Humans of UNAC/UHCP: Ed Palafox, PT
Physical therapist and UNAC/UHCP local leader Ed Palafox of Altadena saved his home from the Eaton fire:
“It was a Tuesday. There were really strong winds in Altadena that morning, so strong that they knocked out our electricity.
“My wife works from home, so she was worried. I went down to my office at Kaiser Pasadena.
“Around 6:45 or 7 p.m., after my daughter and I picked up dinner, we started going back up the hill to Altadena. As we got closer, we saw a glow in the mountain and I thought, ‘Oh, this fire is going up the mountain and toward our house.’ When we got home, we all quickly packed what we could. We left for the home of my wife’s sister in San Gabriel.
“When we woke up in the morning, we heard news about people in Altadena losing their homes overnight. At that point, I chose to go up the hill by myself to see if our house was still there.
“There were a lot of fires going. It became clear to me that the way I had come wasn’t safe for getting into our neighborhood. I went back down to San Gabriel. I picked up my sister, their family, my wife, and daughter. We all went to family in Orange County, which was out of the way of the fires and winds. And stayed there for the night.
“My friend called to say that our houses were still standing. I thought, ‘Okay, I’m going to fight this. We’re going to fight this. We’re going to keep our houses.’
” ‘I’m going with you,’ my brother-in-law told me.
“We needed supplies. He went to one Target store. I went to a different store. We got 30 fire extinguishers and carried them up the hill. We met up with another friend of mine. All of us piled into my truck and drove up to Altadena. We were able to get through.
“We spent the whole evening walking around our neighborhood putting out small fires, flare-ups, embers, and anything else we saw in the neighborhood that we thought we could safely put out.
“We thought there were only a few that would be left standing: 10 homes were saved that night in our little section.”