Like other residents of Altadena, California, MATT Construction Senior Project Manager Nick Pemberton had no idea that the days following January 7, 2025 would irrevocably change his life and the lives of his neighbors.
When the Eaton wildfire swept through the small Los Angeles County suburb, Pemberton first took his wife and children to a hotel and returned to help neighbors who were trying to fight the blaze themselves. Pemberton called on his construction know-how to get pumps, hoses and even a water truck from local sites to Altadena and save as many of the houses on his street as possible. Water from neighbors’ swimming pools became the lifeblood of their ad hoc team of amateur firefighters as they tried to save their homes.
“We had 85 percent of our personal property declared a total loss inside the house and men in hazmat suits had to throw it in a dumpster,” says Pemberton. “The inside of our house is a shell of what it used to be. Any clothes, fabric or electronics had to be thrown away because you can’t clean out the toxins because a lot of the houses that burned down were old, full of asbestos and lead paint and arsenic, so we didn’t know we were breathing those things, too, as I struggled with an N95 mask. [and goggles] on.” All of the Pemberton family’s doors and windows also needed to be replaced.
Pemberton says he has maintained a “parent text group” with all the neighborhood residents who helped fight the fire, in case the need to mobilize ever arises again.
Pemberton’s next-door neighbor, Charles Collins, was the first Altadena resident to decide to stay and fight to save his home.
“When he came back,” says Collins, “Nick was very calm, no panic, just a feeling that he was going to do what it took to get it done.”
A changed neighborhood
Looking back a year later, Pemberton applauds the efforts of the US Army Corps of Engineers and the federal response to clear and clean the lots and prepare them for reconstruction. But many of those lots still remain vacant, he says.
“[The Corps] it was just a well-oiled machine. They cleared all privately owned lots in a matter of months. There was a parade of backhoes that came here and did all this work,” he notes. “They did a fantastic job clearing all the lots.”
“Debris clearance is the first step to recovery, and we are committed to helping residents of communities throughout LA County rebuild,” said Col. Eric Swenson, commander of the US Army Corps of Engineers’ Recovery Field Office.
Unfortunately, moving into the rebuilding phase has been more difficult. Pemberton says that even a full year after the fire, most permits in Altadena still haven’t been issued by Los Angeles County for his neighbors who lost their homes. At the moment, less than 12 homes have been rebuilt.
“What I hear when I talk to the guys who help me at my house, they’re scrambling to get to work on the new houses, but waiting for the permits. [from the county] to begin with,” he says. “There are actually a lot of resources waiting to be deployed that can’t be deployed because of the permissions issue.”
As for the future preparations on his own street, there have not yet been major changes in the water infrastructures in and out of Altadena. Pemberton says he and his neighbors continue to keep the pool water tanks full, as the pool water was used not only by his neighborhood group, but also by private property owners trying to fight the fire in Pacific Palisades.
“The pools weren’t used by the fire department and they were a great resource for us,” he said. “I don’t know if they needed a permit, but they lost time having to go back south, how many miles or blocks, to get water. Our water truck, at one point, filled up their truck again.”
