What They Took

New York Times

25-02-2025

The New York Times asked those who lost their homes in the Palisades and Eaton fires to tell us about what they took — what objects or pets they grabbed as they evacuated.
Here are two young people, the stories of what they rescued and why it mattered.
A jar of peanut butter
The power had already gone out when Alissa McFeat rushed around her home in Altadena, trying to pack what she could. Eating and cooking had always been important to her family, so after she grabbed her piggy bank, shoes and school backpack it felt natural to hurry to the kitchen.
She used a flashlight to scour the pantry and grabbed a can of artichokes, a can of heart of palm, a loaf of sourdough, dark chocolate and a jar of peanut butter. She tossed them into a tote bag and fled with her parents and younger sister.
'I was just thinking about food options, because even if our home did survive we'd need food for the next few days,' she said.
Her father, Ian McFeat, said he and his wife had been baffled when Alissa, their oldest daughter, ended up saving what they could buy at any grocery store. Now, he sees it differently.
'We're going to laugh about this for the rest of our lives,' McFeat said. 'Or we'll find joy in it. Maybe we won't laugh.'
And Alissa had been right: No matter what, her family had to eat. A few days after the fire destroyed their home, she ate the artichokes right out of the can with her mom and 8-year-old sister.
'I felt like I was eating it like I used to in my kitchen,' she said.
Now, the jar of peanut butter is tucked away in the refrigerator at Alissa's uncle's house, where they're staying. Alissa recently ate some of it on her oatmeal for breakfast.
She and her family have talked about preserving some of what she saved. They're still trying to figure out how to turn peanut butter into a keepsake.
A Hello Kitty doll
Anniah Baynes didn't set out to amass a collection of more than 90 stuffed animals. But after her mom bought her a stuffed llama a few years ago, they just kept coming — from her mom, her friends, her boyfriend. She bought a few herself.
'They were just cute,' Baynes said. 'I really liked having just a collection of something.'
On Jan. 7, as the Eaton fire roared closer to her family's house in Altadena, she surveyed her collection, which she kept on the floor between her bed and dresser. She thought about putting them all into big trash bags, but that would have taken a long time. She realized she was going to have to leave them behind.
Before leaving the house, she took one last photo of her collection. Mario and Princess Peach lay next to a tiny mouse with big ears, not far from a pineapple and a blue elephant. Baynes grabbed just one stuffed animal to take with her: a plush Hello Kitty doll with the body of a monkey, wearing a pink bow. Her boyfriend had given it to her for Christmas.
By the next day, the house — her grandmother's, where Baynes had lived since she was a baby — had been destroyed in the fire. Almost everything was gone — except the Hello Kitty doll. It was the newest addition to her collection. Now it was all that remains.
The doll currently sits on her bed at her mother's apartment, where she's staying. After the fire, the church that her boyfriend and his sisters attend helped her with food, clothes and prayers. That support is what she thinks about when she looks at the doll.
'There was somebody who cared, somebody who was there for me, when the fire happened,' Baynes said.