Shaw Zhao got a call from his father around lunchtime on Jan. 7. He had booked a flight to Los Angeles for the next day, and his father, Zhi Feng Zhao, wanted to check in.
“It was a very quick conversation,” Shaw Zhao said, his voice catching in his throat. “He asked me my arrival time, and if (there’s) anything he can prepare for me to eat. I told him, ‘Don’t do anything special. I will be late at night.’ ”
It was the last exchange between father and son. Hours later, the Eaton fire erupted near Altadena Drive and Midwick Drive. Fueled by fierce Santa Ana winds, the flames tore through the hills and nearby neighborhoods with alarming speed, consuming his parents’ home in Altadena and silencing the voice he thought he’d hear again that night.
Zhi Feng Zhao, 84, was one of at least 27 people who died in the catastrophic wildfires that swept through Los Angeles — a tragedy his family believes could have been prevented.
On Friday, Jan. 17, they joined a growing number of victims’ families in filing a wrongful death lawsuit against Southern California Edison, accusing the utility of failing to properly maintain its equipment and manage vegetation growth around it, despite red flag fire warnings in the days prior — failures they claimed sparked the deadly inferno.
“I think this case, like many of the others that are going to be filed, is about justice for Mr. Zhao, justice for the community,” said Rob Jarchi, an attorney representing Shaw. “This was a preventable tragedy. None of this had to happen.”
A father’s legacy of resilience
For Shaw, the tragedy is deeply personal, a step toward justice for the father who shaped his life.
Born into poverty in rural China on Nov. 8, 1940, Zhi Feng Zhao lost his parents at the age of 4 but turned his childhood trauma into a life of resilience. He relied on financial aid and scholarships to complete his education, eventually earning a place at Peking University. After graduation, Zhao found a job in Shanghai, where he met Shaw’s mother.
“He is a person of fortitude, perseverance, intelligence,” Shaw said. “ And that’s the three words (to describe him): fortitude, intelligence and perseverance.”
Zhao’s influence extends far beyond his academic achievements. He instilled in his son a love for learning and problem-solving from an early age, teaching him how to speak up and resolve disputes, even as a child.
“Along with mom, Dad taught me how to think hard and solve complex mathematical problems, meant for elementary schoolers when I was at kindergarten,” Shaw said. “Until recently, I realized how good the early education I have received from my parents is as a gift.”
After attending an academic conference in Las Vegas, Zhao encouraged his son to pursue computer science in college. Shaw went on to major in the field, later earning an MBA from UC Irvine. Now 54, and a data scientist living in Portland, Oregon, Shaw carries forward the lessons and values instilled by his father.
“I followed him at work,” Shaw said. “That is why at work, I let my team use the most advanced AI and other technologies, just to better understand our customers’ needs and better their life experience, especially when they are in financial distress, when they need help the most.”
The day everything changed
But all of that was shattered on the day the fire came.
As night fell on Jan. 7, Shaw’s unease grew. Everything had seemed fine earlier when he spoke with his father, but later that evening, a text from his father’s neighbor changed everything.
The neighbor, who often looked out for his father in Shaw’s absence, warned him about the fire creeping dangerously close to Altadena. Normally, Shaw would take comfort in the neighbor’s vigilance, but the neighbor was out of town that week and could only alert him to the danger.
Shaw called his father immediately, but couldn’t reach him. It was around 9 p.m., and he assumed his father had already gone to bed. The old man had struggled with sleep since Shaw’s mom passed away in 2021, he said.
Worried but unable to do more, Shaw monitored fire updates online. “I just stared at the Cal Fire website, minute to minute, (to) check the status for each area,” he said.
Until 1 a.m. Wednesday, the fire still seemed distant, and his father’s neighborhood was marked safe. Relieved, Shaw finally allowed himself to rest.
But when he woke around 5 a.m., the situation had drastically changed. The fire map now showed his father’s neighborhood marked in red. Panicked, Shaw called the home phone, but the line was already out of service. He texted his neighbor and learned that the evacuation order had been issued hours earlier, at 3 a.m.
Racing against time, Shaw moved up his flight to Los Angeles and landed that evening. A Lyft driver, Gillian, who had learned of Zhao’s story, offered to drive him as close as possible through back roads to his father’s home. However, curfew and police blockades prevented them from reaching the block.
That night, Shaw stayed at the Pasadena Convention Center, which had been transformed into an evacuation shelter. Unable to sleep, he paced through the rows of cots, scanning each face in the dim light, desperately hoping to find his father among the evacuees.
Deep down, though, dread began to take hold.
“I did not receive a single phone call from my father. Even though he didn’t use the cellphone that much, he is still smart enough to borrow a phone to call me,” he said. “I had not received any messages from him. I know something bad would have happened.”
The next morning on Jan. 9, Gillian and his wife returned to help Shaw search again. Driving as close to the block as possible, they continued on foot. After a grueling 90-minute trek through fire-ravaged terrain, they finally reached the neighborhood.
In the yard, they spotted a coyote — an unsettling sign. Gillian searched the area and soon discovered Zhao’s remains near the spot where the animal had lingered. “That’s when we called 911,” Shaw said.
Honoring a life well-lived
In the days that followed, Shaw began working to honor his father’s memory, even as he struggled to process his grief. Through it all, he has found comfort in the support of family and friends and the kindness of strangers.
“Let me put it this way: I received a lot of the help from strangers,” he said. “They helped comfort me at the shelter that night when I was looking for my father, and they made phone calls to hospitals and to the Red Cross, just in case my father was injured. And they tried to find my father as much as they could. They also prayed for me.”
Now, Shaw’s focus is on planning a memorial to celebrate his father’s life while pursuing justice through the lawsuit. He plans to fulfill his parent’s wishes by dividing their ashes between two places that held deep meaning: Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, where Shaw’s mother is also interred, and Shanghai, where his parents first built their life together.
He planned to fly to China on Sunday to arrange the details and lay half of his father’s ashes alongside his mother’s in Shanghai. Upon his return, he will continue the memorial celebration in California.