Altadena left devastated by deadly Eaton Fire: "Everything is gone"

While another Los Angeles County wildfire burned homes to the ground, the community of Altadena was also left devastated by a quickly moving blaze — one that has left at least five people dead and injured several others as it wiped out entire buildings.

"It's all burned down," an Altadena woman who lost her home in the Eaton Fire said as she spoke through tears. "Everything — my kids' school, our community, our neighbors' houses. Everything is just burned down. Everything is gone."

"My heart is broken," she said. "I love this community. I love the people in Altadena."

The wildfire erupted Tuesday evening and quickly spread as powerful winds fanned the flames. With the power out at their house, she told her two young children they were having a "fancy candlelight dinner" when they sat down to eat that night.

"And then we looked outside. We saw a huge fire and we just packed whatever we can and we ran out," she said. "It was chaos. On the streets, people were trying to get out."

"We thought, 'We're gonna come back tomorrow.' So we didn't even pack anything. We had nothing. We left everything," she said. "We have just whatever we're wearing. We've been wearing the same thing for the last two days."

"I'm trying to figure out how to tell my 3-year-old we don't have a home," she said. "We don't have his school. We don't even know where to go or what to do next."

With entire neighborhoods of homes destroyed, there have also been stores, restaurants, churches and other buildings burned to the ground in what has now become one of the most destructive wildfires in California history. Old Town Altadena, where historic buildings were situated against a scenic backdrop of mountainsides, has been left devastated. 

"All of the Old Town, the iconic Altadena Old Town, is gone," said Steve Lubanski, co-owner of The Bunny Museum, the beloved local museum which had been featured on "Ripley's Believe it or Not!" and the Guinness Book of World Records. 

"Our museum is gone. That'll hit me in a while," he said.

The community of around 42,000 people has a rural charm that sets it apart from neighboring areas of LA, with a New York Times profile once calling the area of the Verdugo Mountains "open spaces above the sprawl of Los Angeles." Its history goes back to the late 1800s, when its canyons were tapped as water sources in the years after California officially became a U.S. state.

Among those who lost their lives in the Eaton Fire this week was a longtime resident of Altadena who had lived there for decades. Rodney Nickerson, 83, was found dead in his home by his daughter, Kimiko Nickerson, she told CBS News Los Angeles. 

"That was the last thing he verbally said to me was, 'I'll be here tomorrow,'" Nickerson said. "My son tried to get him to leave — my neighbors and myself. And he said he'll be fine."

Her father bought their family home in Altadena for $5 in 1968, she said. The Nickerson family has deep roots in LA as Rodney's grandfather, William Nickerson, founded and owned Nickerson Gardens in Watts, the largest public housing site in the city. 

"This is the house that I came home to as a child," Nickerson said. "I've been here my whole life. I don't know anywhere else but here."

As she walked through the wreckage Thursday, she said there was not much left of the place where she grew up.

"The neighborhood is completely gone — blocks and blocks and blocks down. It's just devastating," she said.