After the devastating Hurst Fire impacted the community of Altadena in January, The Game heads out to the community of Altadena where he interviews first responders, local high school coaches and more about their survival stories from the Hurst fire.
Keep watching this Billboard News special to learn more about those impacted.
Keep watching this Billboard News special to learn more about those impacted.
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MusicTranscript
00:00This is some serious, serious business, man.
00:15And after this experience, now when I hear a fire truck coming down the street, I'm pulling
00:21over and I'm not annoyed because usually it's like, ah, I got to pull over quick.
00:26And then we go to our kitchen.
00:27You know, I like to eat.
00:30Capra good, he a good cook.
00:32The best.
00:35The Hearst fire has grown to over 500 acres since last night.
00:39So you guys went up?
00:40I mean, I was scared the day that everything happened.
00:42Wow.
00:43It was myself and one of the partners, but fortunately, he's not here.
00:46How was that?
00:48It was one event where we thought that something was going to happen
00:50and it just led to something way out of our hands.
00:56Like my hat's on, but it's off to you guys, man.
00:59I'm like, yeah, thank you guys.
01:17These guys are personal friends of mine.
01:19They're high school coaches here.
01:21This is actually Tony's crib that he grew up in right now.
01:24It's mom crib right there, but all of them have the unique stories about
01:28how they were devastated about that right there.
01:31But this was a predominantly African-American neighborhood.
01:34And just to see this is terrible, man.
01:36And you coming out says a lot about you, man.
01:39And so I like everybody introduced themselves and tell him what school you coach at.
01:44Not only was these fires big for our basketball program,
01:48which two of our players lost their homes,
01:50but I also have residential treatment centers for kids.
01:54So I have group homes for kids and we lost our girl's house.
01:56I'm a Pasadena resident.
01:58We had two players on our team that lost their homes.
02:01This is my parents' home, Haywood and Jean Brooks.
02:06So obviously it's impacted me in a direct way.
02:10At Pasadena High School, we have two players that lost their homes.
02:14Just like the rest of the coaches here, we've, you know,
02:17several people, family members have lost their homes.
02:19Players on the team have lost their homes.
02:22Families displaced, you know, out of town, out of the city.
02:25There was a lot of African-Americans that moved here
02:28because in other parts of Los Angeles County,
02:32if you were an African-American family or couple and you wanted to buy a house,
02:36you were redlined and you could not get a house in certain areas.
02:40Altadena was one of those first areas that opened up for African-Americans.
02:44And so I say all that because I want to put out a message to
02:49all Altadenans that are going through this tragedy.
02:52But I just want to encourage people to rebuild and to not leave Altadena.
02:57If you're the Los Angeles Dodgers or you're the Los Angeles Lakers
03:01and you have a means to help, if you're really from L.A., be about it.
03:05All right. Thanks, man. Appreciate y'all.
03:14We just want to do our little part and help with the
03:17gathering of the supplies and distribution of it.
03:20So this is just a beginning.
03:22We know it's a long haul and many, many members of ours,
03:26over 15,000 members have been affected by the fire.
03:29And obviously the community, you know,
03:32many, many people in the community and businesses have been affected.
03:35So anything little that we can do to contribute back is what we're trying to do.
03:40You know, when you say, you know,
03:42the credit union and you guys are doing your little part,
03:45I wanted to stop you there because I think that anybody doing anything for anyone in life,
03:50whether it was a fire or not,
03:52anybody doing anything for anyone in life can be considered little.
03:56Because if you're helping somebody,
03:58the person you're doing it for thinks that's huge.
04:01What you're doing here is amazing. That's why I'm here.
04:03Hi, nice to meet you.
04:06Take your time.
04:07So my name is Maricela Ramontes.
04:11I'm a member of the chamber.
04:13So I'm here to represent the Altadena chamber.
04:15I have Larry who's with me and a lot of chamber members that have also come here.
04:20But personally, we were affected.
04:22My home, you know, I never would have imagined
04:25this would happen to our community.
04:26Not in our wildest dreams.
04:28You can come.
04:30Not in our wildest dreams.
04:31We left on that day thinking we were going to come back.
04:35We have fires up here all the time.
04:37And we, I even told her, we're not taking anything.
04:41We left with pajamas and thinking we're going to come back the next day.
04:46And I didn't, I didn't take anything, anything at all.
04:50And there was no tomorrow.
04:51We came back to full destruction.
04:53Not only for our house, it's gone.
04:55Our business.
04:56So we're a complete standstill.
04:58And I know that we're not alone.
05:00I know that as Altadenas, we're strong and we're going to rebuild.
05:05I always told myself if my city was ever affected
05:08or any of the surrounding area cities,
05:14that as a parent and as a father, I would like dive in.
05:20So if just here, we're here today, right?
05:24As humans.
05:25If you see me somewhere, just know that I'm standing there.
05:30Like I'm standing here with y'all today.
05:32And I don't know where I'm going when I leave my house.
05:36I don't know what I'm doing.
05:37I just want to know that I'm going to affect somebody positively.
05:43Yeah.
05:43Oh, of course.
05:45I got hugs all day.
06:07So