It’s the fossil fuel industry’s dirty open secret that no one talks about: Every place it clears the path for its exploitation of our natural resources, people get poisoned – whether it’s at the extraction or waste disposal stage or through unintended consequences like climate change.
Over 6,000 homes were lost in Altadena during the Eaton fire and upwards of seventy percent of displaced residents have not returned to their homes. But there is a crisis brewing that has received even less attention: Residents whose homes suffered smoke damage are now battling insurance companies denying the health risks posed by the damage to their homes. Because of the lack of widespread lack of acknowledgment by our government and our media of the health impacts of WUIs (Wildlife-Urban Interface fires), many residents have returned to homes they do not know are making them sick.
Since January 2025, organizations like Eaton Fire Residents United (EFRU), the Altadena Recovery Team (ART), and CORE have mobilized to fill the gap opened by our insurance companies’ and government’s lack of action and communication. Join them for an afternoon of conversation, organizing, and socializing on Friday, April 17th, from 2-6 pm at the Collaboratory Main Room in Altadena. We’ll begin with a two-hour teach-in bringing together leaders from our own community with environmental organizers and advocates in Pennsylvania and other parts of the Rust Belt about how to educate our communities about and mobilize them against the toxic encroachment of the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries in our own backyards. This will be followed by one hour of tabling and one hour of socializing.
