Los Angeles – Almost four months after forest fires reduced thousands of houses from the Los Angeles area to debris and ashes, some residents are beginning to rebuild.
In it Pacific Palisades neighborhoodConstruction workers recently began placing wooden beams to frame a house in a lot where only a carbonized fireplace remains standing. In the coastal city of Malibu and the foothills of the neighborhood of Altadena, many land plots where the houses once looked like they are being cleared of rubble.
Hundreds of owners have sought the approval of the city or the county of the designs of the new homes and other permits to eventually rebuild or repair damaged houses, although few have obtained the green light to begin.
Some 17,000 homes, companies and other structures burned on the ground in the fires of January 7. It is not clear how much it will be rebuilt.
Many owners will not be able to pay it, even those with sure. Some are still trying to find out if it is sure to return to their properties, given Limited data on the degree to toxins Of the fires, including lead and asbestos, they may have impregnated their lands. Approximately 400 land plots are already on sale in the areas devastated by fire.
Faceing an overwhelming loss and chaos that comes with a sudden displacement, those who seek to rebuild must navigate a often confusing and slow process. In most cases, it will have been rebuilding for years.
It was issued by its first construction permit almost two months after the fires began. It passed more than seven months before the first construction permit was issued after Woolsey Fire in 2018.
“Putting this in the context of other disasters, the speed is probably faster than expected,” said Sara McTarnaghan, a researcher at the Urban Institute who studied the sequelae of urban forest fires in recent years in Colorado, Hawaii and California.
Kathryn Frazier, publicist of music and life coach, had lived in her three bedroom house and three bathrooms in Altadena for 10 years and raised her two children there. After his house burned to the ground, he was in a state of shock and questioned if he made sense to return.
But after the conversations with the neighbors, he decided to rebuild.
“I’m not leaving,” said Frazier. “That is what was still emerging for everyone, and the more we talked to each other, the more we were ‘demons yes'”.
She is progressing. Frazier hired a crew to clear the ownership of the rubble and is almost through the first phase of permission, which implies obtaining the revision and approval of the county for the design of his new home. The next phase before receiving approval to begin construction includes electricity, plumbing and other aspects of design.
Frazier, 55, is reconstructing his house without important changes in its size or location to qualify for a process of approval of accelerated construction permits.
“We hope to be building for June or July, the last,” he said. “I have been told that maybe for February or March 2026 we could be back in our house.”
For now, Frazier is receiving appointments in windows, skylights and other housing accessories in the hope of enclosing prices before they increase as more construction projects increase, or in response to the Trump administration. Continuous War.
“I am doing things like traveling Home Depot, finding slate tiles that look modern and beautiful, but they are really cheap,” he said.
Deann Heline, a television showrunner, knows what it is to build the house of her dreams from scratch.
He waited more than two years for the construction to be completed in the five bedroom house and eight bathrooms overlooking the sea. Once the project was carried out, her husband never promised to build another house. The family lived there for six years before it was destroyed in Palisades fire.
“It was Ash. There was nothing,” said Heline.
The couple, who has two daughters, has lived in the neighborhood for more than 30 years. They could not imagine to give up and not rebuild.
“We are not only building another house, we are building exactly the same house again,” said Heline, and pointed out that the new house will have some improvements, including fire -resistant materials and sprinklers for the outside of the house.
Recently, they eliminated the rubble from the earth where the house was once, a particularly burdensome task because the home had a great basement in which much of the structure collapsed as it burned.
Heline is not sure when construction will begin, but she thinks it could be two or three years. However, he wonders how the neighborhood will see for then.
“What are you going to return to a lunar landscape? She said.
The Eaton forest fire destroyed many of the more than 270 historical cabins of Janes in Altadena, including the house of three bedrooms that Tim Vordriede shared with his wife and two young children.
The family had only lived in the house of approximately 100 years for three years.
“We loved the cabin of the story book and the atmosphere, and of course the most great atmosphere of Altadena,” he said. “It was perfect.”
Vordriede, 44, has decided to rebuild, but not yet. For now, he is using his experience as a construction project manager to help others who also lost their homes.
Altadena Collective co -founded, a group that provides assistance with the designs and orientation of the home on how to navigate the complex and long approval process for reconstruction permits. Of the approximately two dozen clients that the group is serving, at a reduced cost, three are found in the early stages of the permissions process.
Even after the projects reach the state of the blade, the owners will have to wait more than a year before they can move, he said.
“My first statement when someone enters through the door is: we are not here to help you design the house of your dreams,” he said. “This is not a dream moment. This is a nightmare, and our work is to get you out of the nightmare as soon as possible.”
