Altadena, A Los Angeles Community With High Black Residency, Suffers Under Wildfires #Altadena

The wildfires ravaging Los Angeles County in California have devastated homes and misplaced longtime residents as firefighters battle the blazes. The community of Altadena, which has a significant number of Black residents, is suffering from the damages of the wildfires as they forge a path forward.

Several outlets have covered the damage from the wildfires in Altadena and the town of Pasadena, including Pasadena Star-News and CBS News. The Eaton fire has damaged around 4,000 structures according to the Star-News, adding that 18 percent of Altadena’s residents are Black along with 7 percent of Pasadena residents.

“This will (displace) a lot of Black people, said Sheila Foster, who lost homes in both Altadena and Pasadena. “Some of them are elderly, some were barely holding on before the fire, trying to keep their property because it was going down from generation to generation up here.”

As seen in Yahoo! News by way of TheGrio, the Eaton fire is among four blazes which include the Palisades fires, and as seen both burning over 30,000 acres of land and over 10,000 structures total. There is a multinational effort made by firefighters from the north in Canada and to the South in Mexico. This is especially interesting to note considering the aggressive tone towards the named countries from President-elect Donald Trump.

On X, formerly Twitter, some are mentioning the devastation endured by the residents of Altadena and Pasadena, while also noting efforts of spectacular scope are being made to support those displaced by the blazes. Those reactions can be viewed below.

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Photo: Getty