Minnesota native loses everything in L.A. fire: ‘It’s all gone’

For Mackenzie Brownsmith, Altadena, Calif., was the perfect place to live. There were coffee shops and farmers markets nearby. Hikes in the mountains were just minutes away. And a walk around the block could take an hour because there was always somebody in their front yard to chat with.

In many ways, “it was a lot like Minnesota,” said Brownsmith, who grew up in the North Star State before relocating to Southern California over a decade ago. “This was the best place ever.”

And now it’s gone. In one night, a wildfire reduced homes, businesses and everything that wasn’t metal or stone to debris and rubble and wiped out the tightknit community northeast of Los Angeles.

“That is the heartbreaking part,” said Brownsmith, 36, who escaped the carnage with her wife, Val, two children and dog as flames knocked on her door.

Brownsmith saw the Eaton Fire closing in around 10 p.m. Tuesday and had little time to leave. She packed a few bags of clothes for her family — she forgot shirts for herself — and grabbed a few mementos, a family photograph and a recording made by her grandmother before evacuating to an Airbnb.

She thought maybe she’d be gone for the weekend. But reality set in when neighbors sent the middle school math and computer teacher pictures of the massive devastation.

“It’s all gone,” Brownsmith said.

On Friday, Brownsmith was steeling herself to return to her home on Glen Avenue, hoping to salvage a favorite lawn ornament, a fireproof safe with passports inside and maybe some jewelry.

“I’m not ready at all,” she said. “We have each other and the rest is just stuff. But it’s hard to live that truth. It’s the life we built.”

Strong relationships were a fabric of the neighborhood, Brownsmith said. Those have been lost, too, and Brownsmith wonders how they can be rebuilt. For now, chatter is carrying on online.

“We have a lot of jokes going around on Facebook,” she said as neighbors try to stay in touch with each other.

The fires have burned nearly 36,000 acres north and west of Los Angeles as of Friday morning, according to Cal Fire. And a new fire popped up Thursday night, further stressing crews desperately trying to extinguish the flames.

The new Kenneth Fire and four others had destroyed more than 10,000 buildings in the densely populated area as of Friday morning and led to 10 deaths, a number authorities said would surely rise. The Palisades and Eaton fires, the two largest, were less than 10% contained, the agency said.

The Palisades fire “is the most destructive in L.A. County’s history,” said California Fire Marshal Daniel Berlant.

By Friday, more than 153,000 residents in the fire zones had been ordered to evacuate and nearly 57,800 structures remained at risk, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said in an update.

Brownsmith said she has filed an insurance claim, but is in a waiting pattern to learn what happened with her home.

For the time being, Brownsmith and her family plan to stay with one of her friends in Claremont. But she, like thousands of others, is still trying to figure out her long-term plans.

“Big picture,” she said, “not sure.”