Eaton and Palisades fire refugees moved near and far — and often

With fire pits on the beach, showers and a front-row view of the sun sinking into the Pacific, Mike and Nicole Wirth had no complaint about their $45 overnights at Dockweiler Beach.

But neither was their three-night stay there last April a quaint camping experience. Dockweiler RV Park was No. 13 of the 15 places they’ve bedded down since the Eaton fire destroyed their Altadena home last year.

Among their other sleepovers — from one night to four months — were two hotels, an Airbnb, a church parking lot, another campground, a townhome rental and three tiny guest houses — one at a co-worker’s boyfriend’s house. In between were three stays with Nicole’s parents where their precious Australian cattle dog Goose succumbed, they believe, to accumulated trauma.

They were not alone. The Eaton and Palisades fires left an urban population of tens of thousands homeless in a single day. They moved in every direction, some near, some far, some — the lucky ones — only once. For many, home became an improvisation.

Sometimes Nicole stayed with her parents while Mike stayed alone at Dockweiler to be near his work in Hawthorne. It had a subtle reassuring effect.

“The van felt like the only room from our house that survived,” Mike said.

The Wirths, who are rebuilding their home and expect to move back in April, reflect the frenetic side of the complicated quest for shelter for tens of thousands whose homes were destroyed in the Eaton and Palisades fires.

Their orbit, compact but intense, was dictated by their decision to stay near his job and to oversee the reconstruction of their home.

Others moved less frequently, but often went much farther, to stabilize their lives.

Christie and Michael McIntire were grasping for anything in the San Gabriel Valley and coming up short.

“Won’t take cats. Price really high. Extremely far. Somebody got to it first,” Christie McIntire said in a phone interview.

The McIntire family walk through their new home outside Nashville. They are preparing to move in April 1.

(Diana King / For The Times)

After spending several months in two seedy rentals, the McIntires pulled the trigger on a longtime fantasy. They found a rental in Nashville. Christie flew with her two girls and the cats, and Michael drove with the dog. They’ve purchased a 3,600-square-foot suburban house to replace their 1,400-square-foot Altadena bungalow. They will move in April 1 when their current lease expires.

The lease was the first step in a multistage recovery.

“We didn’t feel homeless anymore,” Christie said. “When we found the house to buy is when we began to feel secure.”

The Eaton and Palisades fire diaspora has played out in a sunburst pattern of impromptu moves that likely will never be traced in full detail.

A blurry outline is revealed in a quarterly survey commissioned by the Department of Angels, a nonprofit created by the California Community Foundation and SNAP Inc. It has documented the broad outlines and delved into the emotional and financial stress on those who were displaced. Its latest survey, released for the fire anniversary, found that 7 out of 10 people displaced — 74% from Pacific Palisades and 65% from Altadena — are still in temporary housing, down only slightly from the third quarter.

Only about a third in both communities said they expect to remain where they are more than a year or two, and about 20% — 22% in Palisades and 17% in Altadena — said they expect to move again within the next few months or weeks, both up from September.

A sharper picture of mobility can be gleaned from those like the McIntires, who have put down roots and changed their addresses. Data provided to The Times by Melissa, a global address provider, shows that most of those displaced in the two fires stayed close to home but they also spread tendrils across the country.

(Melissa compiles the data from records including change-of-address filings with the post office, magazine subscriptions and credit card applications. The Times provided addresses of the roughly 21,800 housing units rated by Cal Fire as either destroyed or sustaining major damage. The company tied each address to the individuals living there, whether as family members or owner/renter.)

More than 83% of the 30,000 tracked by Melissa stayed within Los Angeles County, and just under 95% remained in California. The pattern was similar for both communities: 93% from Pacific Palisades and 96% from Altadena stayed in-state.

At least 1,600 people traveled to other states to make new homes. Texas (166), Florida (144) and New York (141) were their top destinations. In all, they went to 45 states with Maine and Rhode Island each receiving one. The McIntires were among 50 relocating to Tennessee.

The preference to stay nearby was strong. More than 2,900 people displaced by the fires relocated within the seven ZIP Codes that had almost all the destroyed and damaged homes, either directly or after an intermediary move. Pasadena was at the top of that list, followed by Altadena and Pacific Palisades.

Seven Southern California coastal counties accounted for 98% of all displaced people who stayed in California. Los Angeles County was by far the primary destination, receiving more than 25,000 people. Orange County was a distant second at 738. Outside of L.A., Palisadians tended to stay near the coast, from San Diego to Santa Barbara counties. Altadenans more often moved east in the San Gabriel Valley and to Riverside or San Bernardino counties.

How many of those moves are permanent is not known, but they reflect a cohort of the displaced population more likely to gain stability. About 3,300 were tracked through two post-fire moves, while the number moving three times dropped precipitously to 129.

While the Wirths’ 15-stop odyssey may represent an extreme, many lacked either the opportunity or desire to lay down new roots while anticipating a return to what they consider their real home.

Nicole and Mike Wirth walk their dogs outside their temporary home in Altadena.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

“I never did a change of address,” said Sara Marti, whose Palisades rental was destroyed. “Whatever mail I was receiving, who knows where it went.”

Marti, her husband, Jordan Corral, and their two school-age children stayed two nights in a Marriott after evacuating. Their next move was to an Airbnb in Lancaster.

“It was a bizarre experience because it was so far from everything we knew,” she said.

Next they used insurance money to put a down payment on an RV and moved to the River’s End RV Park in Canyon Country. They thought they were settled until a crack in the gray water tank sent their home in for repairs. They moved from motel to hotel to Airbnb until she couldn’t take it anymore, Marti said. They’ve now leased an apartment in Canyon Country. Corral works locally.

Marti, who works for the community environmental group Resilient Palisades — remotely now — intends to return to be near her parents who are rebuilding their destroyed house.

“I’d love to return into an apartment, assuming the pricing doesn’t go crazy,” she said.

Whether to take steps to formalize a temporary address was a decision that some debated.

Wirth, who organized a support group of AAA Insurance holders after the fire, chose not to and instead has her mail forwarded to her parents’ house.

“Today, literally, I have to move again,” she said. “What places do I change my address to?”

But Postal Service forwarding ends after a year.

“Now it’s going to be a disaster,” she said.

Landscaper Jose Cervantes, who lost his home as well as 26 of his customers in Altadena, picked up his mail at the post office for a time after the fire.

After a series of moves to Palmdale and the San Gabriel Valley, his family of five settled in an ADU in Pasadena. But they never changed their address.

Once he had made the decision to rebuild, Cervantes installed a temporary mailbox on the vacant lot. His daughter Jessica, who handles bills and insurance issues, goes there to pick up the mail.

Currently spread out over a Monrovia rental and various aunts’ houses, the family is in the process of moving into a nearly completed ADU behind their future house, which is now in the framing stage.

Jose Cervantes and his daughter Jessica outside the home they’re rebuilding in Altadena.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

The quarterly surveys by the nonprofit Department of Angels give a limited view of the housing instability that still lingers a year after the fire.

The surveying firm Embold Research found in June that more than half of displaced households — 61% in Altadena and 65% in Pacific Palisades — had stayed in multiple places. About a third in both cases said they were expecting to move again soon.

So many moves only compounded the trauma of losing a home to fire.

In January, Embold reported that 44% of respondents said their mental health was much worse since the fire, up from 36% in June and September, and 39% said it was somewhat worse.

“Therapy helped,” said Christie McIntire, whose move to Tennessee restored her sense of community but still left emotional work to do.

“For the longest time I was gravitating between anger and sadness,” she said. “Happening all last year; you just feel this guilt, like you could have done something to get a different outcome.”

The McIntire family found a rental in Nashville and have now set down new roots.

(Diana King / For The Times)

Four sessions of prolonged exposure therapy, a technique used by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to treat PTSD, helped her pack the imagery into long-term memory.

“I no longer constantly think about that day,” she said.