Nikki Lewis and Anteres Anderson Turner greeted each other with a big embrace. These neighbors shared a sigh of relief: Their homes in the Meadows neighborhood of Altadena had survived the Eaton fire.
"For us it was days of watching the fire climb and go back," said Lewis, 48, a professor at Mt. San Antonio College. "We were waiting to see if today was the day that we lost our homes. Is tonight the night that we go to bed and we wake up in the morning and there was a breakthrough of the fire line?
"It was very intense, going back and forth. And a lot of lack of sleep."
But on Friday, Jan. 17 they were able to return home, even if just for a visit. As firefighters started to get higher containment on the Eaton and Palisades fires, officials gradually have started to downgrade evacuations, allowing some residents like Lewis and Turner to go back to their neighborhoods.
The Eaton fire was 65% contained and the Palisades fire 31% by Friday morning, Jan. 17, authorities said. Neither fire has grown in size in several days.
The fires have combined to claim at least 27 lives. The number of damaged or destroyed structures in the Eaton fire was just under 8,000, according to updated numbers from the Angeles National Forest on Friday morning, while officials have said more than 5,000 have been damaged or destroyed in the Palisades fire.
And though Lewis, Turner and others are relieved their homes were spared, they remain concerned about the future.
"I think Anteres and I are definitely in the same boat, we're feeling extraordinarily lucky that our houses have survived but also a huge fear of what the future holds for Altadena," Lewis said. "The destruction of this rich, historical community. One of the historical Black communities in Los Angeles, and what is going to happen to that heritage, what is going to happen to the old folks who might be swindled, or people trying to put up a gated community."
Anderson Turner, 45, grew up in the house on Canyon Dell Drive. She has twin 8-year-old sons who she is raising in the same home with her husband, Louise.
"It feels amazing to come home," Anderson Turner said. "It's bittersweet because we passed the homes that have gone and you see that you survived, so it's a mixture of survivors' guilt and gratitude."
Coming back to her family's home, Anderson Turner said, she cried, because it not only is her home but her mother's and sons' home. It felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders and it was an intense feeling of relief.
The 1956-era home survived the Station Fire in 2009, and the 1993 Kinneloa fire, she added.
The home still does not have power or water so the Anderson Turner family is staying at a friend's house in Covina.
Mike Saddler, 79, and his wife, Sunshine, came to their home along Canyon Crest Road on Friday to clean up their lawn and get a couple more things before they headed back to their hotel in Pasadena. The couple, together more than 60 years, has lived in their home since 1974 and raised two sons in their tight-knit community.
"When I saw the house," Sunshine Saddler said, "I fell on my knees, and said, 'Thank you, God.' "
Mike Saddler is a retired engineer and worked at JPL, which sits across the canyon from his house. As he cleaned up his property, Saddler would wave to cars passing by - whether neighbors or first responders. Neighbors would also stop by as they drove by. "Glad you're still standing," one neighbor told Saddler.
"As you can see when you come up here, one side of the street their houses are partially burnt up, and on the other side there's nothing, and you come up here and there's nobody's house that's been burnt up," Mike Saddler said. "It's been unbelievable."
He added: "I'm just happy that it's here."
Near the Palisades fire, Frank LeClair, 68, watched his neighbors trickle back into their homes in Woodland Park Mobile Estates.
The mobile home park, which sits at the mouth of twisty Topanga Canyon, is part of one of the first previously evacuated areas to reopen.
LeClair stayed in the area throughout the evacuation order, one of roughly 30 residents who remained, he says.
"I'm not leaving. I've been burned out of three homes," LeClair said.
Including a childhood house fire and a blaze in Malibu in the 1990s, he has experienced displacement from fire in the past and was not worried about the fire reaching his home this time.
As he sat on his front porch, more cars pulled into the neighborhood. He was grateful the Palisades fire didn't affect their area.
While some residents began to return, others will be waiting to see when they, too, will be allowed back in the coming days and weeks. Officials have said it will be at least a week, if not more, before some residents are allowed back to some of the most heavily impacted areas.
As time passes and the fires themselves fade, what comes next is on many residents' minds.
"The idea of the unknown and what the future holds," Anderson Turner said. "While we were lucky, I have a dozen family members who weren't so lucky, and so it's the displacement and how long is it going to take to start the rebuilding process. And then how long beyond that is the healing process for Altadena and are we going to be forgotten about once this news cycle is over?"