ALTADENA, California — A neighbor did what thousands of people were urged not to do when he was caught in the middle of mandatory wildfire evacuations and saved his home and many others nearby with garden hoses and the help of some fellow residents.
Antonio Antonetti, 66, said he wasn’t planning on running as flames approached his area of Altadena and began jumping from house to house, carried by embers, on the morning of Jan. 8.
“I was raised to face my problems, my fears,” he said in the driveway of his still-standing home. “I was not educated to run away from fear, pain or anything.”
Antonetti said he was also inspired by his practice of Buddhism, which he said taught him how to act, and also by the prospect of navigating red tape, government assistance and insurance claims in the event of losing property.
“I don’t want to depend on insurance companies,” he said. “That’s too much trouble for me.”
He said he teamed up with some of the neighbors who stayed, including a pair of brothers, as the collective demonstrated with seven garden hoses, often one in the front yard and one in the back, in a group of plots in middle of the 14,117-acre Fire that started the day before.
In the end, Antonetti said, the group’s efforts saved seven homes, a fragment of existence in a community he said resembled the set of an apocalyptic movie.
He is an independent television producer who said he worked early on at a fledgling Spanish-language television network, Telemundo, now owned by NBCUniversal along with NBC News.
Neighborhood fighters did what they could that Wednesday morning, using low water pressure from hoses as professional firefighters and inmates hosed down the community of Craftsman bungalows, Tudor-style homes, mid-century modern structures and abodes. of Spanish style, many of which were eventually lost to Eaton. Fire.
It’s unclear what contributed to the group’s unlikely success, but Antonetti said he was never afraid. A neighbor called him that day and urged him to evacuate, as he had done.
Antonetti says he responded: “Is it okay for you to come back tomorrow and there’s no house?” remember saying.
Antonetti did not agree with that.
“I’m going to stay and make sure you don’t lose your house and I don’t lose mine,” he told the neighbor.
But this week, he said he knew how people reacted to his defiant and dangerous stance when first responders urged residents to leave. “In the video I have, people say I’m crazy,” Antonetti said.
He devised a plan in which he would have to save neighbors’ houses to save his own, and the island of structures needing defense expanded, he said.
“To save this house, I need to save the house next door and maybe maybe the other house next door,” he said.
The team then sprayed properties and structures, front and back, with a sense of hope as the embers crossed the property lines. They lost some, including a house diagonally from Antonetti’s, but they kept at it, he said.
“All these houses burned, to the north and east, they’re gone,” he said.
The story of the Eaton fire is still a draft. Its cause is under investigation and was 81% contained as of Sunday. The fire destroyed approximately 9,300 structures and damaged 1,062, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The wildfire was one of several, including the larger Palisades Fire, that broke out on Jan. 7 amid dry offshore winds and a climate change that Earth scientists believe has increased frequency, size and severity. of forest fires.
According to the Los Angeles County medical examiner, 27 deaths have been attributed to the Eaton and Palisades fires.
Antonetti said he did not feel his life was at risk and was ready to leave if necessary, but advises others not to defy evacuation orders.
The severity of the fires hit him in the aftermath. Neighbors spanning three generations of Altadena had gathered on the land where his house once stood, Antonetti said, and he could hear them crying.
“It hit me emotionally,” he said. “I wish I could have saved all their homes, you know?”
Maggie Vespa reported from Altadena and Dennis Romero from San Diego.
