Aunt Cecelia’s ashes used to be over there, in a wooden box on the shelf. Her niece steps gingerly across the charred rubble of this house that used to be and points to the exact spot.
“So this was the end of the wall,” Angel Baltazar says. “The box was set right here.”
A small clump of ashes buried in a sea of ash. Baltazar begins to cry as she talks about caring for her sick aunt and the thought of losing the cremated remains to a wildfire that swept through this Altadena neighborhood in January.
“We were going to take her out to the ocean and release her,” she says. “We hadn’t done it yet.”
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Now, on this gray February morning, there is a sliver of hope in the form of volunteer archaeologists who have arrived from Northern California. Employing techniques otherwise used to excavate ancient burial sites, they can search for human remains in the ruins of burned houses.
It still seems impossible to Baltazar as she leads a team from the Alta Heritage Foundation onto the property. Everyone is dressed in masks, gloves and hazmat suits. Team leader Risa DeGeorgey explains what happens next.
“We’re going to move carefully,” she tells Baltazar. “We’re going to peel back the layers.”
Then she calls in the dog.
Commercial archaeologists spend much of their time preparing reports for developers and government agencies that want to build near historic sites. They ensure that no cultural artifacts will be disturbed.
DeGeorgey and her husband, Alex, own a Santa Rosa consulting firm that has focused on such work for more than a decade, but when wildfires swept across their hometown in 2017, destroying thousands of houses, a colleague needed something different.
“He lost the cremated remains of both his mother and father,” Alex says. “He was concerned that he could not follow through with their final wish, which was to be scattered in a special place.”
The DeGeorgeys called a friend who had searched for Amelia Earhart’s remains on the remote Pacific island of Nikumaroro. He told them rescue dogs that find bodies at disaster sites can also be trained to detect the fainter scent of a person who had been dead for years, even someone who had been cremated.
Volunteer archaeologists Elyse Mallonee, left, Julia Granato, Parker Sheriff and Risa DeGeorgey of the Alta Heritage Foundation search for cremated remains in the rubble of an Altadena house that burned during recent wildfires.
Cremains, as they are known, differ from burnt wood, glass or plastic in that they feel grittier, look sandy or even rosy and often stay clumped in roughly the shape of their urn, even if the container has shattered or burned away. Also, they usually include a fireproof ID medallion that crematory operators attach to the body before burning.
Armed with this knowledge — and help from a canine search-and-rescue group — the DeGeorgeys found the remains for both of their colleague’s parents. “I was shocked,” Alex says. The local newspaper wrote a story and other wildfire victims began calling, desperate for help.
Quincy cannot wait to get started. The 3-year-old British Labrador — shiny black, a bit small for her breed — scurries onto the burn site, pushing her nose into piles of ash, moving from one spot to another, wagging her tail the whole time.
“She’s not altruistic,” handler Karen Atkinson says. “She wants the reward at the end.”
Hunting and herding dogs have a primal instinct for what is called “historic human remains detection.” Because traces of human scent are scattered throughout the debris, they must survey the entire area, then determine where the smell is strongest.
Quincy, a 3-year-old English Labrador, can sniff out cremated remains buried under ash and rubble so volunteer archaeologists know where to start digging.
Not far away, on what used to be the doorstep, Baltazar waits beside her friend Nyangu Chipembere. This is actually Chipembere’s house; Baltazar left Aunt Cecelia’s ashes here while moving. The women talk quietly.
“It’s killing me,” Chipembere says. “My kids grew up in this house.”
Volunteer archaeologists Elyse Mallonee, left, and Parker Sheriff carefully sift through ash and rubble while looking for cremated remains in the ruins of an Altadena house.
They watch as Quincy, one of many working dogs at the Institute for Canine Forensics in Northern California, circles an area near the back of the house, where Baltazar had originally pointed, then abruptly lies down. This is known as the “alert.”
“You’re all done,” Atkinson chirps to her dog, marking the spot with a small flag. “I’m going to play ball with you.”
One of the volunteers says: “Now the hard work begins.”
A fireproof ID medallion, often attached to bodies before cremation, helps archaeologists confirm they have recovered cremains lost in burned homes.
There have been so many disastrous wildfires in California and Oregon over the last eight years, so many people in need. The DeGeorgeys have worked 19 burn sites, including the Woolsey fire area, recovering cremains from more than 300 homes.
“It’s been a long process,” Alex says. “We’ve definitely gotten better along the way.”
Their foundation — separate from their business — never charges a fee, relying instead on donations and help from a network of professional and student archaeologists.
Twenty or so volunteers have signed up for what figures to be the first of numerous Southern California visits after the Eaton and Palisades fires. Preparing for three days of digging at 35 locations, they gather in the parking lot of a Pasadena strip mall for a tutorial.
“Archaeologists like their screens, they like to screen dirt,” Alex says beforehand. “We can’t do that here. It’s a useless method.”
Angel Baltazar, second from left, wipes away tears as volunteer archaeologists from the Alta Heritage Foundation find the ashes of her cremated aunt. The remains were lost in the January fire that swept through Altadena.
Shoveling techniques must be altered and the potential for toxic waste requires that everyone take care in wearing protective gear. The crash course addresses another unusual aspect of this work.
Archaeologists normally operate on their own, toiling at some remote dig or surveying land in the wilderness. This time, relatives of the deceased will be looking over their shoulders.
In the past, some families have picnicked on site, taking snapshots, drinking wine as they watch the dig. More often, husbands or wives or children collapse in tears when the cremains are found.
Alex divides his volunteers into four teams and sends them off with a warning: “We’re going into, basically, a war zone. It’s a very emotional situation. Be respectful.”
Somehow the flames skipped over a patch of grass next door, giving Quincy the perfect spot for a game of fetch while Risa and her team begin work.
Starting from a radius of 3 feet, they gently dig toward the marker from all directions, using shovels and then switching to pointed trowels to scoop debris into dust pans for closer inspection.
There is much rubbing of ash between fingers and squinting to gauge the color. Elyse Mallonee, an archaeologist from Hollywood, calls to Risa: “Can you look at this?” But it is just scorched building material.
A burnt horseshoe found in the rubble is more promising as a probative clue. The team summons Baltazar and Chipembere, who confirm that it was kept near the urn. Same with a white crystal and a decorative ceramic lid.
A small blue flag marks the spot where a trained dog detected cremated human remains at a fire-ravaged house in Altadena.
As the excavation resumes, Baltazar finds a metal bowl in the driveway that has collected rain and, dipping her hand in the water, carefully wipes soot from the crystal. A volunteer pauses to walk over, asking: “Are you all right?” Baltazar nods.
It takes another half-hour to isolate a distinct pile of ash about a foot from the marker. The oatmeal color looks about right and when Risa picks at it with her trowel, the surrounding black and gray debris falls away, revealing the rough outline of a box’s edge.
“I’m pretty confident this is it,” she says.
Still, the team keeps inching the rest of the way to the marker, to be sure.
Eight years and hundreds of digs at wildfire sites have taught the DeGeorgeys something about this peculiar type of archaeology. Families need something to hold on to, they say, a very personal artifact from their lives before the disaster.
As the search for Aunt Cecelia’s remains now focuses on the light-colored pile near the marker, it will be impossible to keep some burned drywall and insulation out of the mix.
“I hope she liked the house,” Risa says. “Because a little bit of the house is coming with her.”
Carefully scooping the ashes into a zip-lock bag, Risa uncovers a piece of charred wood that looks like part of the box, then another and another. Eventually she hits confirmation — the etched medallion. Baltazar crouches for a better look.
“Thank you, thank you,” she says. “This is a blessing.”
Volunteer nurse Jenny Sims, in white, hugs Nyangu Chipembere as Angel Baltazar looks on. The cremated remains of Baltazar’s aunt were lost in a house that burned during the recent Altadena wildfire.
The entire process takes about two hours, after which everyone walks back to the street, dusting themselves off, giving hugs. Lots of hugs. The site was dampened by recent rain, so Risa suggests spreading the ashes on a cookie sheet and allowing them to dry a bit, before scattering them in the ocean.
Baltazar still seems astonished, saying again: “I didn’t think this was possible.” She clutches Aunt Cecelia to her chest, giving the ashes an occasional squeeze, patting them gently with her hand.