LA residents are still battling toxic hazards a year after historic wildfires

ALTADENA, California — ALTADENA, Calif. (AP) — “DANGER: Primary Work Area” reads a sign on the front door of an Altadena home. “May damage fertility or the unborn child. Causes damage to the central nervous system.”

Block after block, there are reminders that contaminants persist.

House cleaners, hazardous waste workers and homeowners come and go wearing masks, respirators, gloves and hazmat suits as they wipe, vacuum and pressure wash homes that haven’t been burned to the ground.

It has been a year of grief and worry since the most destructive wildfires in the Los Angeles region’s history ravaged neighborhoods and displaced tens of thousands of people. Two wind-driven fires that broke out on January 7, 2025, killed at least 31 people and destroyed nearly 17,000 structures, including homes, schools, businesses and places of worship. Reconstruction will take years.

The disaster has caused a new wave of trauma among people frightened by what still lurks inside their homes.

Indoor air quality after wildfires remains understudied, and scientists still don’t know the long-term health impacts of exposure to massive urban fires like last year’s in Los Angeles. But some chemicals released are known to be linked to heart and lung disease, and exposure to minerals like magnetite has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease.

The ashes in the area are a toxic soup of cremated cars, electronics, paints, furniture and other personal property. It may contain pesticides, asbestos, plastics, lead or other heavy metals.

Many people whose homes are still standing now live with the dangers left by the fires.

Nina and Billy Malone considered their home of 20 years a safe haven before smoke, ash and soot seeped inside, leaving behind harmful levels of lead even after professional cleaning. Recent tests revealed that the toxin is still present on the hardwood floors of their living room and bedroom.

They were forced to return home in August anyway, after the insurance stopped their rental assistance.

Since then, Nina has woken up almost daily with a sore throat and headaches. Billy had to get an inhaler due to his worsening wheezing and congestion. And their room, Nina says, smells “like an ashtray had been there for a long time.” She’s especially concerned about exposure to unregulated contaminants that insurance companies aren’t required to test for.

“I don’t feel comfortable in this space,” said Nina, whose neighbors’ homes burned across the street.

They are not alone.

Six out of 10 homes damaged by smoke from the Eaton Fire still have dangerous levels of cancer-causing asbestos, brain-damaging lead, or both, according to a report released in November by Eaton Fire Residents United, a volunteer group formed by residents. This is based on data submitted by 50 homeowners who cleaned their homes, 78% of whom hired professional cleaners.

Of the 50 homes, 63 percent had lead levels above the Environmental Protection Agency standard, according to the report. Average lead levels were nearly 60 times higher than the EPA rule.

Even after the fires were extinguished, volatile organic compounds from the smoke, some of which are known to cause cancer, persisted inside homes, according to a recent study. To mitigate these risks, residents returning home should ventilate and filter indoor air by opening windows or running high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) purifiers with carbon filters.

Zoe Gonzalez Izquierdo said she couldn’t convince her insurance company to pay for adequate cleaning of the family’s Altadena home, which tested positive for dangerous levels of lead and other toxic compounds.

“They can’t just send an uncertified company to clean things up so we can then go back to a house that’s still contaminated,” said Gonzalez, who has children ages 2 and 4.

Experts believe that lead, which can linger in dust on floors and windowsills, comes from burned lead paint. The University of Southern California reported that more than 70 percent of the homes affected by the Eaton Fire were built before 1979, when lead paint was common.

“For pregnant people and young children, it is especially important that we do everything we can to eliminate lead exposure,” said pediatrician Dr. Lisa Patel, executive director of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health and a member of the climate group Science Moms.

The same goes for asbestos, she added, because there is no safe level of exposure.

People who lived in the Pacific Palisades, which was also burned, face similar challenges.

Residents are at the mercy of their insurance companies, which decide what and how much they cover. It’s an exhausting and constant battle for many. The state’s insurer of last resort, known as the California Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan, has been under scrutiny for years for its handling of fire damage claims.

Homeowners want state agencies to require insurance companies to return a property to its pre-fire condition.

Julie Lawson won’t take any chances. His family paid about $7,000 out of pocket to test the soil in their Altadena home, even though their insurance company had already agreed to pay to replace the grass in their front yard. They planned to test again for contaminants once they finished sanitizing the interior, the process of making a home free of contaminants after a fire. If insurance doesn’t cover it, they’ll pay for it themselves.

Even if their home is habitable again, they still face other losses, including the equity and community they once owned.

“We have to live with the scar,” she said. “We’re all still struggling.”

They will live for years in a construction zone. “It’s not over for us.”

Annie Barbour of the nonprofit United Policyholders has helped people overcome challenges, including insurance companies that resist paying for contamination testing and industrial hygienists who disagree about what to test for.

She sees the toll it takes on people’s mental health — and as a survivor herself of the 2017 Tubbs Fire in Northern California, she understands it.

Many were initially happy to see their houses still standing.

“But they’ve been living in their own hell ever since,” Barbour said.

Now residents like the Malones are inspecting their belongings one by one, fearing they may have absorbed toxins.

Boxes, bags and trash cans filled with clothes, dishes and everything else fill the couple’s car, basement, garage and house.

They looked through their belongings carefully, assessing what they thought could be adequately cleaned. While doing so, Nina cleans the cabinets, drawers, floors and always finds soot and ashes. She wears gloves and a respirator, or sometimes just an N-95 mask.

Their insurance won’t pay to retest their home, Billy said, so they plan to pay the $10,000 themselves. And if the results show there is still contamination, their insurance company has told them it will only pay to clean up federally regulated toxins, like lead and asbestos.

“I don’t know how to combat this,” said Nina, who is considering therapy to deal with her anxiety. “How do you find this argument for forcing an insurance company to pay something to keep you safe? »

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AP Writer Alex Veiga contributed to this report.

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