At the start of this year, the community of Altadena, California, was among those devastated by wildfire.

Gina Clayton Johnson is the founder of Essie Justice Group, and she lost her home and countless family treasures.

In this brief but spectacular from earlier this year, she shares her reflections on loss, resilience, and rebuilding.

I was felt like Altadino was my little secret,

because whenever I would tell anyone where I was from,

no one knew where I was talking about.

Altadino was a place where traditionally a lot of black folks could go and find that they could buy

land because of redlining and other realities.

My parents actually bought a home there in the early 1980s.

It was a wonderful place to be from.

The Alcadena Eaton Fire burned down my home, my parents' home, my kids' school, and something like 9,500 structures or more in Alcadena.

And it's devastating.

The day that the fire started was a really windy day.

We got a call from the school around 3 o'clock

saying that the power had gone out and to come pick up the kids. At 11 p.m. that night,

we drove away because we decided we wanted to be somewhere with power in the morning.

We were not evacuated. We did not receive in a warning, a text message, a call.

So we went to our friend's house and then came the news that our house had burned down.

I called my aunt and I said, is there any way that we can come stay with you? She lives in

Atlanta. During other hard

moments of my life, my first phone call is my parents, but they had just lost their home.

They're in their 70s. I have always been curious about who I come from and why I'm where

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