The Eaton Fire by William Karl Valentine

I was in Pasadena before the Eaton Fire started on January 7th 2025. My 99-year-old mother still lives in my childhood home, and I had gone up there to do her shopping and to clean up the debris in her yard from all the high winds that day.

At about 6:30pm, when I was walking into the market, I smelled the Eaton Fire, but I couldn’t see it. In the market I heard people talking about a fire and someone texted me that nearby Eaton Canyon was on fire. When I left the parking lot I saw the fire, and it was raging.

I received a “Mandatory Evacuation” notice on my phone at 7:28pm. I went to my sister’s home which is closer to the canyon and helped her back her car. There were already vegetation spot fires on her block, and I could see by the glow of the fire that homes were burning just east of her street. She came to my mom’s house where we stayed for the duration of the fire.

I stayed awake all night monitoring the progress of the fire. I watched TV news, I drove around our neighborhood, and I stood outside a lot while thinking about what to bring if we had to evacuate. Around 2am I saw a home two blocks down on my mom’s street burn, it was one of two lost on her street that night. The most ominous thing that night was listening to the booms of walls and roofs collapsing in Altadena, it sounded like a naval bombardment.

I photographed as I could the night of the fire, but my focus was just watching over my mom. Before dawn the wind stopped so when it got light I headed out to document what I could. There were few fire trucks, and the area soon was out of water. The fire was still slowly spreading and taking more homes.

The Eaton Fire destroyed 9,000 homes, killed 18 people, and countless pets. It burned so many places I had known my whole life, I had friends who lost their homes.

The morning of January 8th I was photographing a daycare center that was still burning when I realized the hospital where I was born was in the background of my frame, it was such a surreal feeling.

I have returned to photograph the burn areas at least fifty days since the fire. I want to document everything I can about the loss. Some of my approach has been with a forensic eye but most of what I am trying to capture is the loss. The damage tells the story of who lived there and the loss. My conversations with people have detailed their grief. This portfolio has weighed heavily on me.






William Karl Valentine
I am a documentary photographer currently living in Newport Beach, California. I was born and raised in Pasadena, California and I am a third generation Californian.

I graduated from Arizona State University in 1986 with a BFA in Photography. While at ASU I started documenting the Pasadena Police Department during the heigh of the rock cocaine era in Southern California for a class project. I continued working on that portfolio beyond my graduation and the experience led me into a law enforcement career. I was a Patrol Officer and Detective for the City of Chino for twenty years before having to retire because of injuries.

Throughout my time as a Police Officer I was able to continue photographing and I developed a variety of portfolios. In 1991 I published my first book, Santa Anita, which documented the famed racetrack in Southern California. My former professor Bill Jay wrote the afterword for the book. I have exhibited my photographs internationally and to date I have exhibited prints in ten solo exhibitions and over fifty group exhibitions. I have prints in several permanent collections including: The Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona, The Fogg Museum at Harvard, The University of New Mexico Museum, California State University Long Beach’s Museum, The Chicago Historical Society, and the Kentucky Horse Park Museum.
www.williamkarlvalentine.com
www.williamkarlvalentine2020.com
@williamkarlvalentine