‘Is this real?’: Three generations of Altadena family lose their home in the Eaton fire

A week after the Eaton Fire destroyed thousands of homes in Altadena, the scale of the disaster is starting to come into focus, but it still feels surreal for a multigenerational family.

Three generations of Danielle Stone’s family lost three homes in the fire. A myriad of memories and photos are gone, but like many Altadena homeowners, the horrific reality still feels like a dream.

“It feels strange that we can’t go home,” she said. “It doesn’t feel so real. You go to sleep and you wake up and you’re like, ‘Is this real?'”

The neighborhood, located at the foot of the mountains, lies smoldering, level, unrecognizable and off limits to local residents with 16 confirmed dead and more expected to be found as emergency officials search the wreckage. More than 4,700 structures were destroyed, displacing thousands of families and, in some cases, uprooting several generations from a community they called home for decades.

Danielle (“Dani”), 37, and her husband Bryan Davila, 35, bought their first home in 2022 on Wapello Street, about half a mile from where hiking trails lead into the Altadena foothills and about a mile away from her childhood home, where her parents now live.

It was important to her to establish family roots in Altadena, where her parents raised Stone and her sister, and where her grandmother raised six children. All three residences are within two miles of each other.

The year after they moved into their home, Stone and Davila welcomed their daughter, Melina. It was the home where she learned to walk, and every morning they showed her the nearby mountains from their wooden deck.

“We would take Mely out and call them Mely’s Mountains because it was such a beautiful view,” Stone said.

But that prospect turned to horror on the evening of Jan. 7 when Santa Ana winds ripped through the foothills and a fire ignited in Eaton Canyon.

There was little time to think that evening. Like so many in the foothill community, the couple packed their essentials. They called her father, Rene Stone, to come over and assess the situation. They also tried to put their daughter to bed.

Davila told his wife to pack as if she would never see her home again.

“But even though I said that, I think with that mindset … you still don’t really believe it,” he said. “A lot was lost because honestly in my heart I thought I was going to come home again.”

Stone and Melina drove to her parents’ house, about a mile away, on Terrace Street, thinking they would be safe to move further southwest. Her father and Davila stayed behind to water their house and the wooden deck.

As they left the home on Wapello Street, Stone unconsciously said goodbye to the house as Mely’s mountains glowed red with fire and smoke.

The power also went out at her parents’ house and cell phone service was spotty, leaving the family to gather information in the dark. She tried to sleep in her parents’ bed with her daughter, and her parents offered to sleep in the living room.

Early in the morning it was clear that the fire was approaching her parents’ home as it filled with smoke.

The air outside was choked with ash. They put Melina in a carrier and tried to shield her with a blanket, but the daily routine of putting her in the car was filled with terror as the firestorm approached.

It was clear the family had to go, but it took some time to convince Stone’s 89-year-old grandmother, Helena Montanez, to leave her home of 60 years nearby on Glenrose Avenue. She was opposed to the idea. Stone’s mother, Dana Stone, wanted to make sure everyone would go together. The family’s roots in the San Gabriel Valley stretch back over 100 years, when Stone’s great-grandmother Andreita Gonzalez opened a small grocery store in Pasadena.

Sometime around 3 a.m., a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy announced on a bullhorn that it was time to evacuate, and Montanez relented.

Eventually, the family fled in a caravan of cars, stopping to regroup at Caltech in Pasadena, where Rene Stone has worked for more than 35 years as an equipment mechanic. The family, including Montanez, moved to Davila’s sister’s home in Hacienda Heights.

All three family homes were destroyed in the fire, the family learned on Wednesday, along with countless other homes.

Dani Stone understands what happened—the neighborhood that was home to generations of her family is gone—but that reality doesn’t match her memories: of family vacations at her grandmother’s house, walking barefoot through her front yard, walking the hiking trails or the time she and Davila spent with her parents during the pandemic trying to save money for the house they would eventually buy.

Her family’s story, along with the rest of Altadena, is one of working-class people finding refuge in LA County and creating a community for Latino and black neighbors.

“My grandmother sacrificed and did everything she could to build a safe home for her and her family,” she said. “My parents, you know every penny, saved and worked super hard to do what they could to make a safe home for me and my sister. For Bryan and me.”

Davila, the son of Nicaraguan immigrants, and Stone want to do the same for their daughter.

There is no doubt in Stone’s mind that her family wants to rebuild in Altadena because their home on Wapello Street had a rose garden that they hope to replant. Melina’s middle name is Rose, named after Pasadena and Davila’s grandmother, Rosita.

“It’s very beautiful,” Stone said, recalling the photo. “That was one of the reasons we fell in love with the house.”