Raul Estrada’s front yard at his home on the border of Pasadena and Altadena is charming.

Against the backdrop of the San Gabriels Mountains, his greenery includes nicely placed succulents and an array of colorful plants. There’s the kids’ mobile soccer goal — a modest reminder that this is much a space for children and family as it is for growing a decorative landscape.

But these days, many homes face a looming challenge, literally beneath the surface: The possibility of lead in the soil.

Estrada, like many downwind from the Eaton fire’s burn zone, are wondering if the soil in their yards contain the unhealthful metal.

“I would say it’s good to know. I have kids. It’s good to know what’s going on with the soil,” said Estrada on Thursday, May 22, as he opened up his front yard to media and county officials for the rollout of the county’s Eaton Fire Soil Testing Program.

Until December, residents can collect soil samples from their own yards and drop it off at the county’s One Stop Permit Center in Altadena, where it goes to a lab, which then analyzes it.

The whole issue of toxins in the soil has emerged in the wake of FEMA and the U.S. Army Corps having come under scrutiny for not conducting soil testing and only removing the top six inches of soil as part of Phase-2 debris removal.

The question was amplified by the Los Angeles County Public Health Department’s surprise finding in April of elevated levels of lead on standing properties on the periphery of the Eaton fire. (In the Palisades area, testing found localized chemical impacts in soil samples but there was not evidence of widespread contamination.)

Since those results, the county approved the $3 million for additional soil testing for those near the Eaton fire burn area and Pasadena Unified School District began its own soil testing at all school sites.

Dr. Nichole Quick, chief medical advisor for L.A. County Public Health, said lead is a neurotoxin, which at low levels of exposure can affect learning, development and behavior in young children. Lead exposure to pregnant women can increase the risk of miscarriage, premature birth, low birth weight and developmental issues.

Adults exposed to lead can lead to high blood pressure, kidney damage, mood disorders and problems with memory and concentration.

According to Quick, as of early May, all but three out of 775 people who have had their blood tested for lead have had results come back below the CDC’s threshold. The three people who tested above the threshold were men in their 70s.

But Quick on Thursday acknowledged that the findings were “unanticipated.”

“We knew that lead was a potential concern, which is why we tested for it. The finding of the downwind concentrations was unanticipated and really led to this program,” Quick said.

The program is a bit DYI, but also relatively easy, as Janet Scully, program manager with the Department of Public Health, demonstrated in Estrada’s front yard. With a small shovel, a baggie, she proceeded to dig a small hole — about 3 inches deep — to gather a scoop of soil.

You can find the steps at ph.lacounty.gov/eaton-soil-testing. But in essence, after you confirm your property is within the target area for soil testing (via the online map), you find four well-traveled well spaced (for instance: where the dog travels, where the kids play, a walkway) places in your yard to dig four small holes. Get a small shovel. Scoop your four samples into a small baggie, and shake it around. Then, you drop it off at the county’s One Stop Permit Center in Altadena.

Certified laboratories test the sample and within seven to 10 days will know the results. A county website helps residents interpret the results and offers guidance on what to do next. That could be anything from nothing to hiring a contractor to clear the lead, officials said.

The county has targeted about 26,000 homes areas where the highest levels of lead soil concentrations were found. They’ll be receiving postcards in the mail along with door-to-door outreach from Public Health about the program.

The memory of the Eaton fire is still vivid for Estrada, the homeowner. He’s also quite mindful of the kind of materials that were blowing downwind on night of extreme wind, back on Jan. 7.

“A lot of old houses got burned,” he said. A lot of old materials. A lot of old asbestos. I could see the smoke bringing that debris in. I found ash the size of my head here, on my property, in my driveway. It was pretty crazy,” he added, noting that a friend lost their home, as did his brother-in-law.

It was the least he could do to offer his home for a good cause, he said.

Quick said it was likely the burning of those vintage old homes, coupled with the conditions on the days of the fire, that spread lead and other materials that settled in areas on the fringes of the burn zones.

“The explanation for the downwind impact, is there was a lot of lead paint that burned in those homes and that it was redistributed” she said.

In the meantime, Quick said the new program was a chance for people to get some answers on lead concentrations on their own properties, and then make some decisions based on the results, which you’d be expected to get back in 7 to 10 days. That response could range from putting in ground covers to “hardscaping” your yard to perhaps some other kind of remediation.

Ultimately, she noted, the findings were a wake-up call on the kind of environmental concerns many communities have been dealing with, on matters unrelated to the fire. She noted the department’s outreach efforts in neighborhoods impacted by the release of hazardous materials from Exide Technologies, the former battery recycling facility in Vernon.

“Whether it was fire related or pre-existing, we still want people to take precautions,” she said.