Even as their son fled from his eastern Altadena condo in the early evening of Jan. 7 — not long after the Eaton fire ignited — Justin Chapman’s parents remained in their family home about a half-mile away.
Their neighborhood just west of North Lake Avenue had yet to receive any evacuation alerts, Chapman said, so his parents felt safe at home and waited for officials to determine whether they might be in harm’s way.
“They decided to to stick it out and went to sleep that night, and then woke up at 3 in the morning with a firestorm blowing around their house and embers flying over their house,” Chapman said. “At that point, it still wasn’t an evacuation [order].”
But with the blaze barreling down on their family home, Chapman’s parents fled. They didn’t hear any officials knock on their door or alert residents with a loudspeaker, he said.
“They were very lucky that they woke up when they did,” Chapman said. “It’s really concerning that it was so many hours later, essentially when it was too late — homes were on fire.”
The evacuation order for much of the area was finally issued around 3:30 a.m., nearly nine hours after the fire broke out. The area also never received electronic evacuation warnings before then, even as multiple fires were reported to have broken out west of the North Lake Avenue boundary, according to a review by The Times.
Revelations about the timing of the evacuations have added more unease and anger in Altadena, where at least 17 lives and more than 9,000 structures — many of them homes — were lost in the fire.
All known deaths from the fire occurred in neighborhoods west of North Lake Avenue, where electronic evacuation orders were issued around 3:30 a.m. — or later, in some cases. Witnesses said L.A. County sheriff’s deputies drove down some streets in the area urging people to flee around 2 a.m. But it’s unclear how extensive those efforts were and exactly when they began.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents Altadena, has also expressed deep concern about the disparity in alerts and has called for an external review of the evacuation policies and alert system after The Times reported the delayed evacuation orders on Monday. The investigation detailed how evacuation alerts were delayed for much of western Altadena, even as the fire threatened the area.
“I haven’t seen any answers from officials about what happened there,” said Chapman, a former Altadena Town Council member, who now works for Pasadena Councilmember Steve Madison. “There was a breakdown of communication somewhere along the line. … It probably caused some, if not all, of those lives” to be lost.
The family of one man who died in western Altadena, Rodney Nickerson, told The Times that their father didn’t want to leave his home but would have if he’d been ordered out. That never occurred.
While Chapman is thankful his family made it out safely, both his brother’s condo and their family home, where Chapman also lived, was destroyed in the blaze. Chapman wasn’t home with his parents Jan. 7, but more timely and targeted alerts would have changed how his family — and many others — reacted.
“If there had been even an evac warning west of Lake, I would have gone to the house Tuesday night, packed more stuff and made my parents leave,” he said. “But because there wasn’t a warning, I went to sleep that night thinking our house would be OK.”
Some community leaders have also raised concerns about equity in the delayed warnings: Western Altadena has a more racially diverse makeup than neighborhoods to the east and is known is known for its rich Black history.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson, president of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable, said at a news conference Wednesday that officials “fumbled the ball badly” by not giving neighborhoods in western Altadena timely evacuation warnings when it’s clear the entire region was threatened by the fast-moving blaze, which ignited during dangerous winds that hit up to 100 mph.
“The fact is that parts of Altadena, predominantly white, they got the warning,” he said, but the more racially diverse part of Altadena was issued evacuation orders much later. “African Americans, again, got the short end of the stick.”
In the 1960s and 70s, North Lake Avenue in Altadena served as the primary east-west dividing line for redlining practices, according to the Altadena Historical Society. Black homebuyers were pushed west while white residents dominated the east side. These racial divides have persisted over time.
In 2023, Altadena census tracts east of Lake Avenue had Black population percentages in the single digits, with white residents making up around 60% of the population in each tract. West of Lake, Black and Latino residents made up a majority of the population in every Altadena census tract. The area has maintained a vibrant Black community.
Hutchinson called on California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta to conduct a fast-track investigation into the issue.
“The county has to pay massive restitution, massive compensation,” Hutchinson said, calling for a public apology. “The failure to issue a timely warning to the residents in the predominantly African American neighborhood resulted in colossal property damage and more importantly colossal and unnecessary injury and loss of life.”
Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP, said the organization is aware of the alert issue and has heard from residents who live in Altadena neighborhoods that didn’t receive the evacuation warnings until hours after other nearby neighborhoods did.
Altadena has for years been a bedrock of the NAACP in Southern California, given its history and high rate of Black homeowners, Johnson said, often used as a model for how Black families can build equity through homeownership. That’s prompted the NAACP to step in to make sure that the response to the fire, and the recovery that is just beginning, will be as equitable as possible. Any questions about certain neighborhoods not receiving timely alerts, he said, is concerning.
“The real question is, why?” Johnson said. “Why would that be, when they’re in the same neighborhood?”
Johnson said the NAACP is working to verify the reports, and urged public officials to investigate. The NAACP last week also filed a lawsuit against Southern California Edison as co-counsel with the firm Singleton Schreiber, representing an Altadena family whose home was destroyed in the fire.
Johnson said it was important to investigate any concerns that residents in one neighborhood might have not received the alerts, or assistance, that others have.
“There should be accountability,” he said. “People died because of that. … It’s alarming when disparities surface, no matter what it looks like.”
Barger, citing The Times reporting, told Altadena residents at a Town Council meeting this week that a review of what occurred — and what may have gone wrong — is necessary.
“We don’t have all the facts, but I think it’s important for us to find out lessons learned,” Barger said late Tuesday. She plans to introduce a motion for the outside review next week and has already asked county lawyers to start finding consultants.
“I have deep concerns,” Barger said.
Officials have said that emergency evacuation alerts are issued through a unified command that involves the county Office of Emergency Management and local agencies, including the county fire and sheriff’s departments. The alert system experienced other issues during Los Angeles County’s days-long firestorm, including a wireless alert about an evacuation warning that hit millions of phones, when it was intended only for a small geographic region near the Hurst fire. Then, that incorrect alert continued to go out, seemingly at random, causing widespread panic, forcing the department to make changes.
L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone told The Times that decisions about evacuation zones in the Eaton fire were made through “a team effort,” with input from his agency, the Sheriff’s department and the Office of Emergency Management.
“This has extreme public interest — 17 people passed away west of Lake Avenue, and I’ve got to get the facts,” Marrone told The Times. “I’m knocking on wood, but if it’s a failure of the Fire Department, I will own it.”
Marrone emphasized the firefighters on the ground that night would have played no role in the decision of which neighborhoods received an evacuation order or warning. He said his firefighters, alongside sheriff’s deputies, helped evacuate about 500 people from their homes.
“They did an amazing job that night. They put their lives on the line,” he said. Any issue with emergency evacuation alerts, “that’s going to rest at my level with my command. … If it turns out we didn’t do something right, that’s with me.”
Times staff writers Richard Winton and Matthew Ormseth contributed to this report.
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