When Nina Raj saw the sky glow orange outside her Altadena home as the Eaton fire approached last Tuesday, the first thing that she packed for evacuation was her seed collection: Matilija poppy seeds, Engelmann oak acorns, California buckeye, sage and buckwheat seeds, along with so many others she had gathered around Eaton Canyon.
“That first night we were down our block putting out fires,” she said. “We’re smoky, but safe.”
Ms. Raj’s home is still standing, but hundreds of other homes and backyards burned as the Eaton fire devastated 14,000 acres in Altadena, including thousands of acres of woodlands, streams and undeveloped land where locals hiked, rode bikes and watched for birds and other wildlife.
Ms. Raj, a University of California naturalist and master gardener, is a docent at the Eaton Canyon Nature Center and had been working to build a seed bank there. Altadena residents were familiar with one of the dozen or so wooden structures she had scattered around the neighborhood marked “Altadena Seed Library,” where people could take or leave free seeds.
“Plants do so many amazing things,” she said. “They’re so intelligent.”
Fire is a natural part of the ecosystem in Southern California, so much so that some native plants have adapted to germinate in the ashes, while others have been shown to clean scorched soil and prepare it for new growth.
As wildfires become more dangerous, extreme and fast-moving, the re-establishment of native plant life, coupled with clearing away invasive species that dry out, becoming kindling, is urgent work for conservationists across Los Angeles.
On Monday, Ms. Raj was working with friends from the local nursery Plant Material to get gardening tools and protective gear to people on the ground who needed them as they cleaned up debris, or excavated what was left of their homes. She also put out a call for seed donations, knowing they would soon be essential to restoring the area.
Within a day, people were dropping off seed packets — bladderpod and desert globemallow seeds, poppy seeds from “Sue’s yard in Pasadena” and brickellbush from “a south facing slope in Topanga Canyon.” Someone brought Ms. Raj a single California black walnut sapling. Others mailed in yarrow, mugwort, sagebrush and lupine seeds. On Instagram, users tagged seed companies and native plant nurseries hoping to get their attention.
In recent years, many home gardeners in Altadena replaced their lawns with native gardens. Others tended to vegetables patches and community gardens for decades, and cared for mature fruit trees, sharing the hauls with their neighbors. In the winter, the homemade greenhouses of Altadena were filled with dormant treasures.
As the fires burned through yards and wilderness, Ms. Raj saw more than just clusters of greenery disappearing. She thought of how hot the summers would be without the shade these plants and trees provided, the degraded air quality, the polluted water sources, and the loss of habitat for deer, coyotes and other animals and insects.
“I’m also thinking about the comfort that plants bring to so many folks in Altadena who rely on gardening and tending the land to feel connected to themselves,” she said. “We all have a lot of work to do.”
After a wildfire, if land is polluted with chemical fire retardants, salt water and ash, soil scientists say it can take five to 10 years for healthy regrowth, depending on rain and other factors in the years that follow. When growth is possible, the soil must still be analyzed to determine if foods that grow there are safe to eat.
Ms. Raj was focused on seed education and seed equity for years in preparation for disaster, though she didn’t expect one so soon, so close to home. “I first started making these videos on how to collect and germinate seeds because so many native seeds have so many specific requirements,” Ms. Raj said.
In one of these old videos, published on her website, she demonstrates how smoke helps to crack the tough exterior of a Matilija poppy seed, a dazzling native plant nicknamed the “fried egg poppy,” for its lush, yolky center and large, fluttering white petals.
“Even if the entire field burns down, they’ll regrow,” she said. “That underground resilience and connection is such a metaphor for Altadena — those nodes of connection and care are still so strong. Even if they’re invisible, we know we’ll come back.”
