


The morning after the Eaton fire broke out in Southern California, Sergio Lopez and his father returned to Altadena in a last-ditch effort to save their property. As powerful winds sent embers flying across their neighborhood, the father and son tried to douse the property with a garden hose.
But as the fire crept closer, they had no choice but to flee. The house was destroyed.
Not long after, more bad news came. Mr. Lopez, a teacher at John Muir High School in Pasadena, Calif., was at an academic conference in Sacramento when he got a phone call from the principal. He was being laid off.
Seven weeks after losing his home, he was told he was losing his job.
Mr. Lopez is one of 151 workers with the Pasadena Unified School District who received layoff notices this year. And he’s one of a dozen teachers who both lost their homes during the Eaton fire and are preparing to lose their jobs when the school year ends.
“After losing my home, my classroom was basically all I owned,” Mr. Lopez said. “Everything that I had owned after the fire was left inside my classroom.”
Layoff notices across California school districts are typical early in the calendar year. But in a school district where thousands of students and employees were forced to evacuate during the wildfire, the layoff notices in Pasadena have been a heavy blow, a crisis upon crisis for many families.