Rose Court member shares her story of surviving Eaton Fire – NBC Los Angeles

One of the members of the 2026 Rose Court understands the devastation of January’s Eaton Fire very well.

Naira Wadley, whose family lost their home in the Eaton Fire, is a high school senior and one of the members of the coveted Rose Court who will be on a float in the Rose Parade on Jan. 1. 

It’s a special moment that comes days before the anniversary of the fire that destroyed her home and changed her life, like thousands of other neighbors in her community. 

“The first months are always the hardest, but 10 months in, I think my life has changed enough for me to not forget, but replace those feelings with more happiness,” Wadley said. 

Naira’s mother spoke with NBC4 on the cleared property where their family home once stood. It was where the family spent 16 years of Christmas celebrations and neighborhood gatherings. 

“It’s a place where you were walking down a street and you knew your neighbors. and that’s community,” her mother, Natasha Brown, said. 

“It’s for the city. It’s for us. It’s for all of us. It’s for all the girls who look like her. It’s for everyone who thinks that, you know, when you lose everything, you lose everything. It’s not the truth. This is for the resiliency of this community,” the mother said about seeing her daughter on the rose court.

The senior at John Muir High School in Pasadena is taking this moment to inspire her future plans. 

“I want to go to school to become a nurse and maybe I want to get into the acting or film industry and I want to become rich,” Wadley said. “Ok, but the reason I want to become rich is to come back and create a humanitarian center for homeless residents because I know what it’s like and I think that these people deserve as much respect as possible and they need to be treated as humans.”