Turning wildfire loss into living memories, one plank at a time
When the Eaton wildfire tore through more than 14,000 acres east of Los Angeles, it left behind a scarred landscape of blackened trunks and fallen giants. For many, those trees symbolized devastation. But for Angel City Lumber and the families of Altadena, they have become something else entirely — a chance to rebuild with meaning.
Los Angeles–based Angel City Lumber launched the Altadena Reciprocity Project to transform damaged trees into usable lumber instead of letting them be chipped away, shipped off, or left to rot. The reclaimed wood will become flooring, molding, and door and window jambs for the very homes that the fire destroyed. In a community of about 43,000 people, that kind of circular healing carries enormous emotional weight.
Founder Jeff Perry estimates the effort could produce between one and two million board feet of lumber, sold at discounted prices to help families return home sooner. Still, the project faces challenges. Funding is tight. Workers are few. Machines are delayed. And time, as always after a disaster, matters.
“We need more help, and we need more resources because we’re just kind of skeleton crewing it,” said Perry.
He explained that the team is only months away from getting the machinery they need to speed up production.
“We’re about two months out at any one point from receiving the machinery we need. So the faster we can move forward with that, the faster we can get going on milling,” he added.
For homeowners like Matthew Burrows, whose family lost everything, this project is more than construction — it’s memory preservation. One of his family’s trees may soon live again inside their rebuilt home.
“Bringing that tree back into our lives, it’ll just be a constant reminder of those beautiful days that were and the amazing future that it’s gonna be,” said Burrows.
Perry knows the emotional side of the work fuels the long days and difficult balance between business and recovery.
“The connection to those particular trees that were their trees is that much more magnified, and so it’s an extra boost,” said Perry.
With evacuation orders once affecting 180,000 people and Cal Fire calling this the worst natural disaster in Los Angeles County history, the scale of loss is staggering. Yet in a lumber yard near downtown Los Angeles, hope hums through saw blades and sanding belts, turning tragedy into shelter, and grief into grain.
What moves me most about this story is not the innovation, but the humanity — the idea that a family can walk across their floor and know it once stood in their yard, alive and shading their laughter. In a world quick to discard and forget, this project reminds us that healing is strongest when it honors where we came from.
Source:
- https://youtu.be/hQfByytYE7A?si=ek4gffv_WLdfzyTT
- https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/trees-logs-charred-by-eaton-wildfire-used-rebuild-los-angeles-community-2025-08-28/
- https://chatgpt.com/
- https://aistudio.google.com/
About Author
