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Amid the ash, warped metal and husks of cars, the chimneys appear eerily uniform, each like a tombstone for a burned-down house. In many cases, they are all that is left of the thousands of homes consumed by the Los Angeles wildfires.
Fred Van der Linde said his fireplace “was the only thing that was standing” after the Eaton fire incinerated his century-old home in Altadena in January. Remarkably, its patchwork of historic clay tiles depicting tulips, pomegranate blossoms and medieval knights in shining armor also remained intact.
“My first thought was: I want to try to salvage it,” he said.
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Mr. Van der Linde’s fireplace is among several dozen that were left standing with their historic tiles more or less intact after the Eaton fire tore through Altadena, an unincorporated community in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains north of Los Angeles, on Jan. 7, killing 17 people and destroying more than 9,400 homes, businesses and other buildings.
Now, a group of neighbors, masons and other volunteers are racing to salvage the tiles — many of which are at least a century old, and can be worth thousands of dollars apiece — from burned-out homes before they are demolished or stolen.
The tiles, many of which were handmade locally in the early 1900s, tether Altadena to its history and are part of the rich cultural and architectural legacy of Los Angeles. For some residents, the effort to rescue them has also become symbolic of the battle to save the community from predatory investors who, in the aftermath of the Eaton fire, have pressured some homeowners in the bucolic enclave to sell their land.
