Webinar to Spotlight Black Altadena’s Recovery Nine Months After Eaton Fire

A virtual panel hosted Tuesday by USC’s Black Studies Center and Equity Research Institute will examine the lingering impact of the January 2025 Eaton Fire on Altadena’s Black community, which suffered disproportionate losses in one of California’s most destructive wildfires.

The event, titled “After the Fire: Voices from Black Altadena,” begins at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 21 and features longtime Altadena resident Veronica Jones, president of the Altadena Historical Society; Dr. Hajar Yazdiha, Associate Professor of Sociology at USC and faculty affiliate of the USC Equity Research Institute, USC Black Studies Center, and the Rutgers Center for Security, Race, and Rights; and moderator Dr. Oneka LaBennett, director of the USC Black Studies Center.

The webinar is free with registration.

The panel will explore themes of recovery, resilience, and historical preservation, with a focus on the lived experiences of Black Altadena residents displaced or affected by the fire.

The Eaton Fire ignited Jan. 7 in Eaton Canyon and burned 14,021 acres, destroying 9,418 structures and damaging more than 1,000 others. Nineteen people died in the fire, with total fatalities from Los Angeles County wildfires reaching 31 by midyear.

Research from UCLA’s Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, Center for Neighborhood Knowledge, and Latino Policy and Politics Institute found that 61 percent of Black households in Altadena were located within the fire perimeter, compared to 50 percent of non-Black households. Nearly half of Black homes were destroyed or severely damaged, and more than 2,800 Black households evacuated within 24 hours of the fire’s outbreak.

The UCLA analysis also noted that 81 percent of Black homeowners held mortgages, and 57 percent were older than 65—factors that increased vulnerability to insurance denials and financial exploitation. As of October, 73 percent of severely damaged Black-owned homes showed no progress toward rebuilding. Corporate buyers acquired nearly half of all properties sold between February and April, compared to just five sales the previous year. A foreclosure moratorium for FHA-insured mortgages expired July 7, with more than half of roughly three dozen pre-foreclosure listings involving Black-owned properties.

Jones, a retired community leader with more than 60 years in Altadena, previously served as vice chair of the Town Council and has led efforts to document Black Altadena history, including placing headstones on the grave of educator Ellen Garrison. She is currently overseeing a two-year oral history project to preserve survivor accounts of the fire, in collaboration with producer Ian Midgley.

“There’s an urgency to document everything,” Jones said in reference to the Altadena Historical Society’s oral history project. “To get the history of the fire, to get the history that we didn’t have before, to find ways to capture those photographs that may have burned.”

Dr. Yazdiha, a Carnegie Fellow and author of The Struggle for the People’s King (Princeton University Press, 2023), studies the politics of belonging and community fragmentation. Dr. LaBennett, promoted to full professor in 2025, is the author of Global Guyana (NYU Press, 2024) and She’s Mad Real (NYU Press, 2011).

Altadena’s Black population has declined from more than 40 percent in the 1980s to under 20 percent today, driven by gentrification and rising property values. Despite this, Black homeownership remains high at roughly 75 percent—nearly double the national rate.

The webinar is part of ongoing efforts to document Altadena’s local experiences in the aftermath of the fire. Registration is available at https://bit.ly/AltadenaVoicesWebinar .