The families of L.A. wildfire victims confront the failures that prevented escape
Feb. 8, 2025, 6:00 AM CST
By Jean Lee, Minyvonne Burke and Jon Schuppe
As a wildfire tore through Altadena, California, before dawn on Jan. 8, Jackie McDaniels frantically tried to make it to her brother-in-law. He’d called to tell her the flames had reached his house, where he was stuck inside with his son.
“Stay on the phone with me,” Anthony Mitchell begged McDaniels as he waited for a response to his 911 calls. McDaniels was evacuating herself, but turned instead toward his one-story cottage on West Terrace Street.
Mitchell, 68, was her late sister’s husband. Because of diabetes, his leg had been amputated three years ago. And while he may have been able to escape in his wheelchair, he would not leave his son, Justin, 38, who had cerebral palsy and could not get out of bed unassisted. No one was there with them, no caregivers or family, so they’d called for emergency help.
By the time McDaniels arrived, the garage was burning. She watched from the street, still on the phone, pleading with Mitchell to get into his wheelchair. She heard him tell Justin, “Daddy’s coming.”
She hung up and called 911, then opened the front door to a billow of acrid black smoke. Distraught, she flagged down a firefighter who walked the perimeter as the flames grew, telling her that whoever was inside was likely already dead and that he wouldn’t be able to get in and out alive. He told her to flee, too, or she could also lose her chance to escape.
The Mitchells, along with much of Los Angeles County, were caught off guard by monstrous, simultaneous wildfires that ignited Jan. 7 and roared across drought-parched mountainsides on 60 mph winds, killing at least 29 people and destroying thousands of homes. The first hit in the morning on a slope above Pacific Palisades, the second after dusk in Eaton Canyon about 30 miles away.
According to an NBC News analysis of the deaths, most of the victims were over the age of 65 or disabled, or both, making it difficult for some to move quickly without assistance. More than half did not receive evacuation orders until it was nearly too late. Some sought help from emergency workers that never came. Some had lived through so many warnings that they thought these fires would not threaten them. But the fires advanced faster than any they’d seen, and when the flames arrived at their doorsteps, some chose to defend their homes with pool water and garden hoses.