Airybelle Uchida and her family fled their condo townhouse across from Eaton Canyon in January 2025. “It’s the only house my kids have known,” she says, and they had recently remodeled too. Nine months later, her displaced family still lives at her in-laws’ home. Theirs, riddled with toxic chemicals from the unprecedented climate-charged wildfire blazes that killed an estimated 440 people, obliterated more than 16,000 homes and businesses, and exposed millions of people to unhealthy air, remains stuck in remediation limbo.
Tell Congress: Protect Our Ability to Prepare for and Recover From Severe Weather Threats
Leaving Altadena
The day Airybelle’s family left home, systems were down at her kids’ school, Mary W. Jackson STEAM Multilingual Magnet Elementary School. Their electricity and WiFi were out too. But the family had no plans to leave. Originally from Texas, Airybelle has lived in LA for a decade. She’s used to the yearly Santa Ana winds, how they shake and rattle structures and knock out systems.
Their one concession was to go to bed super early after a no-cook meal (nachos). “It was dark and cold and windy. There was nothing better to do,” she recalls. Hearing sirens, she peeked out the window as they washed up. “I opened my blinds and was in shock. It was just red all over. Everything else was dark because of no electricity. It took me a few seconds to process.”
This wasn’t normal. She quickly grabbed a fireproof bag of essential documents, her kids’ favorite stuffies, and drove to her in-laws, 10 minutes away. There were embers the size of golf balls on her driveway. At 9:30, she heard their complex, 24 townhouses belonging to 48 families, was on fire. At 11:00, she received a video of a neighbor’s house, burned down, with a text: “Yours is probably gone too.” Reeling, they were then told to evacuate her in-laws home. They all wound up stuffed into her brother-in-law’s two-bedroom farther from the fire. She reeked of smoke. “I could see the soot on my skin,” she says.
Next, the neighborhood text thread brought unexpected good news: one of them, unwisely, went to their complex. Overwhelmed firefighters didn’t demand he leave. Instead, they asked for help turning off gas, to prevent explosions. “He saved his house and my house—he grabbed the water hose.” Today, eight structures housing 16 families remain in Airybelle’s complex, but many months later, no one seems to know when or if anyone can return.
“Oh, you’re so lucky”
Because their house didn’t burn down, many people have told Airybelle she’s “lucky.” She feels far from it. Her family is in limbo. They have a house, yes, but it’s uninhabitable. It’s filled with toxic chemicals. Everything needs to be thrown out, from furniture to roof insulation to her kids’ first shoes to her wedding dress. “It’s like it burned down. We can’t use it,” she says. It reeks and everything was covered in black soot and ash that came in through the vents even though the windows and doors were shut.
But she can’t start the necessary work; she’s stuck in insurance purgatory. The condo association’s insurance is responsible for the roof, walls, and shared areas. Her personal insurance should cover everything inside, but the adjuster only offered a measly $2,000 for everything.
Her insurance did tell them to personally remediate soft surfaces like couches known to absorb toxic chemicals versus replacing them—an insult. Still, they tried—in masks and goggles—scrubbing with bleach and vinegar hours daily for two weeks only to learn that the company found lead when tested. She had been exposed for weeks. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, what have I done?’”
Other avenues of aid have been similarly minimal: The city’s Disaster Recovery Center does offer free protective equipment plus cleaning advice. “We applied for FEMA help and only got like $740,” she says of federal aid. And no one seems to be able to help with the contaminated concrete foundations of the burned homes circling her own, though she’s gotten plenty of unhelpful advice, including not to allow her kids to play on foundations and soil containing chemicals from burned car batteries, appliances, and more. As if. She’s aware, if she ever gets to move home, that they’ll need to live mostly with closed windows, especially when the wind kicks up, or while neighbors eventually rebuild.
Even in disaster, kids need school
The Pasadena Unified School District made plans to clean and test schools, and started reopening—all within a month of the fires. Cleaning included wiping and cleaning floors, walls, tables, and desks, removing soot, ash, and charred things on the playground. Still, kids were kept indoors when tests of outdoor play spaces came back positive for elevated lead levels. Parents formed a task force, advocating for further testing and cleaning, especially of soft items like rugs and books. “The teachers said they didn’t clean the vents, and when we turned on the heater, black stuff fell out. The aide and the teachers vacuumed,” Airybelle says. She volunteered to help clean.
Choosing to send growing kids back into this uncertain environment was difficult. Airybelle and her husband decided if the kids masked and touched nothing, especially the soil outside, and washed their hands, they’d be OK. “As a parent what do you do? Do you really trust the school district did a good cleaning?”
Photo courtesy of Airybelle Uchida.
At five, her son was exhibiting signs of wildfire-related trauma. Her three-year-old daughter seemed less impacted. “Do I prioritize his mental health or his health?” she recalls wondering. Her son cried returning to school on January 31. He didn’t want to stay. “He was unable to sleep. He was regressing,” she remembers. School has been open since, and parents’ concern continues. As recently as just before the start of the 2025–26 school year, parents asked School Board members to approve a UCLA doctor coming to test soft goods and monitor air quality. The Board wasn’t receptive, citing privacy issues.
Why not just move?
Some families have left the school district and sold similarly uninhabitable homes. “We can’t. We won’t have a place to go; everything here is so expensive. We’re just trying to remediate and move back in as soon as possible. Living with closed windows is better than being homeless,” says Airybelle, who feels like time has stopped. “A lot of people think, ‘This happened months ago. These people are fine.’” They’re not. As they wrestle with insurance and struggle to pay for a house they can’t live in, they also worry about what will happen when the winds and fires kick up again.
Her Christmas tree from last December is still standing in her home. It’s her dream to be back there in time for this Christmas, but she knows whenever she’s allowed back in, she’ll endlessly wonder about safety—and if she made the right choice.
“It’s going to take some getting used to and more testing. Everyone is going to be exposed. We will be the perfect subjects. There will be papers written about the LA fires,” she says. She has even reached out to Cal Tech and USC to offer her house, blood, and urine for research. “They did call me and ask personal questions. There’s no use for me to keep this information private.”
Tell Congress: Protect Our Ability to Prepare for and Recover From Severe Weather Threats