In Altadena, RV dwellers live next to their homes, straddling burn zone and normalcy

Standing Greg Gill’s lead in Altadena is spanning two worlds: Eaton Fire Burning Zone. and the norm – at least its appearance.

Look to the east to Crosby Street, and the house of his neighbor Tina Kardos. Still standing. And all the houses are in the neighborhood. Across the street, there is Mariya Mazarati’s residence. Intact.

Looking west, though, Jill’s neighbor’s house lies in the ruins. So, next to that six.

Although their houses survived the flames, Jill, Cardos and Mazarati could not live in them. The smoke, ash and heat of January 7 caused too much damage.

So, just as more fire victims are tired of bouncing in hotel rooms and vacation rentals, they live in recreational vehicles parked next to their homes. RV is far from crying filled with formaldehyde FEMA trailer Twenty years ago, the victims of Hurricane Katrina fell ill. One was trawled by Tesla Sebert. Some are plush. Everyone is cramped.

They are part of the area bound by this trauma around the fire zone Western Altadena Try to survive together and keep moving forward.

Jill said: “There are two years of motels in the motel 6?

Gill is a crowded, optimistic southerner whose decision to move into the RV inspired others on his obstacles. But the weight of tragedy – and the strange juxtaposition of life in life – often caught him off guard.

“It’s still surreal,” he said. “A few times a day, when I walk out of the trailer, I open the door and look at the house, it’s OK.

“I looked at this-” he said, nodding to the burned property next door. “Like, my goodness, we’re here again.”

His other side neighbor, Kardos, lives in a 35-foot cougar five-wheel with her two teenage sons, which barely fits her small fenced front lawn. They moved into the trailer in early March.

Cardos attempts to take an adventure of no more than one or two blocks. Any further community is Totally eliminated They look like war zones.

“It’s a crazy situation,” she said. “But I think, in bad situations, it’s the best.”

this Eaton Fire destroyed About 22 square miles of over 9,400 structures, including over 6,000 homes. Many people are still cleaning up. and the soil on most properties Not tested yet Used for hazardous materials.

Around the fire zone, burnt and untouched properties are side by side, and the return of residents, tourists and businesses has caused mixed emotions and difficult questions: Is the return to Altadena respectful? Is it safe?

Good Neighbors Bar – Near Crosby Street and Lincoln Avenue around the corner of Jill’s house, open 21 days after the fire. Boss Randy Clement said many customers are locals who long to be the same sad person before. His bartender became the sounding board, sharing tears and frustration, hope and story.

“It’s terrible and beautiful,” said Clement, who survived Altadena.

“Entering the Good Neighbors Bar is like riding a subway for a month after 9/11,” he said. “Just because of the approach, the people next to you are going through what you are going through.”

Clement said that small businesses that still exist in Altadena are working to stay open – not only because of the displacement of thousands of local customers, but because outsiders hesitate to even visit the surviving areas of Altadena.

On the corner, on Crosby Street, the people with RVs are delighted (if a little startled at first) and can see nearby restaurants, a supermarket and a bustling gym.

“We’re actually lucky that we have a semi-normal feeling around us,” Mazarati said. “I had to drive through some wrecking, but you turned and you seemed OK, that’s normal: there was a man in a taco. Someone was having cute coffee in a cute coffee shop. It was weird. You definitely have a survivor’s inner gui.”

In January, Gavin Newsom published Executive Order Temporarily suspend restrictions on local laws use RVs and mobile homes as temporary housing on private lots – as long as the land has a house damaged by a fire that is being rebuilt or repaired.

Mazarati has a brown, about 30 feet of heartland wilderness RV parked at her lead.

A few days after the fire broke out, Mazarati’s husband stayed on Crosby Street behind the evacuation zone line. Neighbors, including Gill, Gill and Gill’s partner Rob Bruce, also fought against garden hoses and rakes. They called themselves Crosby orders.

Last month, Mazarati and her husband borrowed an RV from a friend. She is a hybrid employee at a payroll company in Burbank, and she spends her working hours in a trailer. She wants to be done near the house during repairs (including replacing the insulation material damaged by smoke).

The RV in Mazarati’s yard is too narrow, her vibrant 2-year-old and 6-year-old sons, so her family lives in Airbnb, north of Hollywood.

But when she was in the RV, she said, “It felt like there was a strange normal state near my home.” She loved the trailer lunch in the Caldos RV across the street.

The fire burned to the home of Cardos. When the house cooled, the walls broke. Adhesive that melts her wood floor and twists her. The air conditioner becomes toxic. Furniture emits smoke and must be removed for cleaning.

For two months, she and her teenage son – dragging a few clothes and personal belongings in trader Joe’s schoolbag – have been moving, able to book a few days at a time in a variety of hotels and vacation rentals that suddenly squeezed the market. In a week, they moved three times.

The bounce around Pasadena and Glendale made the logistics of getting off the school feel impossible. Cardos’s oldest son attends classes near their home. Her youngest son went to school in Duarte. Kardos is part of a ride-sharing group where other families take turns commuting.

After the fire, the carpooling collapsed. She drives to Duarte every day. She hired a taxi to take her oldest child to anywhere the family lives every night to school.

In the shuffle, Jill and Bruce get the RV.

“I was like, ‘Oh my goodness, that’s kind of good.

Kardos said her homeowner insurance company paid for temporary housing and said she wanted an RV.

A few days later, she had to laugh when a man in a silver Tesla Cybertruck rolled up a huge trailer. He rented a truck towed it away, not knowing that he would get the electric car because the RV was too heavy and needed to be recharged frequently.

It parked behind the green frontyard hedge and there was a yard sign that read: “Altadena is not for sale.”

Kardos is nervous about the health effects of living near a burned home. But she said her children need stability. They were happy to see their neighborhood progress – cleaning, cutting trees, home repairs, neighbors moving backwards.

“Currently, kids see all the activities, all the hustle and bustle, move forward,” she said. “Seeing changes is a bit healing. We don’t just raise our hands and say, ‘Oh, nonsense.'”

Gill and Bruce also rented RVs through homeowners’ insurance because they didn’t want to stay in the hotel for months.

The RV has a small but functional kitchen. LED artificial fireplace. A small table turned into a desk, and the couple handled the disaster recovery paperwork.

Their point is the fire debris next door: the shells of the washer and dryer. Still standing brick chimney. No wall.

“I can’t leave,” said Bruce, a self-proclaimed hybrid and retired urban planner who works in the Simi Valley and Palmadale. “It’s too much to try to do this from a hotel. I maintain an acre of land. If I’m in a hotel, I won’t be able to maintain it. If I’m in a hotel, I won’t be able to rebuild the fence. I can’t rebuild the electrical, irrigate.”

Bruce is the San Gabriel Mountains Foothills and Louisiana graft Gill, which parks the RV next to their single-story artisan, who surrounds the outdoor patio. Built in 1915, Architectural Gem With stained glass windows, original wood floors and a basement wine cellar.

Bruce and Gill purchased the location in 1999 for $305,000. It fell into disrepair and they spent years restoring it. According to Zillow, it was worth $1.4 million before the fire.

The couple was remodeling when the fire arrived. The exterior walls built by Douglas Fir are fresh oil and flammable. Charred palm leaves brush the house, leaving stripes.

“It doesn’t make sense at all,” Jill said. “Wind-direction mode – like a fire whirlwind that’s completely behind the house.”

Through cracks around doors and windows, loft vents and into the basement, smoke and embers blow in. Thick soot ash – then cleaning chemicals – damaged hundreds of years of wallpaper.

Before the fire, it was a “party house” and big and fanatical, Jill said.

“You can have a disco in Porte Cochere in Cochere. You can have a drum circle in the back. … A lot of people have been putting so much atmosphere into this property for many years. Including us.”

On a Friday morning in March, the couple held a yoga class in Bruce, usually meeting in Pasadena Park for a meeting on the lawn.

Bruce and Gill hold classes annually in the spring when their Wisteria Vines bloom with purple flowers. Bruce said they decided to attend classes with the class after cleaning the yard because “the sooner we recover, the sooner the community recovers.”

Some regular attendees were emotionally not prepared to visit Altadena. Others have health problems.

Twelve attendees – including an 82-year-old woman who lost her home in the fire – stretched out a mat on a green grass beneath a singing eucalyptus tree. The bird is already there. On the street, the chain saw shouted.

Professional Magician Yoga Instructor Tina Lenert urged attendees to stretch their shoulders, “because we are always waiting for things to happen, and it gets tight.”

She faces Bruce and Jill’s house, the fragments behind her.

“In this oasis, my emotions are so mixed here,” Lenert told the classroom.

“Don’t turn around,” Bruce said.