Overview

December 2025

It's been almost a year since the Eaton fire. Our lot was cleared in late spring by the US Army Corps of Engineers as part of the LA County cleanup. We had our cleared lot tested for contaminants, and it seems to be within acceptable levels, so we don't anticipate needing further soil remediation. One of the oak trees in our backyard had to come down, right now the other three are still there while we see if they can survive. We have had plans drawn up for a rebuilt house and garage similar to what was there before, and our plans are now with the county for permits. We are expecting to get through the permit process by spring, and if we decide to rebuild, start construction by summer.

We are living with family in the area to conserve resources that could go to rebuilding or replacing household items rather than rent. We are also anticipating more uncertainty at JPL and NASA in general that may require us to move elsewhere for work. At this point, we have settled into a holding patter waiting for the rebuild and/or job situation to stabilize or change.

January 2025

Hi everyone. Although we and the cats are safe, we lost our house and almost all of our belongings on January 8 2025 in the Eaton wildfire, along with thousands of other homes and buildings. Our neighborhood is completely wiped out by the fire. As we deal with the shock and logistics we want friends and family to stay updated but are finding it hard to do individually via text, messages, and email. So, we are repurposing our wedding website to provide information for people we care about. Apparently you can't rearrange pages on mobile, so the wedding stuff will linger here until we have a computer again. Done!

On Tuesday (Jan 7) night, we were at our house having dinner with Laura's family when they got a call that there was a fire in the canyon by their home and they needed to evacuate. They live ten minutes east of us so they rushed to get their pets, and we started getting ready to leave as well as a precaution. When Laura's parents returned to our house, we were able to gather our pets, a few mementos, an overnight bag, and some important papers/items and left before 8pm. When we departed, the fire was moving east, not west towards us, and we thought we were just being cautious. Unfortunately, the fire later turned towards the house. At 5:30am the next day, the living room smoke detector sent a brief alarm to our phones, and it turned out to be the last time we saw our house standing.

We stayed at a friend's house Tuesday night, and then at a hotel in Anaheim for a few days due to the poor air quality closer to the fire. Later on Wednesday, we were able to briefly visit the the place we called home even as fires continued nearby, and confirmed it is a total loss(see video below). Luckily, Laura's parents' house is still standing so far.

Now we're trying to figure out what to do. What will happen longer term with homeowners insurance and rebuilding or moving is unclear to us right now. We have some limited clothes, toiletries, and toys for Autumn, so we're set for a few days. We've gotten the essentials and some replacement items, so we're able to function day-to-day.

Many of you have asked if there's anything you can do to help. Your love and support means everything to us; knowing we have a great network helps a lot. We aren't really set up to receive packages or drop-offs, or have anywhere to store much at this time. If you feel the need to help materially, sending money so we can deal with immediate needs is the most useful in the near term:

Zelle information

williamjoneswilson@gmail.com

Venmo information

https://venmo.com/code?user_id=1987076778098688290&created=1736397311

(Last 4 digits of phone number is 5647)

Gofundme

Laura's collegues from work have also started a GoFundMe page for us, listed here: https://gofund.me/bd0625db

We have also changed our mailing address to a friend's, but have been told that it may take 7-14 days for the change of address to get processed by USPS, so anything sent to our old Altadena address between the beginning of the year and going forward may be stuck in transit for a while, or possibly lost altogether. If you want to send us anything, please don't use the old address, let us know directly and we can provide the temporary address.

Thanks for checking in!