She had become accustomed to Altadena, a place where residents raise goats and chickens and take pride in their rustic life. Strong winds, power outages and irregular cell phone reception are also not uncommon here.

The community had a down-to-earth atmosphere, far removed from the glamor of Pacific Palisades, where it was common for nannies to drive children to elite private schools. Altadena was also more racially diverse. By the 1970s, it had attracted middle-class black families who viewed it as a haven, and their children and grandchildren often stayed there. One in five households speaks Spanish at home.

Just before 7 p.m., Ms. Hall texted her friend. “It’s really bad out here,” he says, referring to the wind. Her daughter Jade, 12, was taking a nap.

Ms. Hall plugged in her cell phone and extra battery, hoping to fully charge them in case the power went out. The lights were already flickering in her living room.

She showered and picked up her phone. At this point it was about 7:45 p.m. and she had missed a flurry of calls and texts. One included a screenshot of an Instagram post about a fire in nearby Eaton Canyon.

It had erupted at around 6.20pm but Ms Hall had not smelled any smoke. She had relatives in the neighborhood who had lived in the area for a long time and were familiar with the evacuation warnings. They seemed unfazed.

But Ms. Hall, who moved to the area in 2020 and had never seen a fire break out, felt uneasy about the wind. “Instead of it going in one direction, it was like a whirlwind, like a circle, and I felt like it could turn around at any moment.”

An alarm went off in her head: We have to get out.

She hid her panic, went into Jade’s room and called casually, “Hey, when you get up, can you pack some clothes?” We just want to leave for a few days, it’s very windy and it’s starting to burn on the hiking trail. “

Then she called her cousin Cheri West. Ms. Hall had always referred to her as Aunt Cheri out of respect because, at 64, she was a mother figure.

Aunt Cheri, a retired paralegal who worked part-time at HomeGoods, lived half a mile away and insisted on staying home. She planned to go to sleep and expected things to calm down. Everything would be okay, she said.

“Honestly, Aunt, I’m tired too, but I think it’s just the safest option to keep going down the mountain,” Ms. Hall told her.

Her aunt refused. She had lived in the area for more than three decades. She believed that the fire would not come towards her. Leaving seemed like an overreaction.

“Auntie, whether you say yes or no, I’ll be at your house in 20 minutes,” Ms. Hall said.

Aunt Cheri was one of the reasons Ms. Hall moved to Altadena.

Ms. Hall had spent much of her youth traveling through southern Los Angeles County communities like Compton and Watts — areas that always felt like home but also had sharp edges. She had lost a friend in a hit-and-run accident and even more in shootings. After a few years at California State University, Dominguez Hills, she dropped out because she had to work multiple jobs to stay afloat.

Ms. Hall’s mother died of breast cancer in 2013 and she regretted that she didn’t have a longer goodbye. Four years later, Jade’s father was fatally shot.

“I just needed my daughter to be close to my family, I needed a village,” Ms Hall said. “I couldn’t do everything by myself.”

Altadena, a town where her mother grew up and where a dozen relatives lived in a historically black neighborhood, seemed like the place that could help them heal.

They ended up renting the lower half of a duplex on Las Flores Drive that Ms. Hall’s grandmother, a seamstress on the television show “Star Trek,” had bought decades ago, when houses were available for less than $50,000. Her cousins ​​had inherited the house and offered her an affordable rent. Another cousin and her family lived in the unit above.

When the fire broke out, Ms. Hall was particularly worried about Aunt Cheri, who would not be able to drive in the dark due to her poor eyesight.

At the same time, an uncle had decided to stay. His son didn’t want to leave him behind and said he would stay too.

Ms. Hall began packing, grabbing a box of personal documents and stuffing clothes and toiletries into a duffel bag. Jade did the same, adding a tablet and a stuffed bear with her father’s voice recorded on it. Just before she left, Ms. Hall lingered over an array of costume jewelry and souvenirs, the only things left of her mother’s possessions.

“I just remember looking at their stuff and thinking, I’ll come back in a few days,” she recalls.

Outside, the neighborhood had changed. A furious wind that had already knocked down their fence and torn a wooden gate was kicking up debris and dirt. Grapefruits torn from the trees lay all over the ground.

Ms Hall and Jade struggled to get to their gray Kia Forte. The power was officially out and the entire neighborhood was dark, the air filled with smoke. The cousin who lived above them showed up with her mother to check on them and collect their belongings. They were all shouting at each other over the wind, but their voices were barely audible.

Then Mrs. Hall and Jade drove to Aunt Cheri’s house and waited in the car in front of the metal gate, which was always chained. The area was a dead spot for cell phone reception. They prayed that she would come. Twenty minutes passed in idle.

Finally Aunt Cheri came with her purse and two bags. She left her pit bull terrier, Stanton, behind.

As they attempted to leave the hills, a terrorized city revealed itself. Houses caught fire and trees burst into flames. Branches were thrown onto the street.

“It was just terrible. Everywhere you look everything is burning,” Ms. Hall said. “Everything was unrecognizable.”

The streets were clogged with other cars trying to escape and Ms Hall could barely see in front of her. Acrid smoke streamed across her windshield.

“The street lights were out, all the business lights were out, gas stations were closed – everything was completely black and dark,” she said.

“Nobody followed any traffic rules. They just panicked.”

Every time Ms Hall tried to get to a main road, she encountered a police blockade and a line of cars forced to turn around.

“There was no point in using a map because no matter which route you take, you can’t leave,” she said. “So we were literally zigzagging through streets we’d never been on before, and I was like, ‘I don’t even know where we are.'”

After maneuvering south for about 40 minutes, they finally managed to get out of the region and get their bearings.

“When we looked back, you could literally see the helicopters flying trying to drop water and a line of cars with white lights just trying to get down the mountain.”

Ms. Hall drove another 10 miles southeast to Temple City to leave Aunt Cheri with a cousin, and then she and Jade drove to Inglewood to stay with another relative. When they arrived, they were relieved to learn that the uncle and his son who had remained behind had finally been evacuated. They would soon learn that all of their family members were safe.

Early Wednesday, a cousin managed to get back into the neighborhood. He sent Ms. Hall a video of the scene at her home.

Burnt cars. Metal strips too deformed to decipher. Crumpled roof. The rest, ash and rubble.

The entire neighborhood was more of the same. Including Aunt Cheri’s house. Among the remains was the body of her pit bull, Stanton.

Until then, Ms. Hall had maintained a tough facade. But the pictures made her cry.

Across the city, many evacuees from the Palisades fire fled to luxury hotels or to stay with friends whose homes were large enough for large families.

But Ms. Hall and her daughter are now sleeping on the couch at a relative’s house, fearful of a seemingly precarious future. It will be impossible to meet the rent she pays. Their limited salary was difficult to expand anyway. Because of this, she had $12,000 in her home and found it easier to manage cash. She had left it behind for fear of being robbed on the street.

The two had previously been homeless when Ms Hall left an unhealthy relationship. Jade was a toddler and they slept in a friend’s mother’s closet for a while. When they finally settled in Altadena, that past seemed far behind them.

“It’s like: How many times do I have to rebuild my life and start over?”

But Ms. Hall also had another feeling within her: disbelief, love and gratitude. The devastation of her neighborhood highlighted the fate from which she and her family members narrowly escaped. At least three people who remained in the same area had died, all long-time Altadena residents. One of them was found with a garden hose in his hand.

When Ms. Hall’s cousin in Temple City called FaceTime to check in, she thanked her for keeping her mother safe.

Then Aunt Cheri appeared in front of the camera. Mrs. Hall cried at the sight of them.

“Thanks for letting me take you out there,” she said.

She repeated the words again and then added, “Because…” but couldn’t finish the sentence.

Then they both cried together.

“Auntie, imagine if we hadn’t left?”