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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

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There have always been people who have stayed behind to try to protect their homes during a wildfire. It happened in the Palisades and in Altadena this January. As always, there were varying results. Some claimed to have saved their homes and even those of their neighbors. Others may have lost their lives trying. It’s never been a thing any emergency services department, or any professional firefighter would recommend. But just recently, LA County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said in some instances, his department supports staying behind. And one of the reasons, if not THE reasons for the Chief’s 180-degree turn? The LA County Fire Department’s Community Brigade - a group of civilians and home owners, who now have the training and the equipment to stay behind. It's the brainchild of Brent Woodworth, a man with 40+ years of crisis management in the private sector, who founded the Los Angeles Emergency Preparedness Foundation. What is the Brigade and what does it do? You'll find out in this episode.

Resources:

• LA County Fire Department Community Brigade
• Los Angeles Emergency Preparedness Foundation
• Home Ignition Zone Assessments Sign Up
• Join the Brigade
• Woolsey Fire Assessment Report

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This week social scientist Aimery Thomas of the Future Organization joins Cameron Barrett to talk about ARISE - Altadena Resident Impact Survey and Evaluation. It’s a report he and his partner compiled after they surveyed 1,200+ Altadena residents in the wake of the Eaton Fire. The results are as fascination as they are disturbing, uncovering a web of neglect in fire prevention, emergency response, and resource allocation before, during, and after the disaster.

Resources:

• The Future Organization
• The ARISE Study
• LA County Government
• Altadena Town Council

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Our conversation this week is with Palisades Fire survivor Kari Weaver, who lost her home in the alphabet streets. It’s been 8 months since that windy, dry Tuesday morning, January 7, when the Palisades Fire started in the highlands. And it was only a few hours later that the Eaton Fire came roaring out of Eaton Canyon and wiped out much of Altadena. A lot has happened in those eight months. And many of us who aren’t in the middle of insurance claims, construction bids, and temporary housing issues have moved on. But there are still tens of thousands of Los Angeles residents who can’t - because they’re facing the fallout of those fires every day. But Kari Weaver, an interior designer and mother of three, is just surviving; she’s planning. She has a vision about how to make the Pacific Palisades, post-fire, a better place to live. Learn about her harrowing evacuation and her vision of what the future could be.

Resources:

• Kari Weaver Design
• Resilient Palisades
• 2025 Palisades Fire
• Nonprofit Rebuilding Palisades Rec Center
• LA Fire Health Study

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California Senator Ben Allen is our guest this week, squeezing our interview into his jammed legislative schedule. Allen grew up in Santa Monica and represents California Senate District #24, which includes his hometown, as well as Malibu and the Pacific Palisades, two communities devastated by January’s Palisades Fire. This week he’s in Sacramento presenting legislation to help rebuilding efforts move forward. The bills have names like Winter Fires of 2025: real property tax: exemptions and reassessment. Allen was not only professionally impacted by the firestorms, but personally as well. And he’s working to make sure that impact remains fresh in the minds of his colleagues in Sacramento. Find out all about his efforts and his thoughts on rebuilding Los Angeles.

Resources:

• Senator Ben Allen
• Senate Bill #663
• Senate Bill #549
• Jewish Free Loan Association
• Resilient Palisades

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The death toll from the January Firestorms has climbed to 31 with the discovery in late June of the remains of Juan Francisco Espinoza, a 74-year-old man who didn’t escape the Eaton Fire when it raged through Altadena. The discovery of yet another victim six months after the fires makes it clear that we need to start working together to get wildfire evacuations right. Last week, in the first half of our conversation about evacuations with MySafe:LA's David Barrett, we discussed notification systems and the technology being fine-tuned in LA County to make evacuation notifications more effective. This week, we’re talking about what people can do to guarantee their survival when the next disaster strikes. David Barrett will give us step-by-step guidelines on evacuation best practices and talk about the elephant in the room when it comes to evacuation problems - infrastructure.

Resources:

• MySafe:LA
• Genysus
• Genysus News
• 31st Victim Discovered in Altadena