RivCo Firefighters Find Family Heirlooms Thought Lost In Altadena

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — Three Cal Fire/Riverside County firefighters aided numerous Altadena families who lost everything to the Eaton Fire last week.

Thus far, the wind-driven wildfire, only 33% contained as of Monday, burned over 14,000 acres and leveled 7,000 structures. After the fire raged through neighborhoods, firefighters like Capt. Wesley Handy of Cal Fire's Jurupa Valley Station and his crew—Capt. Josh Mann of Corona Station 14 and firefighter Brandon Williams of Cherry Valley Station 22—pitched in to help residents find something tangible in the wreckage, proving that even the smallest victories matter.

As the Eaton Fire smoldered, they drove the streets to go wherever they were needed and paused to help bring water and feed to animals that families were forced to leave behind as they fled the fast-moving blaze.

"We'd drive the streets and see people standing at their burned-out homes looking visibly lost and upset," Handy told Patch.

He, Mann, and Williams would each pick a family and help them for hours, attempting to find anything for the families who had lost everything.

"That day, we found eight or nine wedding rings, an heirloom pocket watch, and a great grandfather's wedding ring," Handy said. They would sift through the rubble, using a surviving air vent or screen, searching wherever people asked them to look for whatever was left. "One man just wanted an heirloom pocket watch from 1860. All he wanted out of that whole house was that watch. And we found it."

Then, Handy saw Victoria DeSantis, a longtime Altadena resident whose home was lost to wildfire.

"She was standing with a mask on, and you could tell she was upset," he said. "She had a glob of melted metal in her hand and told me she thought it was her wedding ring, ruined. She always put it on her night table, and they had to leave quickly in the middle of the night."

But it was only one of a few things she hoped to find, and Handy wanted to help. They met at the wreckage of her home, and he set to work sifting through a five-by-five area for remains of her wedding ring, wedding band, and her grandfather's wedding band.

"Normally, the residents aren't pointing where something could be, but that day, for the better part of an hour, I found a set of keys, and then, I found the silver-metal wedding band," he said.

The glob of metal she'd found previously, she realized, were rings belonging to her mother. Her wedding ring remained perfectly intact. "She emotionally lost it and pretty much knew what she was holding wasn't what she thought."

On Monday, Handy, Mann, and Williams prepared to return to Riverside County to be ready for the coming Santa Ana wind event, he said. Still, they will never forget the firefight in Altadena or the humanity they found in its aftermath.

"In a small way, we changed those people's lives that day," he said. "Even though they lost everything, we changed their lives by giving them something they could hold onto."