For thousands of residents of Los Angeles, the fires took almost everything they had.

At least 10 people are dead, and thousands of homes destroyed, after five days of burning.

But as the embers cooled, some residents of Altadena, which was ravaged by the Eaton Fire, returned to see what remained: An artifact from their lives before this disaster. From the rubble, many found small trinkets that brought them smiles and, occasionally, a moment of joy amid the hellish ordeal.

This is what they found.

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When Henry Giles, age six, returned to his home in Altadena with his parents, he knew exactly where to look.

The front gate and wall on the property is all that has survived untouched, with intact mail still in the letter box. Behind it, two burned out cars sit in the driveway, and in the back a swing set is destroyed. But tucked into some bushes was a bucket and a toy lawn mower.

“Mommy look, they survived! We hid them in the bushes because we knew there would be a fire!” Henry excitedly yelled

Henry and his brother Lucas inspected the remaining plants: “This one survived! This didn’t. Our tomato plant is dead.”

Few other treasures survived. Henry’s family had packed light, not wanting to overload their car in case they had to sleep in it. Just a few essentials and the family dogs.

“Henry was sad. He got a new 3D printer and it was destroyed. He asked me why I didn’t take it and I said because we could only grab stuff that was important. He said ‘well it was important to me,'” his mother Deisy told the BBC.

“That’s my book,” said Deisy, as she sifted throat the rubble of what was her dream home, a place she said she sacrificed a lot to buy.

“This must have been on my nightstand. I read a lot of books on self growth and empowerment. This must be a divine message for me to keep going, I believe that,” she added.

The wreckage of the home is still smoldering days later. Keith, her husband, wades in: “I’m looking at what’s left of my kitchen.” The family has lived in this house for three years. Keith is originally from England but has been in the US for 40 years.

Deisy and Keith are sending Henry and Lucas to family in Florida while they figure out what to do. They’ve been staying in a hotel. Deisy said it’s hard for them all to be separated, but it’s what is best.

“After a week they get homesick and start crying ‘I want to come back to California.’ But they have no home to come back to. And I wanted them to see there was no home left so they understood.”

Larry Villescas, 52, was rummaging through what was left of his home.

His wife and their three children scoured for anything that may have survived. They found a Christmas ornament, a Dr Suess book that was unscathed and something that nearly brought him to tears:

“We found a dish and a bowl that’s part of a dish set that my great aunt gave us on our wedding day. It’s lasted 24 years. We’ve been together 29 and we got married four years later, and so 24 years old that bowl and that plate, believe it or not.”

He added later… “There’s barely anything here that survived. You can tell how hot it burned. Everything is basically gone, so the small things you do find become even more special.”

Daron Anderson stepped around the charred chunks of his roof that now sits where his patio once stood.

“Woah, there is some of my mom’s pottery,” he said.

His mother stored some of the ceramic pots she made on the patio.

“If we find something that’s intact, I can take it back to my mom. Everything is breaking,” he said.

Each piece he grabbed seemed to disintegrate in his hands. Finally, he pulled a white and blue flowered vase from the pile of debris that stayed together.

“Oh man, little crap like this. I know my mom will like it,” he said. “It’s small, but it’s something.”

When the fires destroyed Peter Mitchell’s home, it took his handy-work with it.

“It was all lined with cabinets and various pieces of furniture,” he told the BBC.

“It was gone. There was stuff I built in the house, just little things, you know?.. I didn’t do a profession. I did it because I really enjoyed it.”

Searching through the remnants of his old tools – from a power saw to antique hand tools – Mr Michell said material things can be replaced.

“I can get another one of these. So I mean, as much as I love this saw and I spent hours making cool stuff on it. It can be replaced. It’s it’s now in Valhalla.”

Nearby, his neighbour Tavia Weinmann sifted through charred coins to find two pearls belonging to her mother’s necklace.

With reporting in Los Angeles from Christal Heyes, Kelly Chase, Helena Humphrey and John Sudworth