It was Sunday afternoon and the Arco gas station was buzzing.
Four lowriders, parked alongside gas pumps, gleamed in the afternoon sun in Altadena. Carne asada sizzled on a grill at a pop-up taco stand in the corner. A group of old friends sat on camping chairs and passed around a freshly rolled blunt, cracking jokes and showing each other photos on their phones. Hip-hop played on a wireless speaker.
This is not what a disaster scene is supposed to look like.
Yet somehow this filling station, perched across the street from one of the most destructive wildfires in California’s history, had suddenly become the vibrant hub of a traumatized neighborhood, a harbor for residents desperate for food, clothes and, especially, community.
The Arco station, otherwise known for cheap fuel, could no longer serve its primary purpose once the Santa Ana winds bore down on the neighborhood on Jan. 7 and knocked out its power. What it had instead was proximity to the fire zone and the ingenuity of locals.
Just feet from the taco stand were a dozen tables piled with donated shirts, blankets and toiletries that were meticulously organized. A moving van loaded with cases of water, boxes of chips and crates of diapers backed into the gas station.
And in the center of it all stood Jorge Trujillo, who had helped to build a full-fledged relief operation overnight.
“Nothing was planned,” Mr. Trujillo, 37, said as he watched the scene. “Everyone just gravitated here.”
The Arco station soon became, in many ways, a microcosm of Altadena itself. An unincorporated slice of Los Angeles County with more than 42,000 residents, the town has no mayor or city council. It is also one of the region’s most economically and racially diverse locales, where Black and Latino families have lived, worked and played together for decades.
Since the Eaton and Palisades fires started more than a week ago, dozens of donation centers and aid stations have emerged across Los Angeles County.
Some, like the one at Santa Anita Park, a thoroughbred racetrack, have gathered far more toiletries and other supplies, but were located miles away from the neighborhood. Other official sites were more organized, but felt cold and, for the area’s undocumented population, came with the fear of having to interact with government officials.
In disasters, makeshift relief stations can crop up where they are least expected. After the deadly wildfire in Maui’s Lahaina neighborhood in 2023, residents set up their own distribution point under a canopy in Napili Park with canned goods, diapers and pallets of water.
At the Arco in Altadena, it was easy to find a familiar face and share a hug. The gas station was so close to the evacuation zone — the house directly across the street now lay in a charred heap — that neighbors staying in homes that survived could load up on supplies. Those who no longer had homes could pick up blankets to stay warm.
“We’re just here to help everybody,” Rafael Rodríguez said as he handed out plates of tacos. “We just wanted to give back.”
It all started with an Instagram post. Mr. Trujillo was scrolling on his phone after spending all day on the streets of Altadena trying to beat back the flames that inexorably consumed the homes of his friends and relatives. Exhausted and defeated, he didn’t want to be alone.
“Pull up and chill at the Arco,” a friend wrote on Instagram.
Mr. Trujillo, an occasionally employed auto mechanic, landscaper and jack-of-all-trades, soon found himself passing out water to firefighters in front of the darkened service station, sharing videos of the effort on social media and encouraging others to come help.
Around the same time, Mr. Rodríguez, whom everybody calls Fluff, was receiving bad news. Fire had consumed many of the homes and businesses along his FedEx Ground delivery route in Altadena, and there was no more work for him. At 42 years old, with eight children and monthly rent payments over $4,000, Mr. Rodríguez was momentarily distraught.
He had a side hustle, though, a small catering business called Fluff’s Tacos, and he decided he wanted to give food to emergency workers. The only question was where.
Mr. Trujillo and Mr. Rodríguez knew each other from the mostly working-class neighborhood west of Altadena’s Lake Avenue, where discriminatory housing practices decades ago in the predominantly white nearby cities of Pasadena and Los Angeles funneled Black and Latino families looking to buy modest homes
Mr. Trujillo knew the owner of the gas station and was granted permission to use it as a makeshift donation site. As long as the power was out, the owner said, no problem. Mr. Trujillo was even given the bathroom key.
Mr. Trujillo immediately took charge of the donations and the traffic, while Mr. Rodríguez helped out in a quintessentially Los Angeles way. While his catering business doesn’t normally serve out in public, he established a portable kitchen under a tent and began cooking up whatever meat had been donated — a culinary sight that is common on streets in the Los Angeles region.
As the sun began to set on Friday night, others felt compelled to volunteer. Dwain Sibrie-Smith, who is tall with long dreadlocks, helped to direct cars between the lot’s gas pumps as people stopped dropped off goods.
Hundreds came through that day. Abuelas with grandchildren, who looked cheerfully at a stack of board games. Mr. Trujillo’s “homies.” Firefighters, their faces stained, searching for a respite.
Each day brought more offerings to complement Fluff’s signature carne asada. World Central Kitchen, the nonprofit founded by the chef José Andrés that provides meals in war zones and disaster areas, had learned about the Arco and sent a food truck to serve arepas. On Saturday, a shiny trailer squeezed into a corner of the lot and offered pastries, hot coffee and champurrado, a sweet Mexican corn drink.
Molly Sharp, a web designer who lives just a few blocks from the Arco, evacuated last week to a friend’s house across town with her teenage son as the deafening windstorm bore down on the neighborhood. But as soon as she could return, she was back in the neighborhood where she’d lived for the past 11 years, sorting donated clothing into neat piles.
“Probably 50 percent of people I know here have lost homes,” Ms. Sharp said.
Mr. Trujillo stood nearby, surrounded by friends handing out cold cans of Modelo beer. For those in need of something stronger, he offered up swigs of Hennessy cognac from a bottle he kept in the front pocket of his hoodie.
“Want another shot?” Mr. Trujillo asked a volunteer.
At night, a weathered, red S.U.V. with four people, including an older woman and a little girl, pulled up to the Arco. In Spanish, they asked softly for warm clothes, explaining that their house had burned down and that all four of them were sleeping in the car. The child, shivering as the temperature dropped below 50 degrees, wanted a sweater.
Looking on, Mickelia Smith-McDonald, who had spent the day helping Mr. Rodríguez prepare tacos, started shaking and turned away from the scene. Michelle Middleton, who had volunteered every day at the Arco station, walked up and embraced Ms. Smith-McDonald.
“This is so real,” Ms. Middleton said, her eyes welling up.
Ms. Middleton had noticed, she said, that the people in the most dire need tended to come after dark. “They’re embarrassed,” she added.
Many residents who live beyond the evacuation zone still lack power or gas. Older neighbors walk over to the Arco a few times a day. Some visitors bring camping chairs and sit for hours, rolling joints and swapping stories.
But not everyone in the community has been able to reach the gas station, particularly those who have stayed behind in their homes within the fire zone.
Israel Magdaleno and his son, Miguel, who live a mile away, ignored the evacuation order when the fire broke out and then tamed raining embers with a garden hose during an inferno so intense that it incinerated a nearby elementary school. After the flames receded, they decided to stay to ward off potential looters.
Like others inside the evacuation zone, the Magdalenos knew that if they left their home to get supplies, they wouldn’t be able to return through the checkpoints. On Monday, a small delegation from the Arco, led by a volunteer firefighter from Pasadena, was allowed to cross the perimeter, bringing cases of juice, tampons and Doritos to the Magdalenos, who said they would distribute the goods to the hundred or so holdouts they estimated were in the neighborhood.
Tuesday night, a week after the fire began, the power came back at the Arco. Mr. Trujillo said the owner had agreed to let volunteers stay at the gas station, so long as they kept clear of the pumps that had to serve customers again.
Mr. Rodríguez moved his taco operation farther down the street to a larger lot, leaving Mr. Trujillo with the rest of the space.
“The job is not done,” Mr. Trujillo said.
The post Tacos, Water and ‘Homies’: A Gas Station Becomes a Uniquely L.A. Relief Site appeared first on New York Times.
