L.A. Fires Leaves Commentator David Tuchman At A Loss For Words

The images and stories that have emerged from the devastating Los Angeles wildfires have been nothing short of harrowing. With an estimate of more than 10,000 homes damaged or destroyed, the impact felt by the fires will continue to resonate for weeks, months, and years to come. With Los Angeles’ status as one of the poker capitols of the world, nearly every poker player likely has a friend who has been impacted – even if that is just the friendly voice of well-known poker commentator David Tuchman.

“We’re hanging in there. We’re hanging in,” Tuchman said, just days after being evacuated from his Altadena home. “We’re getting by, we’re safe and we’re just taking it day by day.”

Tuchman is one of the longest-standing voices of poker commentary, known for his work on Hustler Casino Live and years-past World Series of Poker livestreams, and his is just one of those thousands of families who were evacuated from their homes with the threat of losing everything he owned to the fires. With luck on his side, Tuchman’s house remains intact; however, there is plenty of loss in his community of Altadena.

As of Wednesday, Tuchman’s family remained under mandatory evacuation due to the Eaton Fire, but in good spirits as he shared the play-by-play of how that day went for him and his family.

He recalls having an “eerie premonition” the day before as the Palisades Fire was taking hold. The historic winds were whipping up – “not the usual Santa Ana winds” Southern California is accustomed to, as he remembers. This was something unprecedented in his experience. Shortly after 6:00 pm, they received an alert, and Tuchman’s wife, Molly, went outside to take a look.

“She went outside, went in the backyard, and looked up and saw fire and smoke and flames,” Tuchman said. “It’s horrifying. And then just a panic. She was out of the house 17 minutes later, thanks to some friends…out with three dogs, three cats, a pig, and a bunny. All out of the house evacuated.”

Tuchman, an avid hockey fan and a coach of his son’s team, was at an ice rink 30 minutes away when he was ushered an urgent message to call his wife immediately.

“I was at his practice and my wife has never ever, ever called me in the middle of a practice and suddenly one of the parents comes rushing down to the glass at the hockey rink. ‘Molly said, call her immediately. It’s an emergency.’”

“I called her and she’s hysterical and she’s panicking and she’s like, ‘I don’t know what to do.’ “

She grabbed a go-bag with their passports and important papers, and the two made a plan for the family to meet up immediately at a friend’s house.

“My wife tells the story about all the traffic lights were down. The wind was everywhere,” he said. “There’s smoke. People are panicking. Not only are you rushing against the fire but people are driving into each other. There are car accidents. It was exactly like a movie. It was horrifying as people were trying to get out.”

One of Tuchman’s good friends is a firefighter and estimated that the chances were 75/25 that he was going to lose his home. But as the winds took a sharp turn, his house – and his four-block community – was spared.

The same couldn’t be said for the greater part of Altadena. That included Aveson, the school that both of Tuchman’s kids attended and where Molly is the Head of Literacy. For Tuchman and his community, the school represented “a lot of what is the soul and the heart and what is good about Altadena.” The loss of the school hit Tuchman nearly as hard as if he lost his own home.

“The next morning I did something pretty stupid. Wednesday morning we woke up and my wife was crying and she told me the school is gone. And I don’t know what happened, but I was in kind of a daze. I don’t know if I had a stroke. I was like, I have to go see this. My wife was like, well, just be safe. So I went by myself in my jeep in Altadena on Wednesday morning when the fires were still very much raging, 0% containment. The winds were still howling. It was really dumb. It was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done in my life probably, but I needed to see it.”

With fires still smoldering, Tuchman took in the loss of the school where his wife worked and his kids attended classes. A home away from home for his entire family, gone like so many others.

Also, like so many others, Tuchman is asking himself tough questions in the immediate aftermath. None of which have obvious answers. What now? What’s next? When can they go home? Like his entire community and Los Angeles as a whole, an incredible amount of uncertainty looms.

For Tuchman himself, he insists he’s lucky and doesn’t want or need any money in relief. The greater L.A. community has been there in support with donation centers popping up in some of Los Angeles’ centers, including the Rose Bowl, where Tuchman was able to grab some basics to keep his family afloat for a day or two. These inspirational drives have been providing families and individuals who have lost everything the essentials to help give them the ability to keep moving forward.

Although everything is still so fresh, Tuchman already has an eye on what it’s going to take to rebuild in his Altadena community and he’s starting with his kid’s school, Aveson.

“I mean, hey, if you love poker or if you’ve ever enjoyed a minute of my commentary from even way back when I had the black booth and the World Series of Poker – if you can afford a dollar or $5, I mean if everybody that read that thing just donates five bucks, the school would be in a lot better shape,” he said.

“I put the link out and the response has been really great,” he said. “We’ve gotten a lot of poker players…Phil Helmuth donated, Jeremy Ausmus donated. I just got a tweet from Dominik Nitsche saying he donated, Stapes [Joe Stapleton] donated. So that’s great.”

In the end, Tuchman is just thankful. On Friday morning, 10 days after the fires began, it’s estimated that the Eaton Fire, which ran through Altadena, is 65% contained and evacuation orders for parts of Altadena are being lifted.

With, hopefully, the worst of it behind them he feels well supported and ready to help how he can.

“I mean, to me, like I said, at the end of the day. We’re lucky, we’re safe.”