Anthony Mitchell called his daughter from his home in Altadena, Calif., on Wednesday morning and told her that he was OK.
He had called for help, he said, and was waiting to be evacuated from his home, which was uncomfortably close to a fast-growing fire that had ignited in the Angeles National Forest.
Then Mr. Mitchell noticed something out the window.
“Baby, I got to go,” he said. “The fire just got in the yard.”
Mr. Mitchell lived on Terrace Street in Altadena with two sons, both in their 30s. It was a modest white house with a green front gate and green trim. Trees towered above the home’s carefully tended garden. The edge of a woods climbing up into the San Gabriel Mountains was just 10 blocks away.
Mr. Mitchell used a wheelchair after his leg was amputated last year, a complication of his diabetes. One of his sons, Justin, was born with cerebral palsy and was “bedridden,” according to Mr. Mitchell’s daughter, Hajime White.
Usually, Mr. Mitchell’s other son, Jordan, cared for both of them alongside a rotating team of professionals. But Jordan was not there that day. He had gone to the hospital earlier in the week with a case of sepsis. There were several cars in the driveway, but Mr. Mitchell could not drive them. As the fire came closer, whipped by strong winds barreling down the mountains, no ambulance appeared.
That night, Mr. Mitchell and Justin were both found dead.
Ms. White said that her family had been trying to piece together what happened to them.
“Where was the ambulance?” she said. “Where were the caregivers? Where was everyone at?”
Evacuation Orders Given Late to Area Where Fire Deaths Were Concentrated
All 17 people who died in the Eaton fire lived in an area where evacuation orders came hours later than others, even as homes nearby were already burning. Some people never received warnings at all.
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