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For the past 70 years, Fox’s Restaurant has served pancakes, pulled pork and catfish to the people of Altadena in Los Angeles County. That is until last week’s devastating wildfire reduced the diner to charred rubble, save for a roadside sign.
Fox owner Paul Rosenbluh now thinks there’s no point in sticking around to rebuild. “You can only live in a danger zone for so long,” he said. “At some point you say, ‘I don’t want to deal with this shit anymore.'”
Tens of thousands of people around Los Angeles are facing the same problem — stuck in areas reduced to smog by one of the costliest natural disasters in American history, or moving to an area vulnerable to climate change-related disasters.
The wildfire, which started on the morning of January 7 in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Rich Beach, has since erupted in and around the city, killing at least 27 people and destroying more than 12,000 structures and forcing nearly 180,000 people to evacuate their homes.
Potential economic losses of between $135 billion and $150 billion are far higher than the record $16.5 billion set by the Northern California Campfires in 2018, the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in the state’s history.
The two worst fires, the Palisades and Eaton Fires in Altadena, continued to burn through Friday. But Karen Bass, the mayor of LA, and California Governor Gavin Newsom issued emergency executive orders this week to jumpstart the rebuilding process. They are promising to cut red tape to speed things up, including streamlining planning reviews and waiving environmental requirements.
“People have lost their homes, but they’re up and running again,” Bass, who has faced heavy criticism for her handling of the crisis, said this week. “If your property burns down and you want to rebuild it like it was before, you don’t have to go through the time-consuming permitting process.”
But behind the push to rebuild are some tough questions: Can the city afford to rebuild areas that are becoming uninsured? Are the worst affected areas even safe for human habitation? And does Los Angeles, as it’s structured today, with houses perched admirably on hillsides and groves still make sense in a warming world?
The fire raised significant questions about the long-term sustainability of a city based on sprawl and single-family development, said Michael Maltzan, an L.A.-based advocate of the Sixth Street Viaduct Bridge in the city. Sustainable, high-density housing in the city.
“Is this the time when we need to think deeply about the way we are in the city?” He says. “Fire happens every two years on a different scale. As much as we want this to be a one-time anomaly, it’s not — it’s part of a constant life cycle in Southern California.”
Altadena’s beautiful natural setting at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains attracted people to settle there. The city has become a haven for middle-class black families in a place other than white supremacy.
But the land is dry, receives little rain, and is an ideal environment for wildfires. In Santa Anas, the so-called “devil’s wind” blows out of the desert and dries up vegetation.
Shawna Dawson Brewer, a marketing consultant whose Altadena cottage burned in the Athlone fire, is convinced that the danger of living in Southern California is on the rise. “The fire emphasized that none of these communities are safe anymore,” she said. “The high risk area has tripled in size.”
California’s Model Building Code, which sets rules for building homes in fire-prone areas, has attempted to make such neighborhoods “fire proof.” Residents should create a 100-foot buffer around their homes and clear flammable materials to provide a safe perimeter for firefighters.
But this didn’t help much in the final skirmishes. “The winds were so strong there was nothing the firefighters could do,” said Moira Colon, founder of PR firm Financial Profiles, who lost her home in Pacific Palisades, home to many Hollywood stars and studio executives.
Conlon is not sure about rebuilding. “The place is a toxic waste zone with no infrastructure,” she said.
With thousands of others rebuilding, rebuilding costs could end up being prohibitive, she added. “Can you imagine the shortage of materials and labor we are seeing? Do I want to spend the next five years of my life fighting for builders?
And then there’s the greater risk of wildfires. These are no longer just seasonal hazards, but ever-present hazards as a changing climate fuels temperatures and prolonged droughts. “It’s terrible and God knows it could happen again,” Colon said.
The threat of natural disasters is always seen as a fair price to pay for the right to live in LA with its amazing coastline and Mediterranean climate.
In the year In 1938, a flood killed 115 people and destroyed more than 5,000 houses. In the year The 1994 Northridge earthquake destroyed buildings and caused up to $40 billion in damage. Wildfires are always a concern, especially during the dry season between August and October.
In the book The Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Concept of RiskLA writer Mike Davis describes the fire story in the coastal paradise of Malibu, which he says is “the wildfire capital of North America and, perhaps, the world.” It casts doubt on the cycle of rebuilding after each fire, which he says has been enabled by decades of cheap fire insurance. The result was the largest ever “fireball suburbs”.
That cycle can now be broken. Most of the homes destroyed in this month’s fires were uninsured. Companies like Allstate and State Farm have stopped selling new home insurance policies in California, blaming regulatory restrictions on price increases that have made it more challenging to cover losses.
State Farm announced last year that it would not renew policies for 72,000 homes and apartments in California, including 69 percent of insurance plans in Pacific Palisades — though it partially reversed the move after this month’s fires. Many homeowners dumped by State Farm have instead switched to California’s state-backed equity plan, which offers up to $3mn in coverage for a single residential property – little consideration of real estate prices in these parts.
A posted insurance picture, no political talk, could mean it will be difficult to build back better. “Many individuals don’t have any insurance, and many don’t have insurance, which means people are pressured to cut as many corners in rebuilding as possible,” Maltzan says. “This means houses are built better from the start.”
Dawson Brewer’s home was insured, but she fears her policy won’t meet the high costs of rebuilding a new home in Altadena. “Depending on supply and demand, costs can increase dramatically,” she says. “I’ve heard it costs $700-$900 per square foot to rebuild and no insurance company will cover it.”
Then, after homes are rebuilt, new insurance premiums can be very high for most homeowners, as many companies change policies to reflect fire risk. “When we go back and rebuild, isn’t there a risk that our society won’t be insured?” she says.
The devastation comes with California already mired in a cost-of-living crisis. The sudden appearance of thousands of homeless residents, all looking for a roof over their heads, exacerbates the city’s chronic housing shortage. After increasing 30 percent between 2018 and 2023, the median home price in Los Angeles has surpassed $1 million.
“The key question is housing affordability,” said Manfred Keil, chief economist at the Inland Empire Economic Partnership. “After the fire[the fire]housing costs increase, people can’t afford it and then they start leaving.”
Here’s an example: Six years after the Campfires devastated Paradise, California, the city’s population was about 9,300, compared to 26,500 before the fire.
Despite promises by Bass and Newsom, red tape will slow down the rebuilding process, said Edward Ring of the Education Foundation’s California Policy Center. “If you look at how long it takes to get a building permit in California, you can expect to start construction in three years,” he said. Think about what it means when you try to rebuild.”
Meanwhile, it is not clear who exactly will pay to rebuild not only the houses destroyed by the fire, but also the infrastructure.
We want to rebuild, but how long will it take (the authorities) to restore the facilities? How do you sharpen a saw?” says Rosenbluh, restaurateur. “The effort and the length of time takes its toll. People can take the insurance premiums and move to Virginia.”
All this adds up to a big problem for Los Angeles, where Hollywood is located fight And there is a stubborn homelessness crisis. City leaders must manage fire recovery as they prepare to host eight FIFA World Cup games next year and the Olympics in 2028.
But the city has been through “really awful times,” said Ian Campbell, a longtime L.A. businessman who served in a key role at the California Department of Commerce and later vice chairman of PR firm Abernathy McGregor. In addition to floods, earthquakes and fires, LA survived the decline of the aerospace industry – a major employer – after the end of the Cold War.
“LA has a long history of these amazing times, partly because we live in such a difficult landscape,” he said. “This could be another moment of reckoning for Los Angeles. Will the city continue to allow people to live in at-risk areas and should the entire community subsidize? These things need to be faced.”
