Eaton Fire Residents United (EFRU) is a coalition of residents directly affected by the Eaton Fire, which ignited on January 7th, 2025. The fire, driven by extreme winds, spread rapidly, destroying thousands of structures, including schools, churches, homes, businesses, and vehicles. While many homes did not burn, they were inundated with toxic ash and soot carried by the winds, impacting residents miles into the ash zone and raising concerns about the Eaton Fire’s adverse public health impacts on the community.

We are an open-membership group for anyone who would like to help ensure a safe return to Altadena, Pasadena, and Sierra Madre. Click HEREto sign up for updates.

Our mission is to ensure a safe, just, and transparent public health recovery process for the Eaton-Fire-affected community. Our homes and community spaces have sustained damage from ash, smoke, and other contaminants from the urban fire. We advocate for thorough contamination testing, clear remediation guidelines, insurance accountability, and resources for all impacted residents, including homeowners and renters, insured and uninsured. Through community organizing, political advocacy, and public engagement, we stand for a resilient and empowered Altadena, Pasadena, and Sierra Madre.

No. Although EFRU is gathering testing from residents who choose to participate in our mapping project, we have no resources or expertise to help with testing.

The website was created to provide a central resource for the community to:

• Submit and Access the Results from Contamination Testing: View professional testing results for homes and areas affected by fire-related debris and contamination. 

• Increase Knowledge: Broad and transparent sharing of vital information about contaminants detected within the community is needed for public health knowledge. Knowledge is POWER. The map is our COLLECTIVE POWER.

• Raise Awareness: Understand the potential exposure and dangers associated with contact with fire-related debris, particularly to vulnerable groups such as pregnant women, children, the elderly, and those with compromised health. 

• Inform Individual and Collective Action: EFRU volunteers are residents of Altadena and Pasadena impacted by the Eaton fire, seeking to support their neighbors in making informed decisions for their safety.

• Coordinate Community Efforts: Collaborate on advocacy, share best practices for cleanup and remediation, and demand accountability from local agencies and insurance companies.

The interactive map displays reported contamination levels for Eaton Fire-generated heavy metals and pollutants in the interiors of standing structures (house and/or garage), as tested by professional organizations before remediation. Testing locations generally include the attic, interior floors, window sills, and other hard surfaces and are notated on the map. Pins appear roughly at the nearest major cross street for a residence. For each contaminant, the highest level detected within the structure is reported (“Not Detected” or "Not Tested" is noted if that is the case). Lead levels are mapped as this is one of the most commonly tested contaminants; the thresholds selected are based on EPA limits defined for residential structures HERE.

EFRU invited residents directly affected by the Eaton Fire to voluntarily share home hygienic testing reports so that we can compile the information into a neighborhood map accessible to the community and public. 

The map is populated with the results from contamination testing data gathered from:

• Professional Testing Agencies and Laboratories: Professional laboratory or environmental testing representatives hired by impacted residents or commissioned by insurance companies performed the testing and reporting.

• Impacted Residents: Individuals in Altadena, Pasadena, Sierra Madre, and surrounding areas who voluntarily submitted professional testing results.

EFRU Volunteers: Our all-volunteer data unification and mapping team collects and organizes these submissions. While they are not environmental testing professionals, many of them are trained and accomplished in other scientific and professional fields.

A small group of individuals from the EFRU data unification and mapping sub-committee has access to the reports shared by individual residents. This group is comprised of professional scientists, scholars, and data specialists trained in the safe and ethical handling of data. 

All testing results are:

1. From professional environmental testing companies: EFRU volunteers exclude self-collected testing results such as at-home lead swabs or at-home radon detection results, as well as tests where a lab indicates a problem with a sample.

2. Analyzed in Professional Labs: Testing firms work with laboratories that use recognized testing methods to confirm contaminant levels. Details about testing approaches utilized in each case are included on the map.

3. Reviewed by EFRU Volunteers: Before data is published, it is de-identified, processed, and added to a comprehensive test result database by EFRU volunteers, following standard operating procedures. 

4. Safely handled: EFRU makes every effort to ensure no individual home can be identified on the map by:

   1. Redacting personal information from the report immediately upon receipt. 

   2. Redacting information from the report that will not be used for mapping purposes (e.g., photos of test samples).

   3. “Pinning” a home’s contaminant levels to a point within the sub-divided evacuation zone and no closer than the nearest cross street on the map. 

   4. Combining relevant data into one type of map (e.g., lead levels) so that the story remains on the whole community and not any single home.

Despite widespread contamination from wildfire debris (ash, char, soot, lead, and other heavy metals), the local government and many homeowners insurance companies are not conducting or authorizing thorough testing for contaminants. Consequently:

• Residents Remain Uninformed: They risk living with harmful substances in and around their homes without realizing the potential dangers.

• Health Risks Are Significant: Toxins in wildfire debris can cause both short-term and long-term health issues, including but not limited to dementia, Alzheimer’s, preterm birth, lung and brain cancer, skin issues, and respiratory diseases. Source: https://airquality.ucdavis.edu/news/how-wildfire-smoke-and-ash-impact-your-health-and-how-protect-yourself

EFRU aims to use testing information to advocate for the safe remediation of our properties and community spaces and the long-term safe return to our community. This is a grass-roots citizen science project where we leverage the information in our community, which may help guide government policy. 

PLEASE CONSIDER JOINING US to make transparent, important information about our community. TOGETHER we are DENA STRONG.

If your neighborhood is not displayed on the map or lacks recent data:

1. Advocate: Connect with neighbors to advocate with decision-makers for testing for your area. 

2. Help Improve the Map: if you know that one or more of your neighbors have performed testing with an environmental testing company, please share our website with them and encourage them to upload their testing data. 

3. Stay Informed: Sign up for our email updates to be notified when new data is added.

EFRU does not perform cleanup services. We are working on building a list of environmental remediation firms, but experience with these remediation companies is highly varied and it’s difficult to provide recommendations. 

• Advocate: We are working on researching best practices and safety precautions. Where they don’t exist, we are advocating for adherence to the precautionary principle while information is improved - growing evidence shows that effects can linger or lead to persistent health problems, and delays in action to protect public health will almost certainly have lasting and devastating consequences.

• Educate: Are you a testing or remediation professional who wants to help our community? Please contact us!

• Participate: If you are a resident and would like to join in the mapping project, please volunteer to share your testing results with EFRU. More information can be found HERE.

• Volunteer: We welcome help with data collection, outreach, website updates, and community organizing.

• Donate: Financial contributions help cover website maintenance and community education.

• Spread the Word: Share information with neighbors, friends, and social networks and encourage them to share their environmental testing data if they have done testing of their impacted home.tem description

For additional help:

• Explore Our Website: Check out the resources and updates posted regularly.

• Join our Mailing List: Receive regular updates from EFRU.

• Contact Us: Use the website’s contact form or email EFRU directly.

• Attend Our General Meetings: Stay tuned for scheduled Zoom meetings where residents discuss ongoing recovery efforts, testing updates, and strategic action plans.