As Los Angeles burned, Latino immigrants rushed in to put out fires

As Los Angeles burned, Latino immigrants rushed in to put out fires

Maria Garcia does not live in the neighborhoods that have been consumed by the massive Eaton Fire in northeast Los Angeles this week. But Garcia, who is an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, sometimes cleans houses in those neighborhoods, so she knows people who do.

She couldn't sleep Tuesday night knowing houses there were burning. So she got out of bed early Wednesday and said to her children: "Let's go help, if we can."

She called her brothers and some friends and they all gathered buckets and hoses and drove into a part of the Altadena community where houses were ablaze. Then they got to work putting out fires.

"Our values and our principles come first, that's what our parents taught us," Garcia said. "They always used to say, help others without concern for who they are or why they need help."

She was standing next to the rubble of a destroyed house, dousing the still-flaming pile of debris with a watering hose. Garcia and about 20 other Latino immigrants were rushing to extinguish the flames so they wouldn't spread to the house next door, which had not burned.

As the wildfires consumed entire neighborhoods earlier this week, L.A.'s firefighting resources were strained to the limits. In Altadena, homes and structures burned without firefighters nearby. While many residents obeyed mandatory evacuation orders and official warnings that they risked their lives if they didn't leave burning areas, others stayed behind to try to save their homes. Then there were the crews of Latino immigrants who rushed in from elsewhere to help.

Juan Carlos Pascual Tolentino, an immigrant from Mexico who's lived in neighboring Pasadena for 20 years, drove into Altadena in the truck he uses to work as a gardener. When he came upon Garcia and the others hustling to put out flames, he stopped and unloaded his shovels and hoses. He connected the hoses to the faucets of nearby homes.

"You don't need to have legal papers or be a U.S. citizen to help others," he said. "When you support someone, you strengthen your union with them. When you stop and ask if they could use a hand, they'll remember that."

Phil McConville owns the house next door to the one whose flaming ruins the group was focused on extinguishing. Earlier Wednesday, he'd spent four hours trying to keep the fire away from his house. It exhausted him.

"I couldn't see anymore, and I went to wash my eyes out," he said. "And when I came back, there's a whole army of guys just working and working and working, and they've got a line of buckets and they've got all the hoses going."

As McConville spoke, the men and women were dipping buckets into the swimming pool in his backyard and taking the water next door. McConville said they likely saved his house.

Israel Garcia was standing on the smouldering pile of debris using a shovel to snuff out embers. He is also from Guatemala, also undocumented.

"I don't know who lives here," he said. "I don't know if they had children. But if they did, I'm thinking about what the children are going to feel when they come back and see that their house is gone. And I ask myself, how would I feel?"

On the street out front, three young men from El Salvador and Guatemala rushed up and peered onto the property.

"It looks like they need help," one of them, Marvin Lopez, 21, said to the others. "Let's ask if they need help."

After conferring, they decided the situation there seemed under control.

"Because we immigrants who are not from this country, we often need help ourselves," he said. "And that's why we always want to help others."

They ran off in search of another fire.