will focus on rethinking land value and stewardship after the Eaton Fire, including traditional ecological knowledge, fire-wise landscapes and soil health.

The Eaton Fire ignited Jan. 7, 2025, was fully contained Jan. 31 and burned 14,021 acres, destroying 9,418 structures and damaging 1,073 more, according to Cal Fire. NPR has reported at least 19 deaths attributed to the fire, and the U.S. Department of Justice has sued Southern California Edison over the cause.

“‘I came for the trees’ is heard so frequently, it is a mantra in Altadena,” the LA Forum wrote in its event description, adding that the neighborhood’s “natural and built landscape has changed significantly since the Eaton Fire, from the scraping of topsoil to the visible loss of tree canopy.”

The Alt:adena series steps up in scale from week to week — from the home, to the land, to the town. Event 1, Alt:HOME, on June 2 took up prefab construction, accessory dwelling units and embodied carbon. A third installment is expected to follow.

Each panel organization has been visible in the recovery. The Altadena Seed Library, founded by Altadena resident Nina Raj, has shifted toward distributing phytoremediator seeds — plants that can pull contaminants from the soil. Soil Wise, documented in the Los Angeles Times and BioCycle, has been testing and remediating soil at scorched lots, the Altadena Community Garden and Camp Mariposa. “Compost is great for general soil health recovery, and for degrading hydrocarbons and supporting phytoremediation,” Lynn Fang, a community soil scientist and Soil Wise co-founder, said in a BioCycle feature in October 2025.

The Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy, which received a 1-acre Altadena parcel in 2022, has credited Indigenous practices — including removal of 97 fire-prone eucalyptus trees — with limiting Eaton Fire damage to its land. Studio Petrichor, founded by principal Shawn Maestretti in 2006, designs landscapes around native plants, water capture and soil health. Angel City Lumber’s Altadena Reciprocity Project mills fire-damaged Altadena trees — including logs from the Altadena Golf Course debris site — into millwork-grade lumber.

Details: Alt:LAND is Tuesday, June 9, from 7 to 9 p.m. on the patio at Good Neighbor Bar, 2311 Lincoln Ave., Altadena, CA 91001. RSVP is required at givebutter.com/alt-home-copy-ykmpqg. The LA Forum can be reached at info@laforum.org.