Their burrow may have been badly burned by the Eaton fire, but the Pasadena couple that operates the beloved Bunny Museum knows they’ll be hopping again before too long.

On Friday, June 6, a crew of a dozen Haz-Mat workers were carefully sorting through the scorched debris at the property at 2605 Lake Ave., just north of E. Altadena Drive. Despite the extent of the blackened, twisted wreckage wrought by the fire, there were still many bunny relics being unearthed, bringing a promise of hoppy things to come.

“We come here every day and watch what they’re doing,” explained Candacer Frazee, who cofounded The Bunny Museum along with her husband, Steve Lubanski. “It’s so exciting about what they’ve found.”

While the crew has had a backhoe going for a few days now and is sifting through literally tons of burn debris, they’re also bringing a level of care more typical on an archaeological site. Every time the crew spots a bunny, they will halt the digging and help carefully put it aside.

Dozens upon dozens of bunnies have already accumulated — ones of ceramic, metal, stone, wire frame — and while they’ve sustained some damage, they’re still a valuable part of the museum, according to Frazee.

“We’re gonna make a burn exhibit,” she said. “We had a COVID exhibit, because we were closed for 13 months because of COVID.”

This time, she said, the theme will be the recent fire devastation, and will not only include the critters that are being unearthed in the fire debris, but also some of the many gift bunnies people have been sending to the museum in support of the couple.

Founded in 1998, the museum, colloquially known as “the hoppiest place in the world,” is a living homage to the couple’s pet name for one another — “Honey Bunny.”

And while computer search engines indicate that the museum has been permanently closed by the fire, the couple see it as still very much alive, and they intend to officially open it again in time for its 30th anniversary in 2028.

“Before, we were thinking three to five years, but I’m really hoping something in three years,” Frazee said.

Lubanski explained that, while it won’t be the central exhibit in the museum once it’s rebuilt, the fire display will be a significant installation that they’ll keep on hand for a period of time.

“The burn display will be a lot of the bunnies, those giant gates … a lot of the wood, the charred pieces … and in the midst of all that black and grey will be the color footage of the museum burning,” he said, which the couple took the night they fought in vain to save it.

Lubanski described a TikTok video he posted of the couple the night of the fire, which received 42 million hits. As a result, they’ve had an outpouring of support from around the globe, with people sending bunnies from Australia, Chile, France, Japan, Mongolia and South Africa, and many other places.

“So, we already have almost 20,000” he said, about one third of what was previously housed in the museum.

The couple have also raised close to $80,000 thus far through a GoFundMe drive, with the hope to raise $1.5 million to bring the museum back to its fullest.

The building was formerly three separate buildings, but all of it was destroyed, including an underground garage that Lubanski had been renting out. Unfortunately, he said, because his renter had been storing 50 Tesla batteries and 500 solar panels in that garage, the fire turned that area into a remarkable danger zone.

“Part of the dark story here is we have the most toxic site in Altadena,” Lubanski said, though remediation is underway.

So far, the Bunny Museum is among more than 20 non-commercial special inclusion properties have been slated for clearing by the Army Corps of Engineers, including Farnsworth Park, Charles White Park, Eaton Canyon Nature Center, Lifeline Fellowship, Pasadena Jewish Temple, Altadena Senior Center, Pasadena Waldorf School, Pasadena Church of Christ, Pasadena Police Department Training Center and Sukyo Mahikari Center.

Meanwhile, Lubanski and Frazee encourage anyone with a bunny collection, or collectibles, in the family to consider donating it to them, where it will ultimately become part of the hoppiest place in the world.

Jarret Liotta is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and photographer.