los angeles — On the one-year anniversary of the Los Angeles area’s most devastating wildfires, scant home construction projects stand out among a landscape that remains mostly flat.
Fewer than a dozen homes have been rebuilt in Los Angeles County since January 7, 2025, when Palisades and Eaton Fires The volcano killed 31 people and destroyed about 13,000 homes and other residential properties.
For those who have insurance, it is often not enough to cover construction costs. Relief organizations are stepping in to help, but progress is slow.
One exception is Ted Koerner, whose home in Altadena was reduced to ashes and two chimneys. With his insurance payouts suspended, the 67-year-old liquidated about 80% of his retirement holdings, secured contractors quickly, and moved decisively through the rebuilding process.
Shortly before Thanksgiving, Koerner was among the first to finish rebuilding in the wake of the fires, fanned by drought and high winds.
But most of them don’t have options like Corner.
The streets of the coastal community of Pacific Palisades and Altadena, a community nestled in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, It remains lined with a lot of dirt. In the coastal city of Malibu, foundations and concrete piles rising from the sand are all that remains of the beachfront homes that once crashed against the crashing ocean waves.
Neighborhoods are pitch black at night, with only a few street lights replaced. Even many of the houses that survived are no longer inhabited as families struggle to do so Cleanse them of the toxic pollutants of fire.
Koerner was motivated in part by the fear that his favorite dog, Daisy Mae, now 13, might not live long enough to move to a new home, given the many months it would take to build even under the best conditions.
He also didn’t have to wait for insurance payouts to start construction.
“This is the only way we’re going to be able to get it done before my dog suddenly starts breathing hard or something else happens,” Koerner said.
Once construction began, his house was completed in just over four months.
Daisy Mae is back to lounging in her favorite spot in the yard under the 175-year-old Heritage Oak tree. Koerner said he enjoyed his morning coffee while watching it bring tears to his eyes.
“We succeeded,” he said.
About 900 homes are under construction, and will likely be completed later this year.
However, many homeowners are still stuck figuring out if they can afford the remodeling process.
Dozens of residents have left their communities forever. More than 600 properties have been sold, with a single-family home destroyed in the wildfires, according to real estate data tracker Cotality.
“We are seeing significant gaps between the financial insurance we pay, to the extent we have insurance, and the actual cost of rebuilding and/or repairing our homes,” said Joey Chen, executive director of the Eaton Fire Survivors Network, a group of 10,000 fire survivors mostly from Altadena.
By December, less than 20% of people who suffered a total loss of their homes had closed their insurance claims, according to a survey by the nonprofit Department of Angels.
About a third of insured respondents had policies with State Farm, the state’s largest private insurer, or California FAIR Plan, an insurer of last resort. They reported high rates of dissatisfaction with both, citing burdensome requirements, low ratings, and dealing with multiple adjusters.
In November, Los Angeles County opened a civil investigation into State Farm’s practices and potential violations of the state’s unfair competition law. The group has seen a wave of large payouts since then, Chen said.
Without answers from insurance, families cannot commit to rebuilding projects that can easily exceed $1 million.
“They’re worried about starting out and running out of money,” Chen said.
Jessica Rogers only found out after the Palisades fire destroyed her home that her coverage was cancelled.
The mother of two’s fallback was to get a low-interest loan from the Small Business Administration, but the application process was cumbersome. After losing her job in a fire and then having her identity stolen, she was approved for $550,000 last month.
She’s still thinking about how to cover the remaining costs and says she’s wondering: “Do I empty out my 401(k) and start counting every penny in the penny jar around the apartment?”
Rogers — now executive director of the Pacific Palisades Long Term Recovery Group — estimates there are hundreds like her in Pacific Palisades who are “stuck dealing with FEMA and the SBA and trying to figure out if we can put something together to build our homes.”
Community renters, apartment owners and mobile home owners are also struggling to return home. At the same time, many are also dealing with their problems shock.
“It’s not what people talk about, but it’s incredibly clear and very real,” said Rogers, who still finds herself crying at unexpected moments.
The very small number of homes rebuilt a year after the bushfires reflects the pattern of recovery that has occurred December 2021 fire The volcano erupted south of Boulder, Colorado, destroying more than 1,000 homes.
“After one year, many lots have been cleared of rubble and many residents have applied for building permits,” said Andrew Rumbach, co-chair of the Climate and Communities Program at the Urban Institute. “And about 18 months later, you start to see really significant progress in terms of going from a handful to hundreds” of homes rebuilt.
Time will highlight the scope of the problems.
“You’re going to start to see some real inequalities start to emerge where certain neighborhoods, certain types of people, certain types of properties are falling far behind, and that becomes the really important question in the second year of the recovery: Who’s doing well and who’s really struggling and why?” Rumbach said.
That’s a major concern in Altadena, which for decades has attracted aspiring black homeowners who faced redlining and other forms of racial discrimination when they sought to buy a home in other Los Angeles-area communities. In 2024, 81% of Black households in Altadena owned their homes, nearly double the national rate of Black homeownership.
But recent research conducted by UCLA Latino Policy & The Policy Institute found that as of August, 7 in 10 Altadena homeowners whose properties were severely damaged in last year’s wildfires had not begun taking steps to rebuild or sell their homes. Among these, black homeowners were 73% more likely than others to take no action.
Al and Charlotte Bailey lived in an RV parked on the empty lot where their house once stood.
The Baileys are paying for its rebuilding with money from insurance and loan payments. They are also hoping to get money from Southern California Edison. Many lawsuits are required that it equipmentantiquities Forest fire in Altadena.
“We’ve lived here for 41 years and raised our family here, and one night it was all gone,” said Al Bailey, 77. “We decided that, whatever the cost, this was our community.”