“Mota's Mexican Food,” a small food business located on Lincoln Street, is an example of the recovery in Altadena, one year after the Eaton Fire, but it also reflects the resilience and inequality found in new research from the UCLA Latino Public Policy Institute (LPPI).

“The business didn't burn down, but we spent weeks without opening “The business,” said Lupe Mota, owner of the restaurant that opened in 2001. “We had significant losses, and recovering wasn’t easy.” Lupe Mota, originally from Colotlan, Jalisco, reported that after January 7, 2025, she suffered losses of around $45,000 in just 15 days, in addition to all the merchandise: meat, fruits, and vegetables she had in the restaurant’s refrigerators. “I had to throw everything away. There was no electricity or running water. It was chaos,” she said. “Then, customers stopped coming for months… Imagine the losses.” The only help she received was $5,000 from a relief center. “It wasn’t much, but at least it helped to restock the refrigerator,” she said. She cut her employees’ working hours. They received help with one fortnight's pay, but lost two more.

Fortunately for Lupe Mota, the flames of the Eaton Fire only reached two blocks from her business on Lincoln Street.

And how is the recovery going?

“It's going…at a snail's pace,” she said. “What hurts me the most is all the families who haven't been able to clean their homes or replace their furniture, or who had to leave Altadena forever because they didn't get any response from the insurance companies.”

Who will be able to return?

Lupe Mota's case reflects the findings of the virtual seminar titled “Altadena's Recovery: Who Will Be Able to Return?”, where Silvia Gonzalez, UCLA's director of research, announced that UCLA LPPI is conducting interviews with small business owners, so they don't yet have a complete picture.Regarding the impact on Latino businesses.

However, he said that, based on previous research on the Latino community, “we know that Latino businesses in Altadena are having difficulty recovering due to delays in insurance payments, confusing or lengthy aid applications that are time-consuming, and technological and language barriers to accessing information and applying for grants and loans.”

He noted that some businesses they have spoken with have also expressed concern about fraudulent loans and grants.

In a broader context, he emphasized that previous UCLA LPPI research on entrepreneurs has shown that Latinos face difficulties accessing sufficient capital, which is critical to keeping their businesses open during crises. “These challenges include lower loan approval rates, smaller loan amounts, higher interest rates, and limited access to technical assistance for disaster planning.” She added that these broader structural problems leave Latino-owned businesses vulnerable even before disasters strike, making recovery slower and more precarious. Gonzalez emphasized that while Latino and Asian-American-owned small businesses also struggle to recover, many of them tied to properties that now belong to new owners. She estimated that around 90 properties occupied by small businesses were sold in the first seven months after the Eaton fire.

“Most of these properties were occupied by micro-businesses with fewer than five employees,” she reported, adding that while they currently lack data on Latino-owned businesses, as there is no directory of such businesses, “we know that micro-businesses are the type of business Latinos typically operate, suggesting that post-fire property sales may be disproportionately impacting these entrepreneurs.”

The Fifth Deadliest Fire

In the recovery assessment for all of Los Angeles County, Gabby Carmona, senior research analyst at UCLA LPPI, stated that the Eaton Fire will go down in history as the fifth deadliest wildfire (19 deaths) and the second most destructive in California (14,000 acres and 10,500 structures burned).

The five deadliest wildfires in California are, by number of fatalities: Camp Fire (2018) with more than 85 deaths, the Griffith Park fire (1933) with 29 deaths, the Tunnel Fire (1991) with 25 deaths,The Tubbs Fire (2017) with 22 deaths and the Eaton Fire (2015) (19 deaths), which put more than 200,000 people at risk of displacement.

Regarding the magnitude of the impact, who was most affected, and what the recovery has actually been like for the community as a whole, Carmona mentioned that nearly 70% of non-white households owned their homes before the fire, which includes a long history of multigenerational homeownership among the African American community dating back to the 1960s.

“Altadena also had a strong local economy with between 1,000 and more than 4,000 private businesses. But at the same time, that diversity brought certain vulnerabilities that influenced how residents experienced the fire and its aftermath, as well as the subsequent difficulties that arose during the recovery.”

She added that, while Altadena is often described as a relatively Even before the fire, inequality was significant: one in six residents lived below twice the federal poverty line, with Latinos disproportionately represented among the lowest-income households. “Housing costs also represented a significant burden for families; approximately 17% of residents had a severe housing cost burden, meaning they spent more than 50% of their income on housing,” he stated. “And that proportion was even higher among renters, and crucially, most of the businesses in that area were not micro-enterprises, often employing only one to four people.” Experts could not say for certain how many African American, Latino, and Asian American residents or homeowners will never return to Altadena. “There are many key factors influencing those decisions that are still unfolding. Insurance payments, rebuilding costs, permit timelines, and personal circumstances are and will continue to be factors preventing families from making decisions. And we know, from other catastrophes, that ultimately, it will take homeowners three to five years to rebuild and return to their homes,” she told La Opinion. Based on data from UCLA IPPL, she indicated that most owners of properties destroyed or severely damaged by the fire have not yet made a decision, though she asserted that seven out of ten affected homeowners remain in The uncertainty; they haven't sold, they haven't put their property up for sale, nor have they applied for a rebuild permit.

“The absence of public action suggests that many families are still weighing their options,” she warned. “At the same time,Prolonged delays and mounting financial pressures increase the risk that many will ultimately feel they lack the necessary resources to return.” Those who were able to continue their lives and businesses were Will and Dayanira Orozco, owners of the Burrito Express restaurant on Washington Avenue. “Thank God, the fire didn't reach us; we only closed for a few days,” said Will. “But my wife's sister Alma's house burned down completely, and we managed to save my sister Eunice's house with water from a swimming pool.”