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Mountain View News Saturday, February 8, 2025

LARIO STAGING AREA UPDATE

Earlier this week, the City of Monrovia formally submitted a letter of concern to 
the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regarding the City's 
concerns regarding the Lario Staging Area's use as a temporary hazardous waste 
site for Eaton Fire materials. In this letter, we communi-cated our main concerns, 
including potential risks to the Main San Gabriel Basin Aquifer, which serves over 
1 million people, and the EPA’s initial plan to use local streets for transporting hazard-
ous materials instead of the 210 freeway. However, as many of you now know, 
the trucking route has been moved back onto the 210 freeway and only uses surface 
streets to travel to and from the freeway. Additionally, we stressed the importance 
of improved communication between federal of-ficials and local communities to 
address concerns and ensure a safe, transparent cleanup process. 

The EPA presented at the City of Azusa's City Council Meeting earlier this week, 
and I encourage anyone interested to watch the video here (beginning at 1hr 53 
min. timestamp) to learn more.

Additionally, a fact sheet on the Lario Park site was created and can be viewed here. 
For questions about EPA's Phase 1 Hazardous Materials removal work, please contact 
the EPA hotline at (1-833-798-7372) or email EPALAWildfiresInfo@epa.gov. 


BE READY TO FLEE - 
One Man's Story

 Heading out on my driveway, right foot 
shaking on the accelerator, my side mirror looks 
like a red-hot ingot with the silhouette of my house 
in it. The Eaton Fire is burning like right in my 
backyard. Outside, white ashes are whirling like 
snowflakes. Dozens of grapefruit are turning and 
twisting on the branches stripped bare by the 80 
mph high wind. A knock on my window. It’s Joe, 
my next door neighbor, pointing to the street. I 
nod. He runs over the hedge to his white SUV. I 
move onto the street. Tofu, my only passenger, 
cries from below the passenger seat. I bend over to 
stroke the cardboard box, “I know, I know.” 

 

 David’s house, my sanctuary tonight, 
perches on the top of a hill 10 miles further south. 
It was almost midnight. I take my purse from the 
passenger seat and scoop the cardboard box out, 
and walk to the door. 

 “Come on in,” David leads me directly 
to their guestroom. It’s so quiet that it feels like a 
different planet. I let Tofu out, close the door, and 
walk to the living room to greet Alexei, David’s 
husband. On their xxx-inch screen shadows of 
firefighters moving and pointing their hoses 
towards the orange sky. “You know Masha?” David 
asks me, “She is also coming with her three cats.” I 
know how much David despises cats. Four cats in 
his house? 

 “Let’s settle your cat first. What do you 
need?” he asks. 

 “Two bowls and a litter box.” I line up two 
of his salad bowls, one for feed one for water, and a 
plastic basin for litter. “Toto,” I call her baby name, 
and then “Tofu,” her official name, “where are 
you?” “Mewl,” she answers from beneath the bed. 

 The doorbell rings. “Masha, come on in,” 
David’s voice. Another refugee. I walk to the living 
room. On the floor, in front of the TV, were three 
metal cages and Masha. 

 “My roof was gone,” she swings her right 
hand across her face. I give her a hug and hover 
over the largest black cage. I see a large lump of 
brown fur in the corner, a monster. We sit down on 
the couch to watch houses in fire and their owners 
running to cars with kids followed and babies in 
their arms. 

 David pinches his nose, “Do you smell 
something in the air?” “Smoke?” I ask.

“No, something else.” We all turn our faces towards 
the ceiling, sniffing. Yes, there is a smell in the air, 
strange yet familiar, to me. I run back to the guest 
room. 

“What did you do, baby?” I asked her. She looks up 
at me with that pair of innocent blue eyes. I crawl 
on the thick light grey carpet sniffing around till I 
find a wet spot. Quietly I climb up to the bed. 

I wake up by a knock on the door. “Come quickly,” 
David beckons for me to go over. Outside in the 
slimmer of light, their “million dollar view” is 
blocked by smoke rolling like dark grey clouds 
towards the patio door glasses. “It’s coming,” David 
scans over our faces. I call a close friend living in 
Riverside. 

 I return back to 210, this time eastbound. I 
worry about Masha and her three cats, worry about 
David and Alexei, and worry about Tofu crying 
blow the passenger seat. I worry myself to sick. 

 At the exit to Michillinda I habitually 
get off the freeway, turn to north toward home. I 
realize the mistake but I continue. If my house has 
been burned down, I want to touch the ashes. If it 
still stands, I want to touch its walls to say goodbye. 

Before 2001 I’d never thought that I would be able 
to buy a house in the U.S. All I wanted was to be 
able to send my son to the best schools I could. 
Then I found a moderate house in this quiet small 
town with giant trees lined up the streets. The San 
Gabriel Mountains in the north reminded me 
of the mountain town where I was born. Like an 
immigrant bird, I wanted a small nest to rest my 
tired wings. I became one of the 1% Asians living in 
the town. I roamed every single street to appreciate 
the grant trees, colorful flowers, domestic or wild, 
and the stars and moon. I held parties in my dining 
room and I invited neighbors to my backyard. I 
shared my backyard fruit with neighbors and I was 
moved to tears in front of the marquee at the front 
of Sierra Madre Playhouse. It said “Happy Chinese 
New Year” on Chinese New Year Day. 

 In this home I lost three cats and four hens 
to coyotes and sent my son to college and then to 
law school. I made friends of the waitress of the 
Italian restaurant The Only Place in Town and went 
to Corfu for Greek salads. I went to the church up 
to Sierra Madre Boulevard to cast my votes every 
four years, and I walked with my late husband 
to his Methodist Church for Christmas services. 
In this year of dragon I lost my beloved husband 
and a 107-year-old cedar tree. Now I’m losing this 
house that holds all these memories, happiness 
and sorrows. My eyes swell with tears that blur my 
vision. 

 With all of that weight on my heart I turn 
to Manzanita. I drive slowly to avoid fallen tree 
branches and electrical wires, piles of dry leaves, 
and objects I can’t make out. There is no people 
walking, no cars running, all is deadly quiet, but 
the houses stand. I drive alone on the yellow line on 
the street and up to my driveway. I get off the car, 
walk to my house. 

 The front door is wide open with tree 
leaves and black dust covering the floor, the carpet 
and furniture. I go through the dining room to the 
backyard. Flower pots are shattered on the concrete 
patio and garden tools and empty planters are 
everywhere on the grass. My fruit trees, a dozen 
of them, lost much of their leaves, standing under 
the new sun, and make no movements. I sit down 
on the cane chair, a chair that my husband used to 
sit on in his last days to look into the San Gabriel 
Mountains. The seat is cold and dusty. The cushions 
are blown to under the avocado tree. Tree leaves are 
piled in the corners of the fence. A branch about 
8 inch across from the ancient oak tree sits upside 
down on the compost. No birds chirping, no dog 
barking, it’s just me and an empty town. The blue 
sky looks down blandly and the sun is shining 
like the day before, like nothing had happened. To 
them this deadly wildfire is just a little game that 
they play at their sole will. To them, we animals are 
tiny creatures that they use to decorate the boring 
surface of this blue planet. We praise them in our 
poems and we worship them in awe, while they 
laugh at us, ignore our feelings, and watch us going 
through the Glacial Age and global warming with 
no mercy. They trample on us like elephants on 
ants, the ants that made onto moon and Mars.

 I put the shovel back under the tree, walk 
through the open garden door to my car. Tofu 
cries when I pull out her box. “It’s okay, baby. We 
are home.” I let her out and she rushes to her feed 
bowl in the kitchen. I sit down by the dust-covered 
dining table to check the wildfire news on my 
iPhone. My suitcases and file cartons remain in the 
car trunk. I’m ready to flee again any time.

Yingchao Xiao, 

Sierra Madre


Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com