Runners Race to Support Los Angeles Wildfire Relief Effort

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Carl Walton was sleeping at home on January 7 in Altadena, located 14 miles north of downtown Los Angeles, when a wildfire ignited in Eaton Canyon shortly after 6:15 P.M. When he awoke three hours later to prepare for his night shift at UPS, his roommate pointed to a bright orange light visible at a distance from their three-bedroom house. Walton, an avid runner who moved in just five weeks ago, thought the flames were too far away for him to worry about them spreading to his neighborhood.

He donned his work clothes—black pants, a T-shirt, and Salomon trail running shoes—and went to load packages into delivery trucks, the full-time job that he juggles with a massage therapy program at Southern California Health Institute. He’s aiming to graduate this spring.

But at about 1 A.M. the next morning, Walton’s roommate texted him about mandatory Altadena evacuation orders. It’s a community of 42,000, among them blue-collar families and artists. About 58 percent of residents are non-white, and nearly a fifth are Black, according to census data.

RELATED: How Air Pollution and Wildfires Affect Runners

Walton left work immediately, thinking he had time to at least grab a few essentials from his house: school books, so he could prepare for an upcoming exam; his passport; and a few items of clothing. When he arrived 20 minutes later, his street was blocked. He couldn’t retrieve any belongings.

“I finally had a nice foundation,” Walton said. “And it was ripped away from me.”

He didn’t get emotional until after he arrived at the closest evacuation point, the Pasadena Convention Center, with only the clothes on his back. Overwhelmed by the influx of people, he left and attempted to find a gas station. “But really I was trying to find myself,” said Walton, 42. That night, not knowing where to turn, he slept in his car.

Walton’s red Jeep Compass continues to be everything—his shelter, a work space, and a place to simply sit quietly and cry. He’s been trying to purge the thick campfire scent that lingers inside so he can take on extra shifts as an Uber and Lyft driver. Housing security and working enough to cover his bills are his primary concerns at the moment. Staying with his aunt 40 miles away in Long Beach is less of an option, he said, costing him both precious gas and time. The cramped quarters there make it challenging to properly rest.

Walton has taken advantage of Planet Fitness, a franchise gym that is offering responders and residents impacted by the wildfires free access to its locker rooms, WiFi, and charging stations. And he recently picked up a care package from the Red Cross that included hygiene products and snacks.

Walton, a member of the Pasadena Run Club, hasn’t run in several days. Like many of the thousands of displaced residents from Altadena, Pacific Palisades, and numerous other Los Angeles area communities that have been ravaged by wildfires over the past week, he is in survival mode. He’s hoping the GoFundMe campaign he set up to raise $20,000 will help get his life back on track. As of January 14, the Eaton Fire alone has burned more than 14,000 acres, threatened nearly 40,000 structures, and is just 33 percent contained.

Carl Walton was working the night shift at UPS when the evacuation orders came in for his home in Altadena. By the time he was able to return home, the house was gone. (Photo: Courtesy Carl Walton)

Blindsided by the Blaze

Like Walton, Mike Sosin, a 42-year-old music manager, is still in shock that his house is now entirely charred. Sosin said the Palisades Fire was visible from his patio in Altadena’s Rubio Canyon. He skipped his run club that evening and loaded clothes, art, and records into his car before spending the next few days in Palm Desert, located roughly 100 miles to the east.

“There’s been a lot of ups and downs the last few days of not knowing how to process,” Sosin said. “There’s a weird survivor’s guilt—even though our house burned down and we lost 97 percent of our belongings—that we have as much as we have.”

The Eaton Fire in Altadena has been one of six simultaneous blazes burning across Los Angeles, the first and largest being the Palisades Fire. It began as a modest brush fire that broke out around 10:30 A.M. on January 7 in the Pacific Palisades, an affluent hillside community in west Los Angeles. Fueled by fast-moving winds referred to as the Santa Anas, within 30 minutes the flames spread into a ravaging blaze that enveloped more than 200 acres as it tore through abnormally dry scrubland and quickly forced the area’s panicked residents to evacuate.

Trail runners Sawna Guadarrama and Eamon Hughes are two more Altadena residents who lost their home in the Eaton Fire. Fellow trail runner Hilary Yang is hosting a GoFundMe to help them rebuild the basics in their lives.

Ultrarunner Victor Martinez, 36, was driving to Ernest Debs Regional Park to go for a hike when he saw a massive orange billowy cloud. He initially thought the plumes of smoke were the result of an explosion.

“We had no idea what was coming,” said Martinez, who resides in Mid-City in central Los Angeles.

Martinez was immediately filled with fear as the Santa Ana gusts picked up speed and propelled the fire and its embers through a landscape that hadn’t experienced meaningful rain in more than eight months. As homes, restaurants, and schools were set ablaze, it was only the beginning of the destruction that continues to devastate the second-most populous city in the U.S. The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department reports that at least 153,000 people have been forced to evacuate so far. More than 40,000 acres have been burned in the Eaton, Palisades, Kenneth, and Hurst fires, and more than 12,000 homes, businesses, schools and other structures have been destroyed, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Mike Sosin's house on fire during Los Angeles Wildfires — Runner Mike Sosin lost is home to the Eaton Fire. He had skipped his run club earlier that evening to load clothes, art, and records into his car. (Photo: Courtesy Mike Sosin)

Running Community Steps Up

Runners have galvanized across Los Angeles to help with the relief effort. Pasadena Run Club founder Lidia Garcia, who is a clinical social worker, quickly began an outreach initiative, mobilizing her run club of nearly 800 members to help displaced runners and the Pasadena and Altadena communities at large. She continues to update a detailed list of resources in addition to offering low-cost or free mental health services to individuals, families, and adolescents experiencing emotional distress and those in need of coping strategies and stress relief.

“Our running community is very close knit. We’re all connected. Just about every person who we know that lives in Altadena or north Pasadena lost their home,” Garcia said. “We’ve had a ton of response just within our community of people who want to help and have expressed how much they really love this city and the Pasadena and Altadena areas.”

Pasadena Run Club is one of dozens of run clubs in Los Angeles that are aiding wildfire victims like Walton as well as first responders. In fact, hundreds of runners have become an army of volunteers. Over the weekend, members of Koreatown Run Club, which boasts hundreds of runners from all over Los Angeles, spent three consecutive days collecting blankets, personal hygiene supplies, cases of water, and canned food to distribute in addition to monetary donations to provide meals to first responders, firefighters, and anyone affected by the fires.

Eaton Fire map — As of January 14, the Eaton Fire alone has burned more than 14,000 acres, threatened nearly 40,000 structures, and is just 33 percent contained. (Photo: Gaia GPS)

“The amount of support spread throughout L.A. and the list of businesses and people organizing to help is growing every day,” said Carol Sun, who has been a part of Koreatown Run Club since 2017.

Dan Faughnder, founder of the Eagle Rock Run Club, has paused weekly group runs to focus on supporting those impacted as well. Over the weekend, members of the club carpooled to volunteer at various distribution centers around Los Angeles.

“Our Discord has also become a hub for sharing resources, coordinating donations, and offering emotional support,” Faughnder said. “It’s been very comforting to have a community that is so local and boots on the ground.”

The all-hands-on-deck approach is necessary, said Sosin. “To make it work in a city like this, you have to rely on your community.”

The Silverlake Track Club recently hosted a raffle to financially support fire relief efforts as well as a donation drive, collecting packs of bottled water along with clothing, hygiene products, pantry food items, and diapers. And the L.A.-based sportswear brand District Vision, which makes high-end performance eyewear and running apparel, is offering complimentary replacement of all of its products in addition to protective eyewear for first responders, said co-founder Tom Daly, who spent the weekend in south Pasadena assembling packages for distribution.

The organizers of the Rose Bowl Half Marathon and 5K announced on January 10 that its January 19 races in Pasadena would be postponed to a date later this year, citing the dangerous air quality and the strain on local resources. The famous football stadium host venue is instead serving as an operations center for first responders. (Gabriel Ortega, a member of the Pasadena Pub Runners, was one of several runners across the city who urged the race to carry through on the postponement.) The same race organization also puts on the Los Angeles Marathon, which is slated to host the 40th annual race on March 16.

On January 13, California governor Gavin Newsom was asked how the fires would impact major upcoming sporting events, including eight World Cup soccer matches in 2026, the Super Bowl in 2027, and the Olympics in 2028. While admitting the sporting events are not a priority at this point, he said the city would take a comprehensive and collaborative approach to rebuilding the Los Angeles area. It’s a sentiment reflected on a more granular level within the running community.

“We’re not in a hurry to get back to running,” Garcia said. “That almost doesn’t matter at all. Yes, exercise can be a way of relieving stress and tension and all of that. But to think of running or something that we have to train for, I don’t think that’s on the minds of anyone in our running community. We’re so concerned about each other.”

“It’s a collective grief. It’s a collective pain,” Garcia added. “Our community is strong, resilient, and ready to support each other. We have a long way to go, and this is just the beginning.”