When Brenda Galloway hears people talking about the Eaton fire, she asks a simple question: “Have you seen it?” If the answer is no, Galloway encourages them to drive around the town that has been left forever changed.
“You need to because then you really understand the devastation,” Galloway said.
Galloway and her family have seen it all in Altadena. For 42 years they have owned the building that had been home to Altadena Hardware, a town favorite at the corner of Mariposa Street and Molino Avenue.
“If you go to Home Depot, sometimes you can’t find anybody to help you. You have to find somebody to help you. This is a store where you have too much help,” Galloway said to describe the hardware store.
Theirs is one of several commercial lots that have seemingly been left behind in the breakneck pace of recovery in Altadena since Jan. 7.
Five months out from the Eaton fire ravaging Altadena, and significant progress has been made. This week the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported that debris has been cleared on about 90% of destroyed residential properties in its workload.
The government operation run by FEMA is on track to be all but complete by summer’s end. However, two lingering questions remain: When will the charred commercial lots be cleared, and when they are, what is the fate of Altadena’s commercial businesses that the fire destroyed?
Case-by-case
The Army Corps has taken on a handful of additional non-residential properties like places of worship and public buildings. But local business parcels maybe are another story.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger traveled to Washington D.C. two weeks ago and spoke with FEMA officials about the issue of including non-residential properties in the debris removal mission.
“They are looking at each property and making their decisions,” Barger said. “I wish they would bundle it, but I have to respect their process and the fact that they’ve been so open to consider.”
A business destroyed by the Eaton fire on Lake Ave in Altadena seen on Friday, May 30, 2025. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News)On Thursday, the Army Corps said in a statement that commercial properties will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Owners will have to contact the county, the Army Corps said, to find out which properties have been approved.
So far, more than 20 non-commercial special inclusion properties have been added, including Farnsworth Park, Charles White Park, Eaton Canyon Nature Center, Lifeline Fellowship, Pasadena Jewish Temple, Altadena Senior Center, Bunny Museum, Pasadena Waldorf School, Pasadena Church of Christ, Pasadena Police Department Training Center and Sukyo Mahikari Center.
Typically, nonresidential and commercial properties are not eligible for federally funded debris clean up. The Army Corps said businesses should work through insurance companies first.
If they are unable to handle debris removal on their own they can request inclusion through the county based on an immediate threat to public health and safety due to debris, barriers to completing debris removal independently, insurance coverage or status of claim or economic impact of debris removal on the business or community.
“Clear my lot. Give me a fresh start. Just give me a blank space to build, for God’s sake.” – Matthew Schodorf
Barger doesn’t look at the progress of debris removal as being on multiple tracks based on type of parcel, but is looking at the process holistically in which commercial properties are part of the overall community work.
“We’re going to continue to advocate for commercial properties,” Barger said.
On Friday, crews were diligently cleaning up the rubble of the popular and quirky Bunny Museum, which was destroyed by the fire.
But still, a drive up Lake Avenue between New York and Altadena drives serves as a time capsule of January. The charred skeletons of several businesses remain in place. Some signs like Fox’s Restaurant and Lifetime Brakes survived but the structures behind them are unrecognizable.
By contrast, to the east on Altadena Drive, what was once a similar scene in the residential neighborhood now is full of cleared lots with plots of dirt where months earlier sat destruction.
The two scenes offer a representation of the difference in progress between the two types of buildings in the months since the fire.
Fox’s Restaurant owner Paul Rosenbluh said the restaurant’s insurance policy included debris removal as part of the coverage. That made it an easy choice in the early stages between handling debris removal or waiting to see if the Army Corps would step in.
“I don’t know, dumb luck? Maybe I’m a genius? Probably not the second one,” Rosenbluh said of the coverage.
Rosenbluh and Monique King bought the restaurant in 2017, renovated the kitchen but maintained the character of the historic eatery. Rosenbluh said the local clientele made the restaurant what it was.
Rosenbluh has talked to other business owners that are in a more precarious position when it comes to removing debris.
“For us, we got lucky,” Rosenbluh said. “For those who didn’t have that extra coverage … it’s very stressful.”
Matthew Schodorf and his wife Anya Schodorf opened the Altadena Café de Leche location in a 700-square-foot shop on Lake Avenue in 2016. For nearly a decade, the specialty coffee shop grew into a treasured spot in the town’s small but vibrant business corridor.
The shop burned in the fire and Matthew Schodorf described the frustrating back-and-forth that has been the intervening five months.
For months Schodorf had been asking every level of government about including commercial properties in the Army Corps’ debris-removal process. He has one item on his list of asks for the government.
“Clear my lot. Give me a fresh start,” Schodorf said. “Just give me a blank space to build for God’s sake.”
When the opportunity came to opt in, Schodorf took it. Weeks have passed and he has not heard back about his status. Instead, Schodorf said he and other business owners were invited to a community meeting where several agencies explained how business owners can independently clear debris and the deadlines they needed to meet.
Schodorf found a contractor who would do the work for $25,000, which was on the extreme low end of the other offers he found. Schodorf’s policy for debris removal covers $15,000.
“There’s a couple big companies, but if you go to all those lots what do you see? You see the pizza place and the smoke shop and the bar and our coffee shop and a hardware store and a bicycle store and a hat shop and an insurance office,” Schodorf said. “Those are not big commercial entities those are mom and pop businesses that are either underinsured or not insured well and they don’t have tens of thousands of dollars sitting in their pockets to go and do this stuff.”
‘Where are the customers?’
Because of the insurance policy, debris was cleared quickly but now Fox’s and other businesses are in a holding pattern about how and when to rebuild given the new reality that surrounds them.
“Two-thirds of that community does not exist anymore,” Rosenbluh said. “You do not build a restaurant before you have your customer base.”
At first Galloway was told to fill out a right-of-entry form like homeowners were but soon was told that option would not be available to businesses.
A private company removes debris from an Aldi Food Store on Lake Ave in Altadena on Friday, May 30, 2025. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News)While that policy has changed since then, the Galloway family did not wait to move forward with debris removal.
Galloway said they have received approval from insurance to cover the amount needed to complete debris removal. If all goes to plan, the debris removal will begin in the next week.
“Once the debris is cleaned up, of course our concern, is where are the customers?” Galloway said.
The Galloways also own the building next door, at Lake Avenue and Mariposa, to the one that burned down. The building survived but the five businesses housed inside have not been able to reopen due nearby debris needed to be cleared along with remediation work.
“It’s a beautiful community — was — and we hope that it will return to something similar but we realize it’s going to take a long time,” Galloway said.
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