Archeologist Alex DeGeorgey knows what he will find when he lands in Los Angeles on Feb. 18: in Altadena, Pasadena and Pacific Palisades, he will look over blocks after blocks of homes, each a 2,000-or-so-square-feet structure that’s been reduced to several inches of ash.

What he and a team from Alta Heritage Foundation (AHF), the nonprofit DeGeorgey founded in 2017, are excavating for isn’t ancient or mysterious relics. But they are no less treasured. The Alta crew, with the Institute for Canine Forensics, work within wildfire disaster areas to help fire victims recover the cremated remains of family members.

It’s essentially a humanitarian effort that uses archeology in a new way, fulfilling a need in a state where wildfires have grown in frequency, scale and severity.

“Our clients, the victims of these massive wildfires, have been traumatized when the fires are rushing down on them,” said Lynne Engelbert, an associate with the Institute for Canine Forensics. “Many are able to escape with a few precious items, and sometimes only the clothes on their backs. They don’t have time to think about grabbing their loved one’s urn as they flee. Once things have calmed down and they realize what they left behind they are devastated, they have essentially lost their loved ones, twice. Then they learn that the debris of their home is going to scooped up and hauled off to a toxic dump. Another trauma.”

The AHF team will be in the Pasadena and Altadena area from Feb. 18 to 21, ready to reunite 31 families with the ashes of their loved ones. The crew will include volunteers from Cal State Long Beach, UCLA and Southern Oregon University.

The nonprofit, which offers its services for free, plan to work both wildfire sites, but if access to the Palisades burn area isn’t available, the group may search there later.

“Seeing the joy on their faces as we return the ashes is priceless,” Engelbert said. “We have the privilege of providing a service that few can provide. In the few hours that it takes us, we watch a family totally devastated, turn to one filled with the joy that they have back what they wanted most. There is no better feeling in the world.”

The AHF team meets the homeowner at the site, the better to get clues where to search. Families are advised beforehand to avoid disturbing the area where human cremains may be located. They should protect the area and contact officials and inform them there are human cremains at the site. Request help from the group by visiting altahf.org.

DeGeorgey admits academics typically feel a certain level of disconnect with people they’re studying and the stories they’re telling.

“That wall doesn’t exist when we’re doing cremated remains recovery,” he said.

He first worked the 2017 Tubbs Fire in Sonoma County, helping Curt Nichols find the ashes of his parents, Mabel and Lee. Since then, more than 250 volunteer archaeologists and specially-trained canine teams have reunited families with their loved ones’ cremains after 18 wildfire disasters in California and Oregon, including the 2021 Dixie Fire in northern California and the 2022 McKinney Fire in Siskiyou County, also in northern California.

DeGeorgey said it is hard to commit time to their work, and the emotional circumstances of what they do can be challenging, but it helps to think the foundation has helped more than 300 families, and counting.

It’s giving something to people who have lost everything, Engelbert added.

Nick and Pam Rasmussen turned to Alta Heritage to try and recover the ashes of Nick’s brother Ray and his father Ken, after his mother’s home burned down in the 2017 Tubbs Fire.

“It was never going to change anything, but it healed something that no one else could do,” Pam Rasmussen said.

John Swanstrom, who was reunited with the ashes of his parents after the Tubbs Fire in 2017, describes their work in three words. It is, he said, a wonderful good.

Alta Heritage Foundation runs completely on donations. PG&E is matching dollar for dollar every donation made through https://pge.yourcause.com/public#/fundraising/29195