Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.I’ve recited boxer Mike Tyson’s brutal wisdom time and again since January 7, 2025, when a wind-driven urban wildfire incinerated my community of Altadena, California, nearly overnight.I had painstakingly prepared my home against this scenario, as I chronicled in a Wirecutter article that, coincidentally, published the day the fire hit.I’ll never know if it was those precautions, the luck of a shift in wind, or the efforts of the firefighters, but my hillside home survived the Eaton Fire. The wall of flames visible across the ravine beyond my yard came close enough that smoke and chemicals permeated every nook and cranny inside. Our insurance adjuster deemed the home intact, but it was seriously contaminated, and we wouldn’t move back in for another six months.