Los Angeles<\/a> for decades, always with feline companions. Originally from Massachusetts, she was eager to escape cold winters and became enamored of southern California with its sunshine and Disneyland. Along the way, she\u2019d picked up English country dancing, the kind seen in Pride and Prejudice, becoming an instructor and starting a vibrant historical dance community.<\/p>\nMerlyn and Kiki. Photograph: Courtesy of Darlene Hamilton.<\/p>\n
In early January, Hamilton was focused on a planned Jane Austen tea social and putting away Christmas ornaments. She hadn\u2019t seen much about the weather.<\/p>\n
But by the evening of 7 January 2025, the winds were impossible to ignore. A fire had already forced thousands of people to evacuate the Pacific Palisades, and another blaze, the Eaton fire, had broken out in the nearby San Gabriel Mountains.<\/p>\n
They thought their home in the middle of town would be safe as it always had been.<\/p>\n
Hamilton\u2019s husband had been securing the yard, tying umbrellas, and surveying the area every 45 minutes, she remembered. Kiki looked up at her nervously before running off to hide, while Merlyn, freaked out, stayed seated next to her.<\/p>\n
Late in the evening she dozed off briefly while sitting upright before waking up to monitor the progress of the blaze. Their home was just outside an evacuation zone.<\/p>\n
She was still sitting on the couch when she heard a crackle reminiscent of a fireplace, but far louder, and then something like a firecracker. She went to the door and saw a golden light \u2013 the bamboo was in flames. Two men appeared in her driveway with hoses.<\/p>\n
Hamilton quickly put Merlyn in his carrier and went to find Kiki, but as she turned he busted out and ran. The alarms in the house rang out. Smoke filled the room. Her husband was fighting the fire outside, and the two men, strangers to her even now, came inside to help her evacuate. She couldn\u2019t find the cats, and the smoke was growing thicker.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had Merlyn in the cage, and if I just grabbed him and carried that cage out to the car,\u201d she said, not finishing. \u201cI would never think that he would be able to break out like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
She searched amid the chaos. And then she left the doors open and fled. Later she would sometimes think to herself: \u201cI should have just stayed and kept looking.\u201d<\/p>\n
As she slowly drove away, flames consumed Altadena in a scene that she thought resembled a war zone.<\/p>\n
The couple returned the next day, prepared to see some damage to the property. Instead their home was completely gone and there was no sign of the cats.<\/p>\n
They set out food and water. It would become impossible to return to the property in the coming weeks with the area blocked off under strict evacuation orders. Hamilton called every rescue center she could, the local humane society, and others further away after learning that some animals rescued from the fire zone were transported out of the area, she said. An official list of deceased animals found in the area had virtually no descriptions. She installed cameras and hung posters.<\/p>\n
Darlene Hamilton and her cats. Photograph: Courtesy of Darlene Hamilton<\/p>\n
Eventually, a volunteer group came to help the couple sort through the rubble. Even in highly destructive fires, animal remains and even cremains can often be recovered. But they never found anything.<\/p>\n
Countless others had lost their pets as well, and the community was eager to help.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople that were driving through the neighborhood \u2013 some of them were even putting flyers in their cars,\u201d she recalled. \u201cI was there every single day. I cannot tell you how many people told me stories about how somebody got their cat back six months later.\u201d<\/p>\n
She drove to shelters across the region, enlisted friends across the state to look at their local shelters, and undertook detective work. Once, after getting a potential lead, she drove into the valley to catch a glimpse of a cat that she thought could have been Merlyn.<\/p>\n
Altadena, a year later<\/p>\n
A year on from the fire, Hamilton and her husband have returned to Altadena. They live in a rental home in a neighborhood untouched by the flames. She\u2019s avoided pet food aisles, and is reminded of her cats when she sees people cuddled up with their own pets on Zoom calls.<\/p>\n
As the deadline she\u2019d privately committed to came and went, Hamilton is preparing to step back from her search.<\/p>\n
\u201cI promised my babies,\u201d she said. <\/strong>\u201cI imagine I\u2019ll still always kind of look.\u201d<\/p>\nWhen the holidays came around, the couple hung up posters around Altadena\u2019s Christmas Tree Lane, where thousands of people flock each year to watch the illumination of a mile of cedar trees, a local tradition that has lasted for more than a century.<\/p>\n
As dense crowds moved through the street on 6 December, many passed Merlyn and Kiki, their faces frozen in time on missing posters dotting telephone poles. Kiki was smart, yet bashful, but Merlyn was friendly \u2013 he especially could have ended up with someone, Hamilton thought.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this point even if somebody said, \u2018well, he\u2019s a beloved family member now,\u2019 I\u2019d rather know he\u2019s alive and let him live his happy life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The passage of time has softened the pain, she said. But she can\u2019t help thinking about what they might have endured. \u201cOne of the things is like, those poor cats, they went through that trauma. If they did escape, then they come back and they go, \u2018where\u2019s my house? Where are my people?\u2019,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She wishes they could see her new life now. Last month, Hamilton\u2019s husband strung Christmas lights outside their burned property. The roses there survived. Their new home is temporary, but beautiful, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of times I come to my new house and I think, \u2018oh, they would have liked it so much.\u2019 I wish they could have been here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most nights for the last year, Darlene Hamilton slept four hours and woke at about 4.30am. She wanted…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":508765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,2961,224,5337],"class_list":{"0":"post-508764","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-los-angeles","12":"tag-losangeles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115877141924202096","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}