When the Eaton Fire swept through Altadena, Begonia de Salvo was scrambling to find shelter for her husband, two children and five pets. She fears her house could be reduced to ashes and said work is the least of her concerns.

While DeSalvo was busy trying to find a hotel room, she forgot to call in sick from her job as a court interpreter. Court officials threatened to discipline her even though she told supervisors she had a dispersal order, according to an email reviewed by The Times.

The next morning, the Los Angeles County Courthouse attempted to proceed as usual despite devastating fires from Pacific Palisades to the San Gabriel Mountains.

The president of the union representing rank-and-file prosecutors said attorneys at the Pasadena courthouse that remains open near Altadena Hell have fallen ill and had to resign. Downtown, jurors panicked about missing evacuation notices because they couldn't check their phones in court. Lawyers say some defendants who have lost their homes or been forced to flee the inferno face the threat of arrest for missing court.

The legal community was left frustrated and confused last week by the court's decision to keep its doors open despite the smoke.

Ryan Erlich, Association President. The deputy district attorney recalled proceedings at Los Angeles' Main Criminal Court, sometimes called the CCB, being canceled during the Dodgers' World Series celebrations last year.

"We close the CCB for a parade but leave the Pasadena Courthouse open during a catastrophic natural disaster?" Ehrlich said. "I don't understand that, and neither do many people who work in this court."

Los Angeles County Superior Court spokesman Rob Oftring said the court has a "constitutional obligation to ensure timely access to justice," noting that court employees are designated as disaster relief workers under state law.

Oftring said the Dodgers Parade was forced to close on Nov. 1 due to road closures in the area, noting that all other courthouses remained open that day. He wrote in an email that since the fire, "court leadership has been actively monitoring the evolving situation and adjusting court operations in coordination with local and state emergency officials."

The court is also "distributing N95 masks to all employees and jurors and temporarily closing affected courthouses," he said.

Sylmar Juvenile Court was closed for two days because of the Kenneth Fire, and Hollywood Court was closed during the brief period when the Sunset Fire threatened to destroy the Walk of Fame. The Pasadena courthouse was closed on Jan. 9, but not the day before, when the impact of the Eaton fire was most immediate. Oftring said the Hollywood courthouse is the only one subject to a dispersal order since last week.

The morning after the Eaton fire broke out, the interior of the Pasadena courthouse smelled like a "powder keg" and was unsafe to work in, Ehrlich said.

"It was right downwind, two miles from the fire and evacuation zone. It immediately created an environmental concern," he said. "As soon as they enter the courtroom, some of our deputies begin to suffer from headaches, eye irritation and other symptoms of being in an unhealthy environment."

Ehrlich said several prosecutors and defense attorneys left early because of illness. He estimated that about 1 in 10 prosecutors in his union lived in fire evacuation zones and that several homes were destroyed in the fire. At least a dozen judges were unable to attend court because their homes burned, and several public defenders said they had to evacuate.

Even incarcerated defendants are feeling the impact, with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department saying it was unable to transport more than a half-dozen people from the county's Castaic jail complex to the Newhall and Antelope Valley courthouses on Jan. 8 due to road closures .

At the downtown Los Angeles courthouse, the acrid smell of smoke filled the courtroom throughout the 19-story building. Los Angeles County Public Defender Nicole Joens said several of her clients have found themselves caught between the legal system and the flames.

Jons cited several examples of clients who either forgot their court dates or simply couldn't make it downtown after a fire, which resulted in warrants being issued for their arrests. She said a judge mercifully revoked the arrest warrant later this week, but some prosecutors are still asking for their bail to be revoked.

In one case, a prosecutor sought to revoke bail for a probation violation because the defendant was now living in a hotel -- after the Eaton Fire engulfed his Altadena home, Jons said. And was forced to stay in this hotel.

"They were in the daily food line. They had nothing," said Jons, who also was forced to evacuate for several days because of the Eaton fire. "The family doesn't have stable housing at this time, and it seems like a punishment."

Jons, who said she was speaking as a member of the public defender union, declined to identify any of her clients for fear it could negatively impact their criminal cases. The union last week called for all courthouses to be closed, a move Jons said she disagreed with but believed some court officials and prosecutors needed to be more flexible in light of the fires on the mountain.

"There should be more tolerance," she said. "Given what we're dealing with, any objection from the DA to having a warrant or anything like that is ridiculous."

Diego Cartagena, director of legal aid group Bet Tzedek, said a system-wide court closure could cause significant problems for clients who need access to court for pressing matters, such as those with Custody of children with urgent medical needs or clients seeking domestic violence restraining orders.

"This is a fundamental access to justice issue for the communities we serve," he said.

Cartagena added that the court could improve remote access for the public so that in the future, people affected by disasters can appear remotely through video platforms like Microsoft Teams or WebEx, which the county has been using during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On January 8, Christina Hsu drove from her home in the San Gabriel Valley to serve on a jury at the criminal courthouse downtown. The Eaton Fire was burning a few miles north of her residence, and she feared the fire might spread to her home while she was in court and unable to receive evacuation warnings.

"When wildfires are raging, we should take some measures so that we can meet our own survival needs," Xu said. "I don't think it's good for the courts if people are worried about evacuating their homes."

Judge Mildred Escobedo acknowledged the extreme situation to Hsu and other potential jurors, saying she took out her phone to monitor evacuation orders and understood some people might need to do the same. She said once the trial begins, jurors will be required to turn off their phones during court proceedings.

Later in the afternoon, Xu was dismissed from the jury and went home. As soon as she got close, an evacuation alert went off on her phone.

"How can they expect people to focus on cases when we don't know if we need to evacuate?" she asked.

Now is not the time for widespread attention to the court's handling of the disaster. Cal/OSHA fined courts for multiple health and safety violations in 2021 after three court interpreters and public defenders died from the coronavirus during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic $25,000 fine. State watchdogs found that the court failed to properly report an employee's hospitalization with COVID-19, failed to implement an effective disease and injury prevention plan and correct unhealthy practices, including a lack of COVID-19 prevention training for employees. Interpreter.

DeSalvo, vice president of the interpreters union, said the day after the fire, when she was trying to figure out how much damage her house had suffered, she was shocked to receive an email saying her salary would be was deducted.

"Please note that many other employees who were also affected by the fire responded to the call as requested, and we appreciate their diligence during such a difficult time," Supervisor DeSalvo wrote in the email.

The CEO's office granted "special leave" late last week, sparing employees like DeSalvo from losing pay, records show. Still, she described the actions of the court's leadership as "ruthless."

"What do you want me to do? This is a disaster. We are in a state of emergency," she said. "What kind of person has no compassion at all and would punish you for that?"