After the Fire

January 19, 2025, 3:11 PM · Greetings everyone - I just wanted to let you know that things have calmed down a lot here in Pasadena, and the Eaton Canyon fire is no longer spreading.

The skies have been blue and over the weekend there was an increase in humidity (if not rain...), which has helped at least a little bit.

View of Mt. Wilson from our street - this entire mountain face burned nearly to the top, along with the city at the foot of the mountain, on Jan. 7-8.

Personally, my husband Robert and I are fortunate that our place, which is located two miles south of the burn zone, is just fine. We had a lot of debris and ash to clean up, and we now have a big air purifier to help with the indoor air.

There is a lot of grief and loss in the community, and that will take a long time to work through. The losses are nothing short of staggering in the community of Altadena, straight to our north. According to this government report today, there were 9,366 buildings destroyed, 1,062 buildings damaged, with inspections completed for 98 percent of all structures. The current map of the destruction looks like this:

Altadena destruction map 2025 after the fire

Every red house icon is a home or building destroyed. If you go HERE and click on any given red house icon, there is a heart-wrenching photo attachment for every single one - most showing just a charred chimney, maybe a wall or two - standing amid rubble and ash.

An Uber driver who had been driving up to the burn zone and back told me, "People are just slow, they are slow right now." I get what he means - people simply cannot process what happened - that a wildfire jumped from the mountain onto the street grid and erased three-quarters of the town of Altadena overnight - 7,000+ homes, plus schools, churches, restaurants, grocery stores, shops - everything that makes a life. Dozens of my friends, colleagues and acquaintances lost their homes and nearly all their possessions. A third of my students' schools burned down, and they are processing a lot of loss - these were the same kids that missed so much school due to the pandemic, and the same parents that have had to deal with so very much.

Right now people who were displaced are still just trying to find places to live, but there is much need, and it will be ongoing. Music can certainly be helpful in this situation - music has the potential to provide opportunities, community and inspiration for people to stay motivated in the face of terrible disruptions to their lives. So I will close by letting you know about a few more efforts that are taking place to help keep the music going:

Instrument Drive: The Pasadena Symphony is holding an Instrument Drive - you can sign up HERE to donate an instrument, or bring an instrument to the PSO concert this Saturday (CLICK HERE for information on the concert). They will be distributing the instruments to kids in the Pasadena Youth Symphony who lost instruments, as well as their Pasadena Unified School District partner schools that lost their entire instrument inventory (such as Eliot Arts Charter School, which one of my violin students attends).

Fundraisers for Musicians: Many musicians from every orchestra in the greater Los Angeles commmunity lost their homes. HERE is a list of Go-Fund-Mes for a number of classical musicians affected, as well as some other general fundraisers for fire victims. (Please contact me without hesitation if you know anyone's fundraiser who should be added to this list.)

Concert Clothing: A group of Los Angeles-area symphony musicians is collecting concert clothing and has set up a website to help fire victims obtain free concert clothing. To set up a donation of concert clothing (in very good condition only), e-mail Colleen Coomber (CLICK HERE). The clothing is available through FreeConcertClothing.org (CLICK HERE) - which includes an inventory of donated items with photos and sizes. Musicians in need can contact the website and make an appointment to browse in person or arrange for one of the volunteers to bring the clothes to them.

LA Arts Community Fire Relief Fund: A fund has been established to benefit Los Angeles County’s artists and arts workers in all disciplines impacted by the unprecedented wildfire crisis. Grants up to $10,000 are available. CLICK HERE to apply by Feb. 18.

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Thanks to everyone from around the world who has offered your good wishes, donations and prayers, they have been much appreciated!

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