Commentary: On one Altadena block destroyed by Eaton fire, a return, an exit and lessons in resilience

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Set us as preferred At 8 o’clock Wednesday morning, with rain clouds gathering in the distance, a work crew applied the finishing touches to a new Altadena home with giant picture windows that frame the grandeur of the San Gabriel Mountains.Jonni Miller and Anthony Ruffin expect to be home for Thanksgiving.“We can’t wait to get back,” said Miller.Their good friends Lily Knight and Steve Hofvendahl, who lived two doors away for a quarter of a century, are beginning a new chapter of their own.They’ve sold their property and will be moving to the Pacific Northwest, a decision made with heavy hearts but a sense of reinvention.“This is going to sound really woo-woo,” Knight said, but in the aftermath of the fire, she saw a “network of lights” that represented, for her, the hearts of the people in her life.

“That’s where I live,” she said, rather than in a structure.“And so that makes leaving easier, because I feel like the bonds that are true bonds will hold.”This is the Altadena story at the moment — some people are returning, some are leaving, some haven’t yet decided.

A place that had a distinctive and cherished identity before the fire, mixed race and mixed income, still doesn’t know what its new identity will be.“I think we’ll have a clearer picture at the end of year three, and we have not even come upon the second anniversary of the fire,” said Victoria Knapp, an Eaton fire survivor and former chair of the town council.To date, 233 new homes have been completed, 3,851 building permits have been issued and 2,396 residences are under construction.It’s not clear what will come of 2,000 or so properties, Knapp said.

So far, 515 lots have been sold, with 44% going to developers, foreign interests and private equity investors.Michele Zack’s updated history of Altadena dwells on the pas...