[photo credit: CALTECH]
Tissot, whose own home in Altadena was severely damaged, led a research team that tested 52 fire-affected homes. More than half exceeded EPA standards, with contamination found as far as seven miles from the burn zone. The fire killed 19 people, destroyed approximately 9,400 structures and displaced over 100,000 residents.
The crisis stems from a troubling reality: more than 90 percent of homes in Altadena were built before 1975. The federal government banned lead paint in 1978. When these houses burned, the fire released decades of accumulated lead into the air and soil. The majority of sampled indoor surfaces that had not been cleaned had lead levels above EPA limits.
Children face the gravest risk. “For children, there is no safe level of lead,” Tissot notes. He points out: “If you were in the fire plume—especially in Pasadena nearby, the fire side—there will be lead and heavy metals in the house. For sure.”
The Federal Emergency Management Agency initially refused to fund soil testing for nearly a year but reversed course on January 12, announcing it would pay for lead testing at 100 destroyed homes. Professional cleanup has proven insufficient—approximately 10 percent of windowsills in remediated homes still exceed EPA limits.
On January 21, Tissot will discuss his research during the Watson Lecture, drawing parallels to Clair Patterson’s landmark 1965 lead pollution research, which helped galvanize the environmental movement and the Clean Air Act of 1970.
Watson Lecture: Lead Contamination: An Old Foe Rises from the Ashes of the Eaton Fire will run on Wednesday, January 21 at 7:30 p.m. Beckman Auditorium, Caltech, 1200 E. California Blvd., Pasadena. For more information, call (626) 395-4652 or visit https://events.caltech.edu/calendar/watson-lecture-francois-tissot.
