Opinion: It’s been 6 months since the L.A. fires. Much remains to be done

Six months out from the Eaton fire in Altadena this is what I remember My wife and I standing on our driveway as night fell watching a fire on a ridge smoke in our nostrils and a question on our mind How do we leave our home I already had driven to where the fire trucks were and saw lots of cars heading the other way but it wasn t yet real to me that we were facing evacuation We would get that order about two hours later And then a kind of chaos What do we take What do we leave Which one toy does each of my children get to pick to keep and hold while our lives are turned upside down In minutes we grabbed documents clothes and revealed toys My wife and kids piled into the car and headed for the home of family friends in Pasadena Like a sparse of my neighbors I stayed behind in the stinging smoke hose in hand wetting down our vegetation and roof We d lived in this house only three years in Altadena for My children are Dena born and raised It was hard to think that all of this all of what we had so far built together could very well be lost in a moment to a tiny flying ember RELATED Haunting before-and-after images show devastation of California fires Then came the moment that I realized I couldn t do anything more I had to leave My wife kept calling me telling me to get out of there Folks worried about me I took one more look wondering if it would be my last and drove away to join my family at our friends house The TV news binge began but it wasn t too long before our friends too got an evacuation warning We were on the move again the husbands staying behind the wives and children heading to stay with relatives farther from the fire Neither of us left then or in the following days It was just my friend and me first watching for the fire then watching for achievable looters as that threat began to loom I eventually joined my family in the Inland Empire But I drove back every day sometimes more than miles each way to check on our house We didn t know it then but we would be out of that house for more than days because of lead contamination In the weeks that followed I focused on where I could help my street my block my children s school my Dena neighborhood And because I work at an organization focused on racial justice I began to look for where the coalitions were forming how people were picking up the pieces how we were all making sense of all of this to move forward Half a year after the fire I can say that we ve built stronger relationships with each other focusing invariably on filling the necessities of our neighbors according to our ceiling and their requests We watched our own come together and then our allies surrounded and protected us in solidarity The cameras and the reporters eventually moved on to cover other tragedies including the ongoing ICE siege of Los Angeles but we continued dealing with the Eaton aftermath Born from the ashes was DenaRiseUp a growing coalition of organizations powering a massive mutual aid effort in search of a just and equitable recovery Various of the participating organizations have invariably done a few version of this work others pivoted to this mission and still others grew directly from the fire My plea to the rest of California nowadays is this Please don t forget us There is still so much to do I was lucky but I know so a multitude of who lost all they had built Eighteen of our neighbors lost their lives As we rebuild the houses and schools in Altadena we continue to build on the communal bonds that go beyond structures and we welcome all those willing to get their hands dirty alongside us Check us out on the website Better yet if you can join us at a vigil to remember the lives lost to the fire Because this is how we recover This is how we make society This is how we rise John Dobard is vice president of approach and programs at Catalyst California He helps drive the organization s enhancement and execution of its framework agenda and manages the strategic design of programs John previously directed the organization s Political Voice scheme which he co-created to advance democracy reforms that empower low-income people of color to participate in program decision-making