Relief contributions requested via diocesela.org/annual-appeal
Episcopal Chaplain Liz Piraino of Altadena’s MonteCedro retirement community reassures resident taking emergency shelter at Pasadena Convention Center. Photos: Bishop John Harvey Taylor
[The Episcopal News] – Locally and nationally, the Episcopal community has rallied together, in a resilient outpouring of prayers, love and support as out-of-control Southern California wildfires blazed a second straight day, destroying thousands of acres, homes, schools, and an Episcopal church among various houses of worship and historic buildings, forcing mass evacuations.
“This is devastating, incomprehensible, the magnitude of what could happen so quickly,” said Sharon Pewtress, chief operating officer of Episcopal Communities & Services (ECS), of the Eaton Fire, which began burning Tuesday night in the hills above Altadena in northern Los Angeles County, destroying St. Mark’s Episcopal Church and School there early Wednesday morning.
ECS, which operates several senior communities within the diocese, evacuated some 200 residents from its Altadena MonteCedro residence.
CNN reported that the fire has killed five with zero percent containment.
“Our property this morning was very scary; we thought we were going to lose it,” Pewtress said. Sheriffs arrived with evacuation orders before sunrise and transported residents on buses to the Pasadena Convention Center.
Episcopal Communities and Services (ECS) President James Rothrock speaks with Canon Kathy O’Connor outside emergency shelter at Pasadena Convention Center. He and staff colleagues oversaw safe evacuation of MonteCedro retirement community residents.
There, Los Angeles Bishop John Harvey Taylor and Canon Kathy O’Connor visited with evacuees. An historic building, the Scripps Home Gloria Cottage, located on MonteCedro’s property, was lost, Pewtress said, but otherwise the campus was presumed intact.
Taylor, in a YouTube video message to the diocese noted the outpouring from across The Episcopal Church.
“Offers have been flooding in from all over the diocese, from individuals, parishes and missions that have room for evacuees who need shelter. Thank you. Bishops form all over The Episcopal Church, including Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe and our former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry. We have heard from Bishop Diane (Jardine Bruce) in the Diocese of Western Missouri and many colleagues all over the church, pledging themselves to your care and safety,” Taylor said.
Properties continued to blaze, including in a sixth fire, in the Hollywood Hills, fueling chaos, uncertainty, fear and “losses too great to bear,” Taylor said. “The list of names of members of our churches in the San Gabriel Valley and Pacific Palisades area who’ve lost homes could exceed 40 or 50 by the time all of the news is in,” he said.
Assistance to those displaced is underway, he added, noting that contributions to the diocesan “One Body, One Spirit Annual Appeal” have been earmarked for fire relief and will be supplemented through aid from Episcopal Relief and Development, The Episcopal Church’s disaster relief agency.
“Thanks for your courage, your fortitude, your faith and your love. An emergency such as this, is an epochal generational event for our diocese. In moments such as this, we reclaim our oneness in Christ. We gather at the foot of the cross and enfold one another in our arms and in prayer. And we pledge to continue to glorify God and to care for one another, especially those most at risk and most in need.”
After the Hollywood Hills fire erupted around 5:30 p.m. near Runyon Canyon, an evacuation order was set in place from Laurel Canyon Boulevard on the west and the 101 freeway on the east, and Mullholland Drive to the north and Hollywood Boulevard to the south. St. Thomas the Apostle Episcopal Church, 7501 Hollywood Blvd., is within this evacuation area.
Although St. Stephen’s Church, Hollywood, is located east of the evacuation zone, members of the on-site Jubilee Fellows program have re-located to available retreat rooms at St. Paul’s Commons, Echo Park. Evacuees from other areas, including an Altadena parishioner whose home was destroyed, also are in residence at the Commons.
Later in the evening, the Sunswept fire engulfed multiple homes in Studio City. Nearby residents along Coldwater Canyon Avenue — where St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church is located — have been advised to prepare for potential evacuation.
Episcopal schools, at St. Mark’s in Altadena, and at St. Matthew’s Church in Pacific Palisades, were destroyed, according to the Rev. Ryan Newman, executive director of the diocesan Commission on Schools.
“This afternoon around 2 p.m., spot fires were reported in the (Palisades campus) area and the elementary school, the library, the middle school and early education center are reported to have active fires and are in the process of being consumed,” he told The Episcopal News in a telephone interview late Wednesday. Lack of adequate water pressure was reportedly an issue in fighting the fires in both Altadena and Pacific Palisades.
St. Matthew’s Church Interior. Photo: St. Matthew’s Music Guild
“We are not going anywhere,” Alexandra Michaelson, St. Matthew’s head of school, wrote to families. “We are one community, parish and school, and we will stay that way—we will educate the children of St. Matthew’s. St. Matthew’s lives in all of our hearts. We will rebuild our campus to be as strong as our community.”
The Palisades parish has weathered prior firestorms. The previous church, an A-frame wooden structure, was destroyed with 86 neighboring homes in 1978. The current church, a contemporary landmark designed by notable architect Charles W. Moore, was completed in 1983.
The Rev. Stefanie Wilson, school chaplain, said local churches and schools had been reaching out with offers of assistance and help. “We just don’t know yet,” what is needed, Wilson said. “The situation is still too fluid. But there has been an outpouring of support locally and nationally through the school network.”
Similarly, Newman said he had received many emails, texts and phone calls from chaplains and heads of school from across the country. “I’m so glad that I can report that all of our school families are safe, but the loss of both St. Mark’s Church and School and St. Matthew’s School and possibly St. Matthew’s Church is devastating. Buildings can be rebuilt, but the loss is heartbreaking.”
Numerous staff members and church and school families — both at St. Mark’s and St. Matthew’s — also lost homes as the fires continued to blaze, complicated by strong winds. At St. Matthew’s, the respective residences of the Rev. Bruce Freeman, rector, and his family, and the home of the Rev. Stephen Smith, associate, and his family, both were destroyed. The status of St. Matthew’s Church was unclear at press time for The Episcopal News.
“It’s changing all the time,” Wilson told The News. “We just had a very tearful Zoom with faculty, and we are taking down names as we hear about people and families and alums who have lost houses.”
Classes were cancelled through the end of the week, as families scattered to find housing. Resuming classes will be “a group effort,” Wilson said, adding that “our local schools are already on Zooms together, to talk about how to pool resources and figure out what’s next. But people are just trying to figure out how long they can stay where they are or if they need to find somewhere new to live. It’s all too much to think about what next looks like.”
In both costal and foothill areas, members of the clergy, staff and faculty, and parishioners all reportedly lost homes. As many as four families from St. Barnabas Church in Pasadena also lost their homes, as have members of Pasadena’s All Saints Church.
As reported earlier, historic St. Mark’s Church in Altadena had also been destroyed in the fire. “It is with a broken heart that I share with you the news that our church building is lost,” the Rev. Carri Patterson Grindon, St. Mark’s rector, had written to the congregation Tuesday evening, about the loss of the church.
ECS’s Pewtress said community spirit and resilience was evident, despite the fires’ devastation, chaos and uncertainty. “We had staff lose their homes, which is also devastating. We’re trying to figure out what we can do to help them out.”
MonteCedro resident Ray, joining evacuees at Pasadena Convention Center, displays cell phone snapshot taken of blaze and smoke visible from his apartment window.
She had spent the day ensuring MonteCedro’s residents were all accounted for “and have a place to sleep tonight in the homes of their children or friends or other communities. Everyone rallied together. It was wonderful, seeing how everybody was coming together to offer support and places for residence in all this chaos and crisis. Everybody stepped up and helped out.
“Our dining provider brought 400 meals and water to everyone at the convention center, and there were others helping out.”
About 20 MonteCedro residents were relocated to the Covington, an ECS community located in Aliso Viejo, in south Orange County. Covington chaplain, the Rev. Linda Wirt, said in a telephone interview that she was purchasing clothes for them at a local store.
Similarly, All Saints Church in Pasadena had housed about 180 evacuees Tuesday night and reports continued to come in about local clergy, staff and residents who had lost homes. Many evacuees said they had not previously visited All Saints and thanked the Rev. Tim Rich, interim rector, for the parish’s hospitality.
Updates will follow when available. A resource page is here.
—The Rev. Canon Pat McCaughan, news editor of The Episcopal News, is vicar of St. George’s Church in Laguna Hills.