After the Wildfires, Altadena Gathers for an Earth Day Rooted in Resilience and Renewal
Hundreds of Altadena residents — many still displaced by the Eaton Fire — gathered recently at the town’s third annual Earth Day to reconnect, reflect and recommit to rebuilding their community with intention.
Held at Solvang Garden, the Craftsman courtyard home of former Altadena Heritage chair Rob Bruce and his partner Greg Gill — who are currently living in an RV on the property while their fire-damaged home is repaired — the event carried a powerful sense of resilience.
Organized by United Nations Association Pasadena, LA Conservancy and Soul Force Project, a California Community Foundation grantee, with additional support from many other local organizations, this year’s event embraced the theme, “Making Change Where We Stand,” a message that resonated deeply in a community still recovering.
Despite the visible scars of the fire, the gathering underscored a shared belief in the power of local action. While no one can change the entire world alone, “we can affect our footprint.…If more people reduce their footprints, then it’s easier on the planet,” Bruce said.
Much progress has been made in the neighborhood since 2025, allowing this year’s event to feature more vendors and groups, including LA Compost and Altadena Farmers’ Market, which was displaced by the fire and has become a nonprofit providing free produce to wildfire survivors.
Throughout the event, rebuilding was the most common topic of conversation, whether among volunteers at the booths or visitors having casual conversations over free plant-based burritos provided by local restaurants, the Vegan Joint and Fair Oaks Burger.
The environmental impact of the fire, as well as the ecological conditions that led to it being so devastating, are uniting factors that have led many local organizations and individuals to take action.
This was noted by Michael Bicay, the president of Altadena Wild, an organization that once discouraged land development in high fire zones that has since pivoted to replanting the town’s tree canopy.
Bicay said that its student ambassador program had nearly six times as many applicants in the wake of the Eaton Fire.
Altadena Green representative Lu Patterson, who lost her home in the fire, explained why this mission is so important. Trees “are what protected a lot of homes,” she said.
This includes the Solvang Garden property, which is nestled in a neighborhood pockmarked by empty lots where houses once stood. It is still standing “because they have these amazing [oaks].”
Altadena’s increased environmental awareness goes beyond the tree canopy. Bicay also noted that “participation in the local elections doubled… People want to give back to the community to a degree I’ve never seen before.”
Altadena already had a solid bedrock of environmental consciousness, as pointed out by Cal Poly Pomona landscape architecture student Kat Chavez. Chavez, who is part of a team studying post-fire Altadena, says that “even before the Eaton Fire, folks here have been deeply involved in protecting their environment, supporting local ecologies, and connecting in cross-disciplinary ways… We have seen from the get-go that [Altadeneans] already know so much.”
Percussionist Rosie Tucker also noted Altadena’s deep rooted cross-cultural connections. Tucker is part of the female and non-binary-led Afro-Latin band Mayeya, one of several local music acts that performed on the main lawn, which also included Earthseed Band, Los Cambalache, Baba Onochie Chukwurah, and the Indigenous dance group Danzantes de la Vida.
“It’s the most diverse place I’ve ever lived. And I grew up in Los Angeles…,” Tucker said. “I’ve never been part of a community like this before. And so my hope is that in spite of the incredible challenges of insurance, of the poisoned ground, of the incredible destruction, that we are able to continue to be part of that legacy.”
The interconnectedness of Altadena was a throughline of the entire event, from the happy people greeting one another by name, to the volunteers who proudly represented multiple organizations at different booths, to the fact that the event itself was a seamless combination of local activism, food, music and art.
There was hardly a single organization that didn’t have significant overlap with other groups on site. For instance, one of the teaching artists at Earth Day Altadena was Alma Cielo, who conducted the traditional Filipino blessing for the land that kicked off the event. Afterward, she worked the booth for her project 1000 Voices Altadena Mosaic (which combines shards collected from damaged homes with new tiles created by community members) in tandem with Leigh Adams of Altadena Earth Commons, an ecological restoration initiative and another CCF grantee.
“When we put our nonprofits together, we can accomplish much greater things,” said Adams, reflecting the community spirit of the entire enterprise.
Togetherness has been key to a displaced Altadena finding its identity again, and the Earth Day event has been one important way to foster that community. As Cielo said, “so many people have moved away from the area that coming back together is like a reunion.”
This type of reunion, with its positive message of environmental healing and personal action, has allowed a diverse group of locals to be galvanized by the Eaton Fire rather than devastated by it, just like the clay tiles in the 1000 Voices mosaic.
“Clay is a symbol of our resilience because it needs the fire in order to be made, Cielo said. “When we fire this into ceramic tiles, it’s a symbol of what within ourselves has come into being because of the fire. That’s beautiful.”
– Brennan Klein
