It’s an emotional milestone unlike any other.

And for almost 18,000 properties in Pacific Palisades and Altadena destroyed by the catastrophic Eaton and Palisades fires, it’s happening silently, out of the limelight. In Altadena alone as of June 1, over 5,000 fire-impacted properties — or 88% —  have been cleared. This is the day these owners’ witnessed their properties wiped clean, essentially in preparation for rebuilding or selling.

We asked several people who lost their homes to reflect on that moment when their land was reduced to flattened soil, a clean slate. Here are there stories:

‘It was horrible’

Courtney Bonifacini, a landscape designer who lived in the family house on Ewing street her entire life, inheriting the home from her mother. She raised her children there and had just paid off the mortgage. On Jan. 7-Jan. 8, she escaped with her 18-year-old son.

“One of my neighbors told me prepare like you are attending your own funeral,” she was told right before her property was cleared. “I was there. It was horrible. I watched the Caterpillar (tractor) take down my concrete walls and foundation. I was balling. You watch them take the last of everything.”

She decided to go all the way and asked the Army Corps of Engineers workers to remove badly burned trees. The next day, she came back and found them gone. “They were hugging me. I said take that retaining wall. Just take it. They did, and the foundation, too. It was so permanent. You think your home was a safe place.”

After, the nightmares started.

“I had two dreams that I was about to be raped. I was so violated by losing my home. Each day, I think of something else I’m missing. I lost my son’s baby teeth and his baby blankets. Instead of feeling really excited, I felt depressed and sad.

“It’s incredibly overwhelming. When I look at the place where the swimming pool was, that had provided decades of entertainment for my kids and their friends. They called it Camp Courtney. That was hard.”

To face the future in a positive light, she is moving ahead with plans to build like-for-like, no larger. “I am going to build it with Feng shui, with a floor plan based on that principle (of harmonizing with nature and energy flow). “You have to find a silver lining in all these things.”

‘We cried enough’

Jennifer and George Magallon, a married couple, loved their home of four years in east Altadena, located near the Altadena Country Club. After the fire, what remained was her husband’s burned out Rolls Royce and an intact tennis court.

On the day the property was cleared, the couple were greeted by the workers, who introduced themselves, put them in a circle and performed a ceremony. Jennifer recalled:

“They presented us with a bag they had found in our basement containing photos, baby pictures (of their children from 20 years ago) and vintage photo albums. They were burned but they made it. They told us we had a beautiful home and they said they were sorry for us. And we were crying. But to get any photos back that we thought were lost made us so happy. It was beautiful,” she said.

She was asked: Describe what she was looking at.

“It is dirt. It is a big hole. The house is gone. It’s like literally someone came and took the house away. But you know, the flowers came back. The trees were green. I think it was very final. It was closure,” she recounted.

George Magallon said he, too cried, but felt he had to be the strong one moving forward. “We cried enough,” he said. “It is time to put it away. For me, it was on to a new chapter. I see it as we are on to bigger and better things now. It was like a reassurance that everything is going to be better now,” he said.

“Immediately after the lot was cleared, we got on the phone with an architect. We already have new plans drawn up. We are not dwelling on the past in any shape or form. Seeing these plans is an inspiration to us.”

Added Jennifer: “The head guy told me and my husband: ‘I’m going to come back in five years and see that badass house you are going to make and see a new Rolls here.’ “

One small piece

Kara-Lisa Jones Mitchell had moved back in with her mom and dad after getting a divorce. In December, about a month before the fires, she would sit and talk with her mom on the front porch. One day, she became ill so Jones Mitchell drove her to Huntington Memorial Hospital.

Her mother died 11 days later. Shortly thereafter, the Eaton fire roared down the mountain and destroyed her father’s home. Hence, their family home on East Las Flores Drive in Altadena also was gone forever. Except for one small part. 

“I asked the people of the Army Corps: ‘Can you leave me a piece of that porch?’ It was the last place I spent with my mom because after that I took her to the hospital. That was the last place where I saw her. So I asked them for the bricks. I got a chunk of the porch!”

Jones Mitchell also kept a stone marker emblazoned with the house’s address. She remembers buying it from Altadena Hardware, a cherished, 80-year-old small business on Mariposa Avenue that was destroyed in the fire.

“Then I watched them take out the trees,” she continued. “I said that was it. That’s when I knew it was real. Even after they cleared things, I still say I am not there yet. There is no finality.”

‘Our hearts are in Altadena’

Ashlyn Mangandi lived in a house on Poppyfields Drive just west of Marengo Avenue in Altadena. It was a ranch house surrounded by nine oak trees and a Deodar cedar tree that was 100 years old. It was also where she raised her three children.

Her place was one of the first lots cleared in Altadena, she said.

“I knew it was going to be emotional to watch,” she said, but she did so anyway, along with her husband and three children. The home’s prominent aspect, a large fireplace and chimney, had remained.

“We were there when they knocked over the river rock fireplace. It was a real focal point of the house. Seeing that get knocked over with a big bulldozer as the last piece of our home, well, we all cried.”

The fireplace was not just for show, as in many Southern California homes. They actually used theirs a lot, she said.

“It definitely made the house because of its sheer size. That was the heart of our house. That was where we were on Christmas morning. It was where we sat at night. It was a really lovely feature of the house. One we will never get back.”

She launched a charity that provided furniture to people. And now her business, bzbuild Co., is helping Altadenans rebuild their homes.

“That clearing of the lot was definitely closure and the beginning of looking forward. It is the only way forward. It was sad but there is no other choice,” she said. “Our hearts are in Altadena. We loved living there. My plan is to rebuild my home. We are waiting on my permit. We need to build as soon as possible.”

Clearing brings hope

Denise Doyen’s home was burned to the ground in the Palisades fire. The cleared lot is at 15915 Asilomar Blvd, on the El Medio Bluff in Pacific Palisades. She used a private company to clear the lot.

“Clearing our lot was a very strange push-pull and one of devastating regret,” she said. “But it was also an excited anticipation of moving on.”

Doyen said the idea of clearing her land meant more than just rebuilding on her lot but rejoining the neighborhood that she had grown to love over the past 23 years on the El Medio Bluff.

“Visiting our burnt-down house was chilling at first. It’s astonishing to see a whole home reduced to 18 inches of ashes. I mean, where did an entire refrigerator go? The washer/dryer? Big hefty appliances made of of steel and motors just vanished!,” she said.

“Then, came the sad shifting-through debris. I found a few tokens here and there: a blackened China cup; a few of my husband’s metal tools in the garage; a little stone elephant from Bali encased in melted glass. All were lead-contaminated. The rest? Burnt to nothing. So, away with it all.”

She felt a private company would do a better job than the Army Corps of Engineers. The clearance took five days. “And now? The lot is sprouting wildflowers, and my surviving trees are greening out. And I can already picture our new home overlooking the bluff. We are hopeful. Committed. Excited to move on.”

Waited for some healing

Altadena resident Nic Arnzen waited more than four months to have his house cleared. He needed to heal a little before getting that gut punch that comes with staring at a blank piece of dirt.

“Our house, and all the houses in North Central Altadena, are gone. That points out the terrible. But because it looks so unfamiliar and feels so foreign, there’s a detachment that’s almost a gift,” he said.

He and his husband, Dr. Ray Samoa, lived there for 14 years and raised their three children. He spoke about the clearing on Wednesday, May 14, while telling a reporter about plans to hold the fourth annual Altadena Pride on June 14, which he and Samoa organize. That same day Arnzen watched his lot get cleared.

“Today is the last day I am clearing it,” he said. “You are talking to me after an emotional four days of clearing everything. It’s as if my life here never existed.

“But I was in no rush. I didn’t want to be first in line for debris removal. Because once it is removed, I didn’t want it to sit for a month or two without something going in the ground. So we will be starting to rebuild. Time is of the essence. I want to get an ADU on the property. We will live there while we rebuild,” he said.

Some thoughts on grief

Angela Schellenberg is a licensed mental health counselor who specializes in dealing with grief and loss. Her husband is a middle school teacher in Malibu and she has counseled people experiencing lost homes in the recent fires. She said the clearing of property can affect people in different ways.

“Every single person responds to trauma differently that is why there are so many reactions to seeing that cleared property,” she said. “It was our home. It is part of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Food, shelter, water. So that (clearing) really taps into trauma for people because it is so personal. New grief can bring back old grief. Like things float back into your head: ‘What am I missing? Family heirlooms? The money I don’t have.’

“And then there is something intangible that is gone, like photos or whatever. That is ambiguous grief. You can’t really explain it; like the heirlooms in the house that were lost or your favorite tree is gone.

“It can be uncomfortable for many to sit in that (cleared) space. There is delayed grief that can take months or years. And there is relational grief, that comes with loss of their community,” she explained.

Finally, clearing the property can produce mixed feelings.

“It is like turning the page. But it is also another goodbye. Bold reactions are valid. You can feel happy you are starting over and be really sad it is gone. You can hold both at the same time. There is no right or wrong way to grieve. Even seeing that clean slate, there is not one size that fits all,” she said.