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California Today
Two evacuees took items with them that allowed them to play songs and paint after losing their homes.
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March 8, 2025, 5:00 a.m. ET
We asked those who lost their homes in the Palisades and Eaton fires to tell us about what they took — what objects or pets — as they evacuated. Weeks after the fires, those things that survived now hold a new meaning.
Here are two evacuees, the stories of what they rescued and why it mattered.
An acoustic bass guitar
Adeline Quinn, 16 Altadena
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The power had been out for hours when Sang Yi noticed that the flames from the Eaton fire were suddenly very close. He lived with his family on a cul-de-sac and worried that if a neighbor’s tree succumbed to the Santa Ana winds and fell across the road, they could be trapped.
So he and his wife, Carrie Quinn, rushed around in the dark trying to wrangle their two children, two house cats and a few essentials into their Honda Accord. “We didn’t pack a lot of clothes,” Yi said. “At least in my mind, I thought we were coming back.”
Their 16-year-old daughter, Adeline, wasn’t taking any risks. After putting her pet coral snake in a travel carrier and making sure she had her computer, phone, favorite stuffed dinosaur and a few necklaces, she asked her parents if there was room in the car for something else, something not exactly small — the acoustic bass guitar she had in her room that she’d been practicing on for months.
