The cousin of ex-Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick lost his home and all possessions after his Los Angeles home was burned to the ground by one of the most destructive wildfires in California’s history.
The Altadena, Calif. house Siwatu Moore shared with his partner and two young daughters was a casualty of the Eaton fire that has killed 17 people and destroyed 9,418 homes and buildings, according to California’s Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Moore, a Detroit native who had been renting the midcentury home since 2021, said he did not receive an electronic evacuation alert on his cellphone on Jan. 7, the day the wildfire broke out. Instead, at around 7 p.m., about an hour after the fire started, a neighbor knocked on his door and informed him of the evacuation order. Moore and his family packed up and drove 10 minutes south to his partner’s parents’ home in Pasadena.
However, when he arrived, he discovered the evacuation order had been extended to include that area, too. Both of his daughters, 12 and 4, have asthma, so the family wanted to be as far away from the fires as possible to avoid smoke inhalation. They packed up again and drove southeast until they found a hotel about 40 miles away in Ontario, Calif.
From his hotel room, Moore watched newscasts showing live pictures of the fire sweeping through his neighborhood, within a mile of his home. Ultimately, Moore said, the fire had destroyed 10 of the 12 homes in his cul-de-sac. In the aftermath, he received confirmation from a friend who sent him a photo of the plot of rubble and ashes scattered where Moore’s home once stood.
“And the only thing I could identify it by was the remains of the chimney,” Moore said.
The house was insured by the homeowner, but all of Moore’s family’s personal property that was lost in the fire was not covered. Moore says it’s hard to estimate the cost of personal damages right now.
“I’m 47 years old. The photographs, drawings, sketches, and mementos – things I’ve collected throughout life – there’s no dollar amount you can put on that.”
As of Jan. 24, the Eaton Fire is 95 percent contained. It ranks as the second-most destructive fire in California’s history. Its cause is still under investigation.
Just hours before the Eaton Fire started, about 40 miles west, a wildfire began sweeping through Pacific Palisades, a wealthy Los Angeles neighborhood near Malibu. Currently, at 77% containment, the Palisades Fire ranks as the third-most destructive fire in state history. A third wildfire, Hughes – which is burning near Santa Clarita – was first reported on Jan. 22 and is 56% contained.
Combined, the Palisades, Eaton and Hughes fires have destroyed nearly 50,000 acres of land, leaving 28 people dead and destroying more than 16,000 structures.
Moore said that this will be the most challenging time of his life, which is exacerbated by having to explain to his daughters that everything they own outside of the clothes on their backs is gone.
Moore, who was born and raised in Detroit, works in finance and lived in New York for 20 years before he moved to Los Angeles during the pandemic. He’s also the cousin of writer-actress-producer Diarra Kilpatrick.
He and his family plan to stay with his partner’s mom until they can piece their life back together with the help of donations from a GoFundMe fundraising page.
Native Detroiters helping people affected by the wildfires
The LA wildfires have left thousands of people without homes, food, and other necessities. Among those who are volunteering their time and resources to help those in need are natives of Detroit.
Cynthia Latson grew up in Detroit’s Palmer Woods neighborhood. She’s a graduate of Cass Technical High School, and after appearing as a background actor in the 2002 film “8 Mile,” Latson moved to Los Angeles where she founded her public relations company, C2 PR Media.
After a smaller wildfire broke out close to her home near Calabasas, Latson evacuated and stayed overnight in a hotel. Other than that, she has faced no serious threat from the fires, but she has been traveling deep into the fire zones to help people in need.
She has been partnering with the Native American nonprofit Pow Wow on Parade to give away food in Altadena to hundreds of families. She also has been hand-delivering boxes of food to people whose homes survived but are living without power and water due to infrastructure damage caused by the fire.
“It feels like a bomb literally dropped on Altadena,” Latson said.
Giving back and helping others are values that have guided Latson since her days in Detroit. She was a teacher at the Hope of Detroit Academy charter school and worked at General Motors under philanthropist Vivian Pickard.
“Vivian at the time showed me that giving back was the important part of working with GM and in life,” Latson said. “Donating time, effort, and products put smiles on the people we served faces. Helping the people of Altadena by volunteering and just being an ear and giving a hug helps. Their smiles and ‘thanks’ were all that I needed.”
Another native Detroiter, Jerel Duren has been helping coordinate donations for WalkGood LA, a racial equity arts organization founded by Etienne Maurie, the son of Emmy Award-winning actress Sheryl Lee Ralph (“Moesha,” Abbot Elementary”).
“We’ve collected not just food, but a lot of toiletries, even toys, baby clothes – anything you can think of,” Duren told BridgeDetroit. “Toothpaste and toothbrushes. People were even dropping off food for the volunteers.”
Jerel Duran grew up on the east side of Detroit and graduated from Martin Luther King Jr. Senior High School. An R&B singer, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a music career. In recent years, he has been working in TV production and has worked on shows such as “The Voice,” “Queens Court” and “Basketball Wives.”
When reports of looming wildfires made national headlines, Duren’s uncle back in Detroit sent him his credit card information and told him to book a flight home. Other than poor air quality, Duren’s neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley was out of reach from the Eaton and Palisades fires. Plus, his job maintained its production schedule, so he opted to stay.
But even with his busy work schedule, Duren finds time to volunteer his services in times of crisis.
“One of the things I love about Detroit is that it is a community,” Duren said. “I grew up in an environment where I had people looking out for me, people. I had people who had my best interest at heart without anything to gain from it. Growing up in that type of environment and being able to see that makes me want to be that for somebody else because we need each other.”
Markus Avery, who grew up in Detroit and worked at Henry Ford Hospital before moving to Los Vegas and later Los Angeles in the 1980s, has been doing what he can to help from his home about two hours southeast of LA
After spending more than 30 years in Los Angeles, Avery moved to Palm Springs just before Thanksgiving.
“Luck is not a word that I used, but I feel blessed and fortunate that I moved when I did,” Avery told BridgeDetroit. “I’ve been in touch with my neighbors in my old neighborhood, and they are dealing with the poor air quality there.”
He has donated to relief efforts at the Red Cross. One of his closest friends, who is in her 60s, lives close to the fires and is unable to leave her home due to ash and poor air quality. So, Avery bought an air purifier online from Best Buy and had it shipped to her home. His friend also has family who have young children in Los Angeles. Avery has made his home available in case the family needs to get the children out of the city.
Avery said he has had to deal with his fair share of natural disasters since moving to California more than 30 years ago.
“Growing up in Detroit, the only thing that had an inkling that there might be an imminent disaster was tornados,” Avery said. “Living out here in California, the topography is so different. It has so many different levels of potential disasters. If it’s not the floods, it’s the rains and mudslides with people’s houses sliding down the mountain. If it’s not that, it’s the fires. And if it’s not the fires, it’s the earthquakes.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct that Jerel Duren graduated from Martin Luther King Jr. Senior High School.
