For years, Aurys Hernandez worked alongside her mother, who two decades ago started the family’s day care business in their home in Altadena. It only took hours for the wildfires that leveled entire Los Angeles-area communities last week to consume their home and their livelihood.

The blazes destroyed the remodeled garage where they had their licensed child care business. Gone is the brightly lit room where 12 to 15 children from mostly working-class families from Altadena and Pasadena played with multicolored toys and filled out worksheets. The photos of kids that adorned the walls are now cinders.

“In three hours, everything’s gone. Our house, our homes, our job, everything,” said Hernandez, 45.

Along with mansions and wealthy enclaves, California’s still-raging wildfires have charred communities of working-class families and turned them to ash. The merciless flames left gardeners, caregivers, domestic workers, child care providers and others without the tools needed to do their jobs. The conflagration wiped out the businesses where they worked and the homes of many employers and clients.