Rebuilding L.A.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recently approved California's request to extend housing assistance to survivors of the Eaton and Palisades fires. But more than 18 months after those January 2025 fires, survivors are still waiting on an additional $16 billion in federal disaster relief from the federal government, which was revised down earlier this year from nearly $34 billion.  Ca...

Long after the smoke cleared and the news crews left, many fire survivors are still carrying grief, anxiety, and the emotional weight of losing a community, a routine, and a sense of place. In this episode of Rebuilding LA, we visit Saved By A Story, a writing workshop founded by Palisades fire survivor Kathy Katims. The monthly gatherings bring together survivors of the Palisades and Eaton fires...

Today people are not just rebuilding their homes but their lives. On top of the task of just figuring out whether to move back and rebuild a house or leave and start over someplace else, survivors have lives to live, jobs to carry out, children to raise, and marriages to hold together. The weight of it all can sometimes feel too heavy to bear. But there are ways to work through it and process the...

It turns out you can burn down a neighborhood and not destroy a community. The one great silver lining to these fires in Los Angeles is that survivors are transcending the physical ties. No matter how much has been destroyed or how far people have been scattered, relationships between neighbors have become deeper.                                                                                    ...

Eighteen months after the Eaton and Palisades Fires, it's not gotten any easier for survivors. But there are good things happening. People are rebuilding. Survivors are making plans to return to these burned out communities — and it's not just one person at a time, but neighbors are coming back and rebuilding together.  One street where that's happening is Poppyfields Drive in Altadena. Resident W...

The fire in the Pacific Palisades was still smoldering when Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass announced we would rebuild. Now, almost 18 months later, progress has been a mixed bag. Yes, homes are going up, but there still doesn't seem to be a "plan" for the return of all these neighborhoods, prompting many to ask whether we've moved too fast and without a bigger vision for making these c...

About 2 in 3 fire survivors are still displaced and, as coverage for temporary housing disappears, that number could get increase. That's according to the latest report from Department of Angels, a nonprofit that regularly surveys survivors from both the Eaton and Palisades Fires to monitor how the recovery from the L.A. fires is going. As people continue to wait on insurance payouts and building...

There's a big election this year, and we are not just talking about the congressional midterm races. There's a lot of consequential local races, too, including one for LA's next mayor. As incumbent mayor Karen Bass Bass campaigns to stay in office, there's a big question about how much LA's fire recovery will dominate the political narrative — and your vote. There's more than a dozen candidates cu...

After the first sign of fire was spotted in the foothills above Altadena, a WhatsApp chat meant to set up pickleball games started going off.  As the devastation became clear, that chat soon turned into a community disaster hub. The Eaton Fire Survivors Network — now known as the *Every Fire Survivors Network  — is composed of thousands of people across LA's burn zones who are fighting to rebuild...

If we’ve come to understand anything while reporting out this podcast, it’s that California burns. It always has. It always will. The question is whether we can build communities better to withstand the risk? There’s been a lot of talk and ideas proposed about building safer, more fire resilient neighborhoods — and not just individual houses, but community infrastructure, too. But there’s yet to b...

LA lawyers have been busy. Eaton and Palisades fire survivors have filed thousands of lawsuits, and  at least one criminal case is pending. How might these cases play out, and how long will it all take? The outcome of these cases could make or break the recovery, and affect whether or not the residents of these affected communities can rebuild.  GUESTS: Richard Winton, Investigative Crime Writer f...

Last October, the U.S. Department of Justice revealed a stunning accusation — alleging that a young Uber driver from Florida caused the death and destruction in the Pacific Palisades and Malibu. It's theory rested on belief that the Palisades Fire was a rekindling of a week old fire, the Lachman Fire, that this man, Jonathan Rinderknecht,  had, allegedly, intentionally started with a flick of a li...

It’s been 16 months since the Palisades and Eaton Fires destroyed two historic communities in L.A. and the path forward, for many, is as unclear as ever. A little more than 4500 building permits have been approved in the burn areas - far fewer are in active construction. Most people still do not have enough money to rebuild. There are outstanding lawsuits and settlements that could make a differen...

Nearly a year and a half after the Eaton and Palisades Fires destroyed much of Altadena, the Pacific Palisades, and Malibu, people are rebuilding their homes but many survivors are still unsure of their path forward. 2026 could be a pivotal year -- a year of personal, and political reckoning.  Thousands of people have filed lawsuits over perceived failures by the city, the county, municipal agenci...

NOTE: We taped this episode on January 8th, 2026, exactly one year after much of Altadena awoke to the news that their homes and their neighborhoods had burned, and their lives were forever changed.  Filmmaker Ondi Timoner was overseas shooting a documentary when the Eaton Fire destroyed her home of 14 years, and wiped her entire neighborhood away. She learned about the fate of her house from her...

It’s been a year since two fires tore through Los Angeles County, killing 31 people and destroying 16,000 structures, and the disaster is still unfolding as thousands of people continue pick up the pieces, find new places to live, new jobs, new neighborhoods, and wrestle with whether to return to their old streets, which were burned beyond recognition.   It’s clear that we are still in the very ea...

Thousands of homes need to be built in Malibu, the Pacific Palisades and Altadena over the next decade. With many homeowners still looking for architects and blueprints, there is an opportunity to rethink the modern home. Dustin Bramell is one Palisades Fire who is drawing a parallel to eighty years ago and the Case Study Houses that rose up during the post-World War II building boom. The Case Stu...

The official investigation into the cause of the Eaton Fire is not over, but power company So-Cal Edison has already said that it likely sparked from their equipment. Edison is facing dozens of lawsuits from survivors, and one from the U-S Department of Justice, accusing the company of not only starting the fire, but also of negligence. Edison says it wants to make things right and has come up wit...

Rick Caruso is a real-estate developer, a philanthropist, and in some ways a city insider — he ran for mayor against Karen Bass in 2022, and lost. He is also a Palisades Fire survivor. His family lost three homes that night — and were it not for the private firefighters he hired, Caruso’s businesses in the Palisades Village might have also burned down. He started the nonprofit Steadfast LA to assi...

Just before Thanksgiving, Altadena resident Whitney Haggins — who is VERY big on holidays — told us she hopes to break ground on her new home in the new year using a design she chose out of The Foothill Catalog, which has already been pre-approved by Los Angeles County. It’s got a porch and everything — perfect for watching the sun set and chatting with her neighbors, many of whom are also choosin...

Editor’s Note: This interview taped a few days before the government announced it would reopen after a shutdown that lasted 44 days. We opted to keep the references to the shutdown in the interview to illustrate its impact on the rebuilding process.  Talk to anyone in Altadena and they’ll tell you they loved living there before the fires. It was their paradise, their Shangri-La, their little slice...

There are no shortcuts for rebuilding the Pacific Palisades. Even those who are returning are daunted by the task, wondering who else will come back, and nervous about the hidden dangers of the toxic debris produced by the fire. Homes are starting to go up, and there is a plan for at least some of those third spaces – the elementary schools, the high school, and the community center. But affordabi...

In the last few years, after massive blazes in Northern California destroyed forests and towns, the state changed the way it managed wildfires. It shifted its policy from a fire suppression strategy to one that oversaw small burns and other efforts to help thin overgrown forests and reduce the amount of fuel that could prolong a fire.   Now, the state’s fire officials realize it has to change cour...

Out of the top 20 most destructive wildfires in California, 15 of them have occurred in the last decade. There’s the Camp Fire, the Woolsey Fire, the Tubbs Fire, the Carr Fire, the Thomas Fire and, of course, LA’s Eaton and Palisades Fires. The list is long.  It’s stunning when you think about it. Fires of this magnitude were rare before the year 2000.Most of these communities have started to buil...

In 2018, a devastating fire ripped through the mountain community of Paradise, California. 85 people died. And almost the entire town burned to the ground. The Camp Fire remains the most destructive and deadliest fire in the state’s history, destroying more structures than the Eaton and Palisades Fires combined. Nearly seven years later, Paradise is coming back — it’s not the same, and so far, man...