An Altadena man whose home survived the Eaton Fire explains the steps he took to make his home fire-resilient before the fire that destroyed the majority of his community. Lolita Lopez reports for the NBC4 News at 5 p.m. on Monday, March 17, 2025.
Archie Walker’s home in Altadena is still standing over two months after the Eaton Fire tore through his neighborhood, destroying most of the homes in the area.
Now Walker is advising his community to build for their environment, highlighting that fire season is all year long across Southern California.
“It’s just a matter of time,” Walker said. “Forests burn. They do burn. They all burn. They’re going to continue burning, so you need to prepare for just that.”
Walker, who has a background in architecture and engineering, has lived at this home situated at the base of the foothills in Altadena for two decades.
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“My intent was always to build a fire safe house because I’m in the mountains,” Walker said. “I lived in Chugach, Alaska. I was in the mountains, so I built one there.”
Aiming to do what he could to protect his Altadena home from the risk of wildfires, Walker took his home down to the studs then developed new plans with the materials being used his main focus.
“This is concrete, composite siding,” Walker said. “It’s a combination of a composite with concrete mixtures in it.”
Even with the composite, he said he added two pieces of slotter molding around it so that nothing could get to the wood.
He said that when wind comes from the mountains, it hits the composite not the wood.
Walker said that his home had withstood past fires but the Eaton Fire, and the winds that accompanied it, were something he had not experienced.
He was forced to evacuate his home, not expecting his home would survive the fire.
“I said, well, this is another one gone, period.”
When he returned, he was grateful to see his home still standing, in the neighborhood that was mostly gone.
