On the last morning he would spend in his family’s Altadena home, Joey Chavez awoke with a plan.
“My friend sent me this warning from the meteorologist Edgar McGregor who predicted the combination of winds and high temperature was potentially very dangerous, and the final part of that text said, ‘If you have animals, prepare now,’” he said.
So Chavez, 49, his wife Mia White, 46, and their three children spent the day of Jan. 7, 2025, gathering the 60 or so animals that made up Experience Fable, their mobile petting zoo. It was an impressive menagerie: six goats, two sheep, two cats, a dog, 12 ducks, 2 roosters, about two dozen chickens, 12 rabbits, four guinea pigs, a parrot, and Mr. Bubbles the beta fish.
By the time the Eaton fire was three hours into its destructive 24-day rampage throughout Altadena, Pasadena and Sierra Madre, the family had loaded up a pickup truck and cargo van and were ready to evacuate.
“I was walking out the front door, and I remember feeling we’re on this scary adventure, but we’ll be back,” Chavez said. “That feeling was wrong.”
The family would lose their home and the barn structures and equipment on its micro-farm, one of more than 9,000 structures destroyed by the blaze.
This Friday, Chavez and White will welcome fellow survivors to the cleared lot of their Altadena property, where they’ve erected fences to keep the reunited roster of their animal farm. It’s their way to offer some community healing time, as well as a way to say thanks to LISC-LA’s Wildfire Recovery grant and Wells Fargo Foundation, which supported and funded a $10,000 grant for their small business.
“This grant just came at the perfect time,” said White, who continued running the mobile petting zoo even as the family remain displaced in San Diego.
Even as they begin rebuilding the property, constructing temporary fencing and shelters for their animals, the family wanted to include their neighbors in marking their animals’ official return and the first gathering on the property since the wildfire.
The private gathering on Friday, Oct. 24, will kick off what the family hopes to make a regular offering as they continue to rebuild. Their plans are tentative for now, but includes finding a bigger home for Experience Fable, near to their Loma Alta lot.
It is a step closer to what they had before the fire.
Chavez and White, both California-born, met at a farmer’s market in Bushwick, New York, in 2005.
“We were passing each other on the street and exchanged a smile and that was it,” Chavez said. They returned to the Golden State to start a family, choosing Altadena for its open spaces and proximity to Los Angeles. The town’s cool, eclectic community cemented the conviction that they had found their home.
Experience Fable got its start as a small animal feed delivery service, later evolving into the mobile petting zoo that allowed the couple to share a farm life experience with their three children, Emme, 14, Nico, 11, and Shylo, 8. White remembers caring for rabbits as a child and just being drawn to life on a farm, parts of which she and her husband were able to re-create in Altadena.
The return of most of their animals is a boon to their three children, too, who have had to also endure the loss of their schools, and friends through multiple moves. They are back caring for life again, their mother said.
Shyloh, who said she loved playing at Loma Alta Park, and misses watching her brother play baseball at Farnsworth Park, has learned a thing or two about dealing with tough stuff post-Eaton fire.
“I usually just sit in my bed and try to think about stuff except the things that made me sad or mad, and then when I feel little better, I go out to see my animals.”
Her favorite is Emma, a 7-year-old brown sheep “because she’s really calm and she loves when you scratch on her little cheeks,” Shyloh said.
Emma is a favorite of Christine Ghazarian, too. A neighbor and friend who now works with the family, Ghazarian said the mobile zoo offers children a farm experience many can’t easily access.
“It’s a taste of the rural life and teaches them to care for animals, and everything that involves,” she said. “This is a special community and something that I don’t want to stop doing. I’m like, ‘Who cares there’s a fire? Let’s keep going.”
In the nine months since the fire, the animal farm has lost some and gained some members (the ducks have been especially prolific). Two Italian livestock dogs, Savannah and Montana, have joined the crew to watch over the other animals.
“But that’s life, right?” White said.
The two turkeys are so happy at the Montebello Barnyard Zoo, the family may leave them there. Mr. Bubbles the beta fish is also thriving under the grandmotherly care of White’s mother.
Justine Gonzalez, executive director of philanthropy and community impact for Wells Fargo, lives in Pasadena, so she knew the area and its businesses well. Wells Fargo helped fund the $1.5 million in grants to 150 small businesses affected by the fire. The grants will give small business owners the momentum they need to keep going, she added. And aren’t the schools and community hubs and small businesses, and yes, even a mobile petting zoo, what made Altadena what it was?
“It’s amazing to know that the community is going to be able to come back, with help from these grants,” she said. “Each business that reopens is an encouraging sign to everyone that the community we know and love is coming back.”