Black Altadena fire victims clash with Edison over compensation

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Outside a hall where Southern California Edison was celebrating Black History Month on Friday, a group of Altadena residents stood on the sidewalk, waving signs and talking of the homes and family members they lost in last year’s Eaton fire.“They’re in there celebrating Black history and they’ve destroyed a Black town,” said Nicole Vasquez of My Tribe Rise, which helped organize the protest.The Jan.7, 2025 fire destroyed thousands of homes, including the majority of homes in west Altadena, a historically Black community.

All but one of the 19 people who died were in west Altadena.“If Edison’s tower did not ignite the fire, Altadena would still be there,” said Trevor Howard Kelley, who lost his 83-year-old mother, Erliene, in the fire.Kelley, his daughter and two granddaughters had been living with his mother before her home was destroyed, he said.The Black Altadena residents are part of a larger coalition that is asking Edison to advance each family who lost their home $200,000 in emergency housing assistance.They say that more than a year after the blaze many wildfire survivors are running out of the funds they had received from insurers.The group protesting Friday also called for transparency from Edison.

The company has said it believes it is likely its equipment caused the fire but has continued to deny it did anything wrong.“We just want the truth,” said Felicia Ford, who lost her house in the fire.“What’s wrong with saying, ‘We got this wrong.’” Climate & Environment Southern California Edison began charging customers for hundreds of millions of dollars of maintenance on its aging transmission lines that regulators approved but it did not actually do in the four years before the Eaton fire, according to state documents.Scott Johnson, an Edison spokesperson, said Friday that the company continued to believe its voluntary compensation progr...