More than 200 employees of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have lost their homes in the Eaton fire, Director Laurie Leshin confirmed on social media Tuesday, Jan. 14.

The more-than-14,000-acre Eaton fire, which started Jan. 7, in Altadena has since destroyed thousands of homes, businesses and other structures.

Leshin said in a statement that many other employees suffered damage or displacement as a result of the fire.

“I’m deeply moved by the far-reaching impact of these fires, and my thoughts are with all those affected,” Leshin said. “The strength and resilience of the JPL community have already shone through, with an outpouring of support from those not directly impacted offering assistance to those in need.”

Leshin, herself an Altadena resident, remains evacuated from h er home, according to JPL.

Last week JPL announced it would be closed to employees and visitors due to the facility — which straddles the area between La Canada Flintridge, Altadena and Pasadena, being within an evacuation zone.

Officials said that Deep Space Network operations had been moved off site to a back-up operations center.

On Tuesday JPL said those operations had returned to JPL and were operating normally.

Martin Lo, 72, a principle mission designer at JPL, has worked there since 1986. He and his husband William Wentzel have lived in Altadena for about 31 years and lost their home in the fire.

Last Tuesday, Lo and Wentzel were driving back to their home in the evening when the fire broke out.

“You could just see there’s a glow in the mountains right behind where our house would be,” Lo said Tuesday.

As flames neared, they packed up their two cars and fled the area. They were able to save their computers and pieces of art. Lo said the plan was to come back, but they haven’t been able to return and heard from a neighbor that all but one house on their block was destroyed.

Lo is in a text chain with a group of colleagues at JPL, some with young children, where they check in on each other and see if they can help one another.

“It’s really hard on the kids. They don’t understand what’s going on,” Lo said. “They want to go back to school to see their friends.”

Since last week, Lo and Wentzel have heard from friends including some they haven’t seen for decades that have checked in and offered them places to stay.

“It was really heartwarming,” Lo said. “We lost things but it seems like we have great riches in our friends and colleagues and students.”

Only a small number of critical personnel remained at the facility, according to JPL. On Friday, JPL said mandatory telework would be in effect from Monday until Friday.

During the fires JPL made its helicopter emergency landing facility available to the Eaton fire incident management team. JPL said the site has been used for filling helicopters during the last week.

Last year, JPL laid off more than 800 employees in two rounds of cuts in February and November. JPL said the cuts were done due to address budgetary constraints.

The cuts impacted the Mars Sample Return mission, which brought samples back from Mars for analysis.

Leshin said Tuesday that JPL would update its status for next week on Thursday. A Caltech and JPL Disaster Relief Fund has been created to assist those impacted. For more information, visit giving.caltech.edu.

Lo praised JPL’s response to the fire and assistance provided to impacted employees like himself.

“I just did not expect a company, an institution would be just so generous and thoughtful,” Lo said.