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In 2017 Jennifer Gray Thompson found herself living in her car with her dogs after evacuating from the Tubbs Fire in Sonoma County. The experience made her feel alone, lost, and unable to navigate back to the life she had enjoyed before she came face to face with a deadly mega fire. Her solution? The creation of After the Fire, a non-profit that has become a leading resource for communities all over the country who are facing the same trials she did back in 2017. After Fire was one of the resources that responded to both the Palisades and Eaton Fires, and is still helping survivors navigate bureaucracy, insurance nightmares, and bad information. When she’s not helping people in burn scars around the country, she's advocating for them on Capitol Hill, helping pass legislation that protects disaster survivors. This week, she sits down with host Cameron Barrett to talk about her work and what she sees ahead for Los Angeles.

Resources:

• After the Fire
• Wildfire Leadership Summit
• HR5683 Federal Disaster Tax Relief
• Fire Safe Marin
• The Foothill Catalog
• Wildfire:LA

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The Palisades and Eaton Fires destroyed a lot of history. Will Rogers’s ranch home, Pasadena Waldorf School, Robert Bridges House, The Bunny Museum, Andrew McNally House, Theater Palisades, and The Zane Gray Estate are just a few of the thousands of structures lost in the fires. They all were touchstones in the communities where they were located. What does their loss mean to the Pacific Palisades and Altadena? What could we have done to protect them? And what do we need to do to protect other historic landmarks that might be in the way of the next megafire? We talk to researcher and urban planner, Ryan Handy, of Headwater Economics, about her new research on saving history from wildfire in this episode of Rebuild:LA.

Resources:

• Loss of the Grand Canyon Lodge
• Protecting Our Past: Wildfire Strategies for Historic Buildings
• Urban Conflagrations
• The Cost of Rebuilding
• The Cost to Retrofit
• Nevada City, CA Retrofit Program
• Headwaters Economics Podcast
• Relocating Historic Homes in Altadena

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When you’ve been in the California fire service for 48 years, like Chief Kim Zagaris, you’re likely to take a long view of how we’re doing when it comes to wildfire response. Chief Z as many know him, was State Fire and Rescue Chief for the State of California, Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) until just a few years ago,, when he retired and become the Wildfire Policy and Technology Advisor for the Western Fire Chiefs Association. Zagaris has fought hundreds of wildfires in his decades’ long career, yet he’s still out there, fighting to get more apparatus in the hands of fire departments, more technology in the hands off firefighters, and more trained boots on the ground at the next mega fire. Our conversation this week with Chief Z covers all that and more.

Resources

• CalOES
• Western Fire Chiefs’ Association
• 2004 Governor’s Blue Ribbon Fire Commission Report