You can hear it in Selwyn Brereton’s voice – the pain from losing his home in the recent Altadena Eaton fire is real.

But every couple of minutes when describing the events of that devastating January 8th day, the 67-year-old breaks out into his familiar chuckle that his close friends have come to love.

It’s always easier to laugh than cry. 

“You’re kind of trying to figure out how to rebuild your life and all the things you are going to have to get,” the 67-year-old Brereton shared recently. “To think about starting over just gets overwhelming. It gets really, really overwhelming. I’m just trying to chip away, a little bit by bit.”

Brereton and his girlfriend Debra Nelson, who lives a mile from Brereton but whose house survived the fire although it is still unlivable, have called a hotel their home for the past five weeks. There’s been three different hotels with their current stay at the Marriott Courtyard in Monrovia.

“Hopefully, people are going to start moving back in another month or so,” Brereton said.

But the loss of his shelter and the comforts of his own bed and living space he has known since 1987 hasn’t limited Brereton from still working as a certified USTA official where he serves as a chair umpire for lower-level ITF pro events and larger national ITF junior tourneys such as Kalamazoo and the Eddie Herr juniors at IMG Academy in Florida. He also chairs matches for colleges like USC, UCLA and Pepperdine. He doesn’t travel to larger events as much as he used to because of the use of electronic line calling but names the US Open as his favorite tournament to work, followed by the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells. 

Just last week, Brereton was back working as a roving umpire and referee for the USTA Level 6 Gene Jung Memorial junior tournament in Whittier.

“I realized, ‘Oh, crap. All my stuff is burned up,’ ” Brereton said with that hearty laughter. “I realized the only thing I had in my trunk was a USTA hat. So I had to go buy a jacket. I didn’t have a uniform. I went to Target and bought a blue jacket and some khaki pants.”

Brereton’s home actually survived that harrowing first day, Tuesday, January 7, day as the Eaton fire ignited in the San Gabriel Mountains eventually killing at least 17 people and consuming close to 9,500 structures. It wasn’t until the following day as Brereton returned to his home that he experienced the continuing 110 miles per hour winds and embers of the firestorm that ultimately burned the structure to the ground. 

“We’ve had fires before and it’s always burned its way across the mountain side and eventually goes out,” said Brereton, who was at home when the fire started. “I am four blocks south of the mountain, so I didn’t give it a second thought.”

At some point later in the day the power went out, which had never happened before with any of the other fires. “It started getting really dark around 4 o’clock and I could see the flames moving really quickly. Again, I still wasn’t thinking much about it. It started to get a little darker and embers started falling on my lawn and there was ash everywhere.” 

Brereton packed some more stuff into his car and prepared to leave, but not before he used his garden hose to extinguish a bush and then a tree that suddenly went up in flames because of falling embers. “I looked across the street and saw the flames were kicking up really heavy and not a minute later, the house was on fire. I started to think I had to get out of there, but kept thinking how is this happening? I couldn’t process how it happened and how fast it had happened.”

Brereton eventually reached his girlfriend’s house driving in near pitch black conditions. The couple survived a sleepless night, and it wasn’t until the following day when he drove back to his house when he realized how bad things had gotten. 

“All the houses to the north of me were gone,” he said. “My garage was burned. My neighbor’s house was gone. I went inside the house and grabbed some more stuff and when I went into the bedroom I could see brown spots on the ceiling. My attic was on fire and all of the sudden my entire house was up in flames.”

Brereton high-tailed it out of the home and eventually checked into a hotel, not able to come back and see the devastation until days later. “My house was just here and to see it just flattened, it was so surreal. There was just the chimney left and all my stuff is burned.”

Returning to his job as a tennis official has been therapeutic for Brereton in recent weeks. Brereton credits his good friend John Letts with getting him into tennis more than 20 years ago. Brereton was working as a computer repairman, and met Letts at the Pasadena Chamber Mixer where Letts asked to get his computer fixed. “We became friends instantly,” said Brereton, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago and went to high school in Brooklyn before moving to Pasadena City College to compete in track and field. 

Now co-owners of iTennis, Letts and Brereton are co-tournament directors of the upcoming iTennis Pro Open at Arcadia Park, a women’s $30,000 ITF event, taking place Feb. 24-March 2.   

There are many questions facing Brereton and he balances his busy tennis business, running the upcoming pro tournament and the process of rebuilding his home. 

The biggest question is if he ever considered not rebuilding his home? “No,” Brereton said quickly and defiantly. “I started looking at the possibility of rebuilding in a different spot within the area. But there’s no place in the city that has vacant land. I know people who are just going to take the money and leave. There are a lot of older families here, some in their early 80s and late 70s. They are saying, ‘If it’s going to take me two and a half years to rebuild, I might not even be around much longer to enjoy the house.’ ”

A friend has set up a GoFundMe.com page to assist Brereton with basic living expenses. To donate, visit: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-selwyn-rebuild-after-wildfire-loss.