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In January, more than 100,000 California residents were forced to evacuate their homes due to the Eaton Fire, which would become the second most destructive wildfire in California history. Thousands of structures in the Pasadena and Altadena area burned to the ground—and months later, even residents whose homes survived are still displaced, wrangling with insurers and weighing the health risks of the damage their neighborhoods sustained.

Antero Garcia, an associate professor at Stanford Graduate School of Education whose research frequently centers the voices of people from historically marginalized communities, set out to investigate the Eaton Fire's toll on parents who were directly affected, particularly mothers from a variety of cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Through in-depth interviews with mothers of school-age children living in or near Pasadena and Altadena, he explored the ways in which they've managed complex decision-making around the fire and its aftermath, as they've balanced concerns for their children's well-being with the ongoing disruption to their lives.

In a new , Garcia identifies some common themes that emerged, from decision fatigue and survivor's guilt to a groundswell of community support. The report also provides recommendations for policymakers and strategies for families navigating disaster recovery.

We spoke with Garcia about his motivation for this research, what he learned, and the role caregiving plays in recovery long after a disaster happens.

What drew you to embark on this project?

I was noticing on social media the ways that parents, particularly mothers, were discussing air quality and safety issues in the area during and after the fire, and seeing how they were engaging in highly scientific conversations around peer-reviewed journal articles and emerging data. They were basically doing the work of climate scientists, having to make decisions about whether it's safe for their kids to return to their house, play in the park, or go to school.

That led me to think through the kinds of caregiving challenges and other burdens that parents were experiencing. In addition to dealing with their own displacement and grief and trauma, they were now also thinking about air quality, safety, and risk. They're also dealing with insurance concerns and their kids' social and emotional well-being—added layers that were largely invisible and haven't been addressed by the media as closely as other issues like rebuilding and remediation.

Why did you choose to focus on mothers?

Partly, it was the nature of who I found in these forums discussing this. But I think we know that the majority of the burden of caregiving and parenting in America right now is usually shouldered by women. I wanted to focus on who's carrying the most of this invisible labor right now.

You found that, even months after the fire, families are dealing with many of what you describe as invisible costs. What are some examples?

For one thing, even though most of the mothers I interviewed did not completely lose their homes, they were still burdened by damage that has not been covered by insurance or FEMA. Several ended up paying out-of-pocket to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars for remediation to their homes—things like debris removal, insulation, air restoration, and soil testing. Others who are working through their insurance companies are still living in rental units and have not been reimbursed.

On top of the financial costs, the moms consistently talked about the emotional stress of moving to temporary housing, and the need to support and console their children. So many of the mothers I spoke with noticed ways in which their kids were acting differently after the fire. One mentioned that any time she lights a candle, her daughter gets anxious about it. Another talked about how her kid is regularly pretending and thinking about evacuation, hyperfixating on it.

Survivor's guilt was another common experience, even though every family was severely affected with ongoing disruptions to their lives and routines. There was also a lot of decision fatigue, with mothers feeling overwhelmed weighing the potential health risks of their homes and schools and parks against the emotional needs for stability and a sense of regularity.

You also saw generational differences in people's decision-making. How so?

A number of women talked about how older family members, even on the night of the fire, acted like they were blowing it out of proportion. One woman told me that her mother, who had worked as a house cleaner in the past, said, "I'll just go to your house and do a little bit of cleaning. I'm sure it's fine. It's probably just a little dusty." And even when she realized that the task of cleaning up the ash inside the house was not something she could manage, she was still surprised that her daughter and her family weren't going back to live in the house yet.

I saw an ongoing tension with many families whose neighbors might be older and never evacuated or might've only evacuated for one night, how they were really surprised by the severity with which these younger families are taking precautions right now. It's not necessarily along class divides—these are family members in very similar socioeconomic contexts, but with generational differences between what counts as a risk and what's acceptable.

One bright spot you found was how families and neighbors supported each other in caregiving through this ordeal. What did that look like?

There were immediate networks of care and communication that emerged—everything from parents opening their homes for displaced families to kids giving away their toys to their classmates and friends who'd lost everything. One mom talked about how she's added extra time every day for school drop-off in the morning because she knows there's going to be a more holistic check-in with other families.

Things that seem like minor social niceties have an increased weight on them because of this shared traumatic experience. A number of community-driven responses that were more scattershot at first are now cohering around particular structures, like listening sessions and town halls.

You write that 'we need disaster responses that treat caregiving as central infrastructure.' What do you mean by that?

When we talk about disaster response for something like a fire or an earthquake or a hurricane, we tend to think only about emergency aid, like the Red Cross or FEMA. But we also need to think about the prolonged commitment of caregiving.

These mothers were naming so much of the extra work that needs to be considered in our understanding of disaster recovery. Caregiving is a part of recovery and relief that's going to last long after the event, and it falls heavily on parentsc and teachers and the broader social structure looking out for young people. That labor is the foundation on which recovery is built.