A Year After L.A. Fires, Rebuilding Is Arduous, Costly and Uneven

A calendar year has passed since devastating wildfires struck Los Angeles, but the level of progress that communities, the city and county have made in rebuilding largely depends on who you ask. 

Multiple unrelated blazes quickly exploded across Los Angeles last January to catastrophic effect. The fires — particularly in L.A.’s Pacific Palisades and neighboring Malibu, as well as the cities of Altadena and Pasadena in the San Gabriel Valley — killed 31 people, destroyed some 16,000 structures, burned more than 50,000 acres and caused well over $100 billion in estimated economic damages. An August study by Boston University and the University of Helsinki found the indirect death toll, such as from exposure to air pollution, to be nearly 15 times higher.

As of Jan. 7, 2026, the City of L.A. has so far issued 1,448 rebuilding permits for 689 unique addresses (many of which included or will include accessory dwelling units) in the Palisades area, according to the city’s dashboard. The city has received 3,075 permit applications for 1,400 unique addresses.

L.A. County’s dashboard, which is more comprehensive, shows 1,192 permits issued out of 2,904 so far received. County statistics show 440 homes in all unincorporated areas (which include Altadena and parts of the Palisades) have begun construction, and four have so far been completed.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass have meanwhile touted a number of executive actions aimed at cutting red tape and making it easier for residents, landlords and business owners to rebuild. Those initiatives include waiving certain California Environmental Quality Act requirements, expediting the permitting process, and suspending collection of permit and plan-check fees.

And earlier this week, Newsom issued yet more executive orders that extend price-gouging protections for fire survivors and new, larger investments in affordable housing in L.A. County, and support for businesses destroyed in Topanga State Park. California state law limits contracts with businesses in such parks to terms of five or 10 years, and requires a competitive bidding process. Newsom’s new order allows the state Department of Parks and Recreation to extend contracts to up to 30 years and nixes the bidding requirement.

“We are standing shoulder to shoulder with local businesses as we restore the community pillars that make our neighborhoods whole,” Newsom said in a statement on Tuesday. “By cutting red tape and fast-tracking processes that once took months, we’re delivering real, on-the-ground progress.”

Steadfast LA, a nonprofit, private-sector coalition created by billionaire developer Rick Caruso, and LA Rises, a fellow public-private partnership helmed by L.A. Dodgers Chairman Mark Walter and NBA legend Magic Johnson, are also helping to expedite the permitting process. The organizations have partnered with software firm Archistar to develop an AI tool that scans rebuilding permits for noncompliance issues, potentially preventing needless bureaucratic delays.

Yet the trauma lingers and looms, largely for people affected by the fires. While there has recently been an uptick in the amount of people returning to their former neighborhoods, 70 percent of the survivors of the Palisades and Eaton fires are still displaced, according to a January report by nonprofit Department of Angels.

Nearly 50 percent of all survivors have drained a “significant” portion of their savings since the fires, and 43 percent have taken on debt, per the report. Both figures are higher still for survivors who experienced total loss of their homes, or whose homes suffered structural and smoke damage. Concerns about rebuilding costs, dubious insurance payouts, and general safety drive uncertainty around rebuilding, per the report. Just 44 percent of Palisades residents and 32 percent of Altadena residents said that they will rebuild only if they discover a path to make it affordable.

Still, progress on rebuilding these communities, however slowly, is inching forward. The cleanup, for example, was conducted at a remarkable clip. On July 7, exactly six months after the fires began, Newsom declared that debris removal had largely been completed. Despite the fact that it was the second-largest wildfire cleanup effort in state history, second only to the 2018 Camp Fire, the L.A. Fire cleanup was the fastest of any major natural disaster across the country, per the governor’s office.

The efficacy of that cleanup is still being studied. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, for example, did not test soil for toxic and contaminated substances in destruction zones, opting instead to clear debris and six inches of topsoil for the sake of speed. In September, researchers from UCLA, Loyola Marymount and Purdue found that nearly half of 47 already cleared homes in Altadena still had elevated lead contamination, according to the L.A. Times. 

Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com.