Jeff Levy, an antique toy dealer, uses his metal detecting skills to help wildfire victims recover lost belongings. He has spent over 30 years searching through ash and debris, bringing joy and relief to those who have lost everything.
When fire victims return home and find nothing but charred wreckage, many assume their irreplaceable belongings also perished. But Jeff Levy sees a chance to find their treasured keepsakes during their greatest time of need.
Armed with metal detectors, a shovel, sifting screens and a 60-pound magnet, Levy has helped recover belongings for wildfire victims for more than 30 years – bringing tears of joy and shrieks of elation to despondent victims who have lost most everything else. “I want to do this just to help,” Levy said, taking a break from his search through “muddy ash” in the Pacific Palisades. “But I don’t want to take any money.” An antique toy dealer by trade, Levy has put his affinity for metal detecting to good use. Since the recent Southern California wildfires ravaged Los Angeles-area communities, Levy has saved an elderly man’s retirement stash; retrieved a couple’s diamond engagement ring; and salvaged a symbolic gold heirloom just in time for the Lunar New Year. ‘Not all heroes wear capes’ Hours after the deadly Eaton Fire broke out, Mark Pastor’s cat woke him up at 2:30 a.m. He looked out the window to see a “firestorm” racing toward his house. Pastor and his fiancée, Lisa De Lange, grabbed their pets and sprinted out the door – leaving behind her diamond engagement ring. The flames engulfed their Altadena house. Days later, the newly homeless couple was staying in a motel when a mutual friend connected them with Levy. “The big thing that we wanted more than anything was to find her ring,” Pastor said. When Levy and Pastor trekked back to Altadena, “it was like a bomb was dropped on the neighborhood,” Pastor said. “Seeing the house, it was just devastating. I figured there’s no way we’re gonna find anything in all this.” The two men spent six hours digging before Levy unearthed the ring. That’s when Pastor “really broke down,” Levy said. When Pastor returned the fire-warped ring to De Lange, “it was better than when he gave it to me the first time,” she said. Levy didn’t just find the couple’s buried treasure – he also gave them renewed hope for the future. “Since then, it helped me kind of get my feet back on the ground,” De Lange said. “Not all heroes wear capes.” A lifetime of savings spared The “most interesting and probably the most valuable” find came when Levy helped a man recover his retirement fund – which had been stashed in a closet. The retired teacher “wasn’t comfortable with the economy during the beginning of Covid and converted all of his retirement into gold bars and literally put them in the closet, in a shoebox,” Levy said. But this hunt for buried gold was treacherous. “They lived in a two-story apartment on a hillside on Sunset in the Palisades. … It was a little scary because it was on a hillside. There was a lot of falling debris and a lot of walls that looked like they could cave in,” Levy said. “So as safely as I could, I cleared a lot of that debris. I cut through the chicken wire that was inside the drywall on the walls,” he said. “I started shoveling into a two-part sifting screen, and in a very short time – I think about an hour – all of a sudden, I saw the rectangular shapes and the glitter of gold under the ash,” he said. “So his whole retirement is back to him, in his possession now.” ‘A very good sign for better things to come’ While Levy was helping another family in the Palisades, he noticed Ken Lin struggling for hours to find heirlooms in the torched remains of his childhood home – small Chinese gold ingots. “My parents aren’t really into material possessions,” Lin said. “But they did want to go back to look for this gold in particular.” Engraved ingots made of real or imitation gold are staples in many Chinese homes for Lunar New Year – which was only days away. The keepsakes symbolize prosperity – something that seemed implausible for the family that lost everything. So Levy grabbed a shovel and helped dig through the Lins’ rubble with them. “I set up a screen, and right away I found” a gold ingot, Levy said. The family “was shocked that I found it so quickly because they were digging for a long time.” The small, golden nugget had a message engraved in Chinese: “Double happiness.” Lin was stunned by Levy’s benevolence and skill. “He had the strategy and the tools,” Lin said. “He’s like the angel of debris.” Levy said he’s grateful he recovered the symbolic treasure for the family before Lunar New Year – a time for purging bad luck and celebrating hope for a prosperous year. “I don’t know if it was a coincidence,” he said. “But I think it was a very good sign for better things to come after the tragedy.”
WILDFIRES COMMUNITY HELP METALL DETECTING LOSS RECOVERY
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