Here are the morning’s top stories on Tuesday, July 8, 2025…
- When the Eaton Fire burned through the city of Altadena, not only did it erase homes, but also family photos, heirlooms, and history. A group of volunteers is aiming to restore some of that history, through the voices of fire survivors.
- Local and state officials are denouncing the actions of the Trump administration, after federal immigration officers swept through MacArthur Park on Monday.
- California is pushing back against the Trump administration over transgender athletes in school sports.
Volunteer Historians Race To Record The Stories And Voices Of Eaton Fire Survivors
On a recent afternoon, Veronica Jones thumbed through files in the small community center building in Altadena. “This building holds the history of Altadena. We have been archiving for 90 years,” said Jones, president of the Altadena Historical Society and a resident for more than 60 years.
When the Eaton Fire burned through Altadena, it erased more than homes. It also took family photos, heirlooms and history. Jones and a small group of volunteers are now working to restore some of that history through the voices of fire survivors. “Before we kind of worked at our own pace,” Jones said, noting the society is made up of all volunteers, more than half of whom lost their homes. “Now there’s an urgency to document everything, to get the history of the fire, to get the history that we didn’t have before, to find ways to capture those photographs that may have burned.”
The historical society has long recorded oral histories of residents for archiving. Now they want to capture as many stories of fire survivors as they can. So far they’ve focused on capturing the stories of Black families in Altadena who lost their homes. That specific history — of racist housing policies that concentrated Black families in west Altadena — became a national story when the Eaton Fire disproportionately affected that part of the community “If you’re going to have roots here and stay here, you need to know how this town came about,” Jones said. “You need to understand that the culture of the town evolved because of the history, because of the redlining.”
Jones and her team have so far recorded the voices and stories of an 86 year old musician, a multigenerational family and a lifelong Altadenan in his 90s, among others.
