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Finally, a few minutes later, their neighborhood was ordered to evacuate — hours after neighbors in eastern Altadena got evacuation warnings — so Ballantyne sprang into action: waking his aunt up and helping her into her wheelchair, getting the pets into the car and telling his uncle they were heading out.

So Ballantyne made the difficult decision to leave him behind, knowing he couldn’t hesitate for the sake of his aunt and himself.

“It was very close for him,” Ballantyne said.

This week, Ballantyne walked around what remained of the first house that felt truly like his home, pointing to where his room had been, spotting charred pages where he used to have a bookshelf filled with special reads from his grandmother.

“I had that moment to grieve and to be sad, but at some point you have to accept it and then just move on,” Ballantyne said.