Can you remember where you were the evening of January 7, 2025? Chances are, you can. Whether witnessing the growing flames while evacuating your home or glued to the news, trying to track the fire, the night of the Eaton fire’s origin is not an easy one to forget.

At 6:24 p.m., around six minutes after the Eaton fire started, Westridge parent and Eaton Fire Survivors Network Executive Director Ms. Joy Chen received a message in her Altadena Town and Country Club pickleball WhatsApp group chat alerting her of a fire in the hills of Eaton Canyon. Because all of the club members lived in or around Altadena, they immediately began trying to triangulate the location of the fire and calling their friends and neighbors, whom they presumed were in danger. From that night on, the pickleball group chat, which Ms. Chen was the admin of, was no longer for arranging games or sharing pickleball memes—it became a hub for resources and emergency information for those affected by the Eaton Fire. The pickleball group chat became the Eaton Fire Survivors Network (EFSN), an organization that now serves over 10,000 fire survivors and allies.

Joy Chen is a Chinese-American author, CEO of the Multicultural Leadership Institute, and former deputy mayor of Los Angeles. Throughout her professional career, Ms. Chen has proved to be an expert leader, and she traces some of her strongest leadership qualities, especially the ones she utilized throughout the fire recovery, to her cultural background. “My Chinese upbringing always taught me to think about the collective, to think about community, to think about the people around me, to act and maybe not speak so much, let actions speak louder than words, to be humble,” Ms. Chen said. “Those cultural traits have turned out to be strengths in this fire recovery.”

Because Ms. Chen spent over 30 years prior to the Eaton Fire Survivors Network working in global business, media, and public policy, many skills were transferable. However, the EFSN is her first time running a nonprofit, meaning it is also her first time fundraising, an integral part of the nonprofit world.

It has now been over a year since the Eaton Fire began, but the work of the Eaton Fire Survivors Network is far from over. After exceeding the maximum 2,000 number of members that WhatsApp groups can accommodate, the organization expanded to the platform Discord, where information and resources are split into various channels. Over the past year, the Eaton Fire Survivors Network has connected fire survivors with resources surrounding insurance, mental health, remediation, and more.

Many fire survivors faced denied and delayed insurance claims following the Eaton fire, so a large part of Ms. Chen’s work with the Eaton Fire Survivors Network is advocating for these survivors. “I’m fighting for a lot of this because 70% of us who have insurance are having illegal delays and denials that are keeping us from getting the benefits that we already paid for,” Ms. Chen said.

One insurance provider that seemed to be a common factor amongst survivors’ complaints is State Farm. After putting together a letter to California insurance commissioner Ricardo Laura urging him to investigate State Farm, Ms. Chen compiled testimonies from survivors with negative experiences as customers of State Farm, which she compiled into a document titled the State Farm Files. After Mr. Laura refused to investigate State Farm for ten months, Ms. Chen turned to Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Bargar, who launched a serious, and possibly criminal, investigation of State Farm. After kickstarting the investigation in November of 2025, State Farm began paying out many of their customers, with fire survivors collectively receiving over $100 million, thanks to the EFSN’s organization and collection of evidence. 

However, State Farm is not the only insurance provider mismanaging fire recovery, and the EFSN continues to rally survivors’ stories and hold insurers accountable. Ms. Chen said, “When insurance companies illegally delay and deny, they depend on us being isolated and exhausted and alone and having no voice. And my proudest moment was that we’ve organized all of these thousands of survivors. We forced State Farm to hold us accountable.”

According to a UCLA report, the Eaton and Palisades fires caused as much as $164 billion in total losses. Moving forward, Ms. Chen will continue to advocate for the survivors of the Los Angeles wildfires until they secure the relief money that they are owed from not only insurers, but also the federal government and Southern California Edison, the company whose equipment caused the fire. Additionally, Ms. Chen would like to expand the Eaton Fire Survivors Network to operate in different languages to be more accessible.

The past year has been full of difficult moments. On top of running the EFSN, Ms. Chen moved nine times following the fire. Ms. Chen continues to draw support and strength from her family, including her husband and two daughters (who attend Westridge), and other survivors that she has gotten to know through the network. She said, “The deep connections that we have built, fighting to recover, fighting to hold our insurance companies accountable, all these fights, the connections that we built have been a real blessing.”

Ms. Chen has been able to foster these deep connections because of her ability to work with people from all backgrounds. As a child of Chinese immigrants growing up in predominantly white institutions, Ms. Chen often felt like an outsider. That feeling of not belonging helped her learn how to collaborate with people different from her, shaping her leadership style. “Being an outsider all those years was actually a superpower, because it let me learn to be quiet and observe others and learn from others,” she said.

Ms. Chen first started making a difference in her community through volunteering in soup kitchens while in high school. When she moved to Los Angeles, she began volunteering for the Democratic Party. Through volunteering, Ms. Chen began meeting new people with similar passions. She was asked to serve on committees and nonprofit boards, which eventually led her to become deputy mayor of Los Angeles. Ms. Chen has been showing up for her community in immense ways for years and notes that it is never too early to start. Ms. Chen said, “If you want to be a leader, find ways to start serving as soon as possible and as often as possible.”

For further reading:

Westridge Remembers One Year After the Eaton Fire

One Year Later–Five Westridge Community Members and How the Eaton and Palisades Fires Changes Their Lives Forever