Why almost none of the homes burned in LA have been rebuilt since last year’s fires

The Associated Press reported this week a staggering fact: Of the 13,000 homes destroyed a year ago in the extraordinary wildfires that ravaged Los Angeles and surrounding areas, fewer than a dozen have been rebuilt.

The massive, fast-moving wildfires that ravaged Los Angeles County last January directly killed at least 31 people and rendered many more, burning more than 16,000 structures in total. With an estimated economic toll of $275 billion, the Los Angeles wildfires of 2025 could be the costliest disaster in U.S. history.

Flames sparked by Hurricane Santa Ana’s high winds ignited on top of a severe housing crisis in the region.

“Los Angeles residents were facing a tight rental housing market even before these unprecedented wildfires forced thousands from their homes and worsened the problem,” Tomiquia Moss, secretary of the California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency, said in a press release.

According to housing research firm Up for Growth, California is short of nearly 840,000 housing units, with the Los Angeles area in particular running a deficit of nearly 340,000 housing units. Worse still, the Palisades and Eaton fires displaced about 100,000 people and their flames engulfed entire neighborhoods within hours.

The disaster has created immense political pressure to rebuild as quickly as possible and, indeed, California state officials say things are moving much faster than in past disasters. But even faster than ever is still not fast enough.

State government and local officials signed orders to speed up permitting and waive environmental reviews to try to speed up the rebuilding effort. A year after the 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California burned a comparable number of homes, only 385 rebuilding permits had been issued. The state reports that of the 6,191 rebuilding permit applications received in areas affected by last year’s fires, 2,617 were approved.

But even with the intensified efforts, only about 900 homes are under construction, and less than a block has been rebuilt to date.

Even with strong political support, tens of thousands of lives and billions of dollars at stake, Los Angeles’ slow recovery is a grim warning of what lies ahead in a state facing increasing wildfire risks as more people encroach on areas primed to burn and the planet continues to warm. It’s not just homes and neighborhoods that need to adapt to higher levels of risk; Fire-prone regions need more effective public policies.

“The system is not structurally designed for rebuilding and recovery,” said Minjee Kim, an assistant professor of urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles. “All it takes is a completely different animal to allow for a complete reconstruction.”

What is still holding back recovery after a fire?

Resurrecting from the ashes of a forest fire is always a long process.

The Los Angeles Times reported in September that of the 22,500 homes destroyed in the most destructive fires between 2017 and 2020, only 38% have been rebuilt to date.

The Palisades and Eaton fires together have burned nearly 40,000 acres at every level of wealth, from multimillion-dollar coastal mansions to downtown apartment complexes. According to Realtor.com, the communities that bore the brunt of the fires – Altadena and Pacific Palisades – lost $8.3 billion in home values. Residents also struggled to pay for reconstruction because insurance payments took time to process. Many wildfire victims had no insurance coverage.

Faced with growing risks, falling property values, tight budgets and rising rebuilding costs, only a small fraction of fire-affected Angelenos say they want to rebuild. At least 600 owners have already decided to sell what remains of their land.

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But for those looking to stay, it will take some time to return.

There are several main reasons for this. The first is that building a home in the Los Angeles area, even in ideal conditions, takes longer than the national average, between 10 and 18 months.

Of course, the aftermath of a wildfire is anything but ideal. Flames leave behind toxic debris that can contaminate air, water and soil. Simply cleaning up the ashes of an inferno can take months, and many homes in the area still face chemical hazards.

Almost every step of the rebuilding process requires permits – clearing debris, construction, connecting power and water lines – and each permit takes time to process. The city of Los Angeles reports receiving more than 3,000 permit requests for more than 1,400 addresses, which is already a small fraction of what was lost. Despite this, the city has issued just under half of these permits.

Los Angeles County, which includes unincorporated areas, notes that it takes an average of 95 business days to issue new residential building permits. Of the 2,905 reconstruction requests received, only seven houses have been completed.

These permits help ensure that rebuilt and new homes meet a minimum standard of safety and quality, but the tradeoff is that they require time and money. “When you look at regulation as a problem, it’s not individual ministries delaying the process; rather, it is the entire network of exams that must take place that poses an obstacle to a faster recovery,” Kim said.

And all these obstacles stand in your way if you want to rebuild exactly as before. Most efforts to expedite the permitting process apply to “identical” construction, meaning the reconstructed structure does not exceed 110 percent of the height and area of ​​the original building.

If you’re an Angeleno who wants to build larger, with greater density, or significantly modify your home to better withstand future fires, you’ll have to clear another set of hurdles.

Having so many people simultaneously trying to rebuild their homes has also caused shortages of labor and building materials, further slowing the pace of recovery. Tariffs imposed by the Trump administration are further driving up the costs of essential building materials like lumber. Federal immigration raids have made it harder to recruit construction workers in the Los Angeles area, many of whom are undocumented.

All of this dashes the hope that the Los Angeles fires of 2025 would at least be an opportunity to rethink and rebuild communities better.

Some experts believed the disaster would encourage communities to work together on cohesive fire mitigation strategies, harden homes against fire, retreat from areas most at risk and spur work to conserve water, reduce natural fuels and mitigate climate change. In other fire-prone areas, like around Lake Tahoe in California and Nevada, communities have managed to be proactive about reducing fire risks and saving money on their insurance rates.

But once a fire breaks out, especially in one of the most housing-poor parts of the country, the focus remains on building housing as quickly as possible. Broader efforts to adapt to a hotter, more fiery world are taking a back seat.

“Our faith depends on individual decisions made by owners,” Kim said. “I don’t think there’s a neighborhood-wide overhaul of fire resilience happening right now.”