When does a house become a home? The answer came into sharp focus for Altadena resident Daniel Ramirez when he and his wife Allyson snuck back into their neighborhood the day after the Eaton Fire exploded. Their rental house, where they and their three boys lived for seven years, was still burning. He recently shared memories of what that home meant in an essay in The New York Times, where he works as an audio engineer.
Ramirez tells KCRW that his family poured so much time and love into the property on Glen Avenue. When they moved in, they brought the garden to life and hung up lights in the backyard. “It was this 1940s home that just had so much charm.”
Ramirez also did a lot of music work — post-production and sound mixing — in the house. His eldest son, now age 13, learned to play cello in the living room, while his middle son, age 9, learned piano.
A burned guitar pedal was found at Daniel Ramirez’s home in the wake of the Eaton Fire. Courtesy of Daniel Ramirez.
“I've encouraged my kids to be as well-rounded as they can be, and to seek the creative arts in some way. And music … there's so much experimentation, so much education, so much recording that was done in that home that they would just hear everything — synthesizers. They would hear shakers, they would hear drums, they would hear guitars, bass, all of it.”
His sons had their own teachers who came once a week, but he also helped them through any stumbling blocks.
However, when the cello burned, the family realized how deep their son’s love for playing that instrument was, Ramirez says.
“When we got to my in-laws’ house, and we had learned that everything was gone, we sat down and we told them … ‘Look, this is going to be disruptive on many levels. And if there is something that you really, really, really want … now tell us.’ … And my eldest, the first thing he said was, ‘I would love to replace my cello.’”
They ended up replacing that cello — twice — through donation.
Daniel Ramirez’s silverware burned in the Eaton Fire. Courtesy of Daniel Ramirez.
The day after the Eaton Fire sparked, Ramirez and his wife made the dangerous move to return to their rental unit. “We had been texting friends, we had been texting neighbors, we had been watching the news. We were just trying to get any bit of information that we could. I just needed to know what my house looked like. I wanted to know what my neighbors’ houses looked like. It was just such a wild, wild experience. … That's what made me want to go back.”
What did they see upon return? Flames were coming out of their roof, and the two large windows in the front of the house were gone, he describes.
“We can feel the heat coming from our house. … We're just standing there and we're crying, and we're holding each other in our arms. … Allyson's just, tears are coming down her face, and she's just saying, ‘My home is on fire. My home is on fire.’ I don't think I'd ever really registered it as deeply as I did in that moment, but I had realized that everything that we had … experienced in that house and in that neighborhood, it had changed. And the importance of all of those things just were magnified because of that change.”
Daniel Ramirez’s bedroom window was gone after the Eaton Fire. Courtesy of Daniel Ramirez.
Before the flames broke out, Ramirez dealt with depression. So how did the disaster affect that?
“When I saw this disruption and this destruction, that's all I could see. That's all I was just consumed by, was the loss of everything. And leading up to the fire, I was going through a lot, just internally about self-worth and my contribution to my community, my contribution through creativity and through work and through my friendships and my family,” he explains. “And I think that if you would ask anybody in my social circles, they all would have nothing but great things to say about me. But that speaks differently … when you're going through bouts of depression. And I was trying to figure out what all of that meant. … I was trying to understand how much I had meant to other people.”
He notes that the day after they realized everything was gone, their friends and family leapt into action, replacing their kids’ toys, clothes, and instruments. “It was just this flooding of love. It was this flood of support. And then I had come to see … how do you argue with that proof? … How do you argue when everybody is showing up for you in this way?”
Damage from the Eaton Fire is seen in western Altadena, CA, February 9, 2025. Photo by Ted Soqui/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect.