An Altadena woman who evacuated with her husband and two daughters as the Eaton Fire swallowed the area fears her grandmother is among the people killed in the blaze.
Brianna Navarro, 33, said her 83-year-old grandmother, who lives with them, refused to evacuate. While she hasn’t been back to the house, Navarro said, she believes her grandmother died there.
Navarro and her family saw the first hints of a fire from their kitchen window — smoke and a “red glow.”
She said it didn’t look like “anything major,” especially considering how often Southern California gets fires, but this time felt a little bit different.
As they were packing to evacuate, Navarro said, her grandmother was walking around their home in her pajamas while on the phone with a friend, poking fun at their choice to leave. Navarro said they offered to take her with them, but she refused.
Navarro said her grandmother told them: “No, I’m fine. You guys go ahead.”
As they drove away from their house and her grandmother, Navarro said, she called her father in a last-ditch effort to save her grandmother from the fire. She said that her dad drove over to the home and spoke to her grandmother for an hour but that she still refused to leave.
As the fire grew and encroached on their home, Navarro said, she thinks her grandmother probably tried to escape, but she can’t be sure.
“I think maybe she might have just been content with where she was, and I think she was at peace with that, her decision,” Navarro said. “I think she was at peace being in the home and staying where she was.”
Ultimately, Navarro said, she believes her grandmother died in the home, which she said was “devastating.”
“We didn’t expect to lose her so tragically. And that’s what hurts the most,” she said. She said it gives her peace knowing her grandmother died in the home she loved and lived in for decades.
Navarro described her grandmother as “sweet” but “really stern” and said she cared about her community, noting that “everyone knew her.”
“She was just the mayor of Altadena,” Navarro said.
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Publish date : 2025-01-09 14:14:00
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