LAUSD says Pali High is safe post-fire. Parents have concerns

The Los Angeles Unified School District released a litany of test results for fire-damaged Palisades Charter High School ahead of students’ planned return next week, showing the district’s remediation efforts have eliminated much of the post-fire contamination.

However, some parents remain concerned about the rush to repopulate the campus. And while experts hailed the efforts as one of the most comprehensive remedial measures in modern history after a school fire, they warned that the district failed to test for a key family of air contaminants that can increase the risk of cancer and cause illness.

“I think they jumped the gun,” said a parent of a Pali High sophomore, who asked not to be named because she feared backlash for her child. “I’m pretty angry and I’m very scared. My child wants to go back. … I don’t want to give him too much information because he’s very anxious about all these changes.”

However, she still plans to send her child back to school on Tuesday, because she does not want to disrupt the student’s life again. “These are kids who have also experienced COVID,” she said.

The Palisades Fire of 2025 destroyed several buildings on the Pali High campus and deposited soot and ash in others. After the fire, the school operated virtually for several months and, in mid-April 2025, moved into a former Sears department store in Santa Monica.

Meanwhile, on campus, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cleared debris from destroyed structures, and LAUSD hired certified environmental remediation and testing companies to return the still-standing buildings to a safe condition.

LAUSD is the owner of the charter school and handled post-fire remediation and testing for the school. The decision to return to campus ultimately rested with the charter school’s independent leadership.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power tested drinking water for a multitude of contaminants, and environmental consultants tested soil, HVAC systems, indoor air, and surfaces including floors, desks, and lockers.

They tested for asbestos, toxic metals such as lead, and potentially harmful organic compounds often released by combustion, called volatile organic compounds, or VOCs.

“The school is ready for occupancy,” said Carlos Torres, director of LAUSD’s Office of Environmental Health and Safety. “This is truly the most extensive testing ever done that I can remember, certainly after a fire.”

Construction workers are rebuilding the swimming pool at Palisades Charter High School.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

A handful of soil samples had metal concentrations slightly higher than usual fire cleanup standards, designed to protect at-risk people over many years of direct exposure to soil, such as during gardening or sports work. An analysis by the environmental consultants found the metals posed no health risks to students or staff.

On interior surfaces, consultants found two areas containing lead and one with arsenic, spaces which they recleaned and retested to ensure those metals were no longer present.

Air contamination testing, however, has become a subject of debate.

Some experts cautioned that LAUSD consultants only tested the air for a handful of mostly non-hazardous VOCs typically used to detect smoke from a wildfire that primarily burned plants. Although these tests found no contamination, the consultants did not test for a more comprehensive panel of VOCs, including many hazardous contaminants commonly found in smoke from urban fires that consume homes, cars, paints, detergents and plastics.

The best known of the group is benzene, a known carcinogen.

In a webinar for parents and students Wednesday, LAUSD consultants defended the decision, arguing that their goal was only to determine whether smoke persisted in the air after remediation, not to do more open testing of hazardous chemicals that may or may not have come from the fire.

Andrew Whelton, a professor at Purdue University who studies environmental disasters, didn’t find the explanation sufficient.

“Benzene is known to be released by a fire. It’s known to be present in the air. It’s known to be released from ceilings, furniture and other things over time after the fire is out,” Whelton said. “So I don’t understand why testing for benzene and some other fire-related chemicals wasn’t done.”

To Whelton, this is representative of a larger problem in burned areas: In the absence of decisive guidance on how to remediate indoor spaces after wildfires and urban fires, different consultants are making very different decisions about what tests to perform.

LAUSD released test scores and remediation reports in lengthy PDFs less than two weeks before students planned to return to campus, while charter school leadership decided on a Jan. 27 return date before testing ended.

During the webinar, school officials said two buildings near the outdoor pool had not yet been cleaned through environmental testing and would remain closed. Four plumbing fixtures are also awaiting final approval from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and the school’s food services are still awaiting certification from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

For some parents — even those eager to abandon the department store campus — it amounts to a rush to repopulate the Pali High campus, straining their decisions about how to keep their children safe.

Torres emphasized that his team acted cautiously in the decision to allow the school to be occupied and that promising preliminary testing helped school administrators plan ahead. He also noted that this slow, cautious approach was a point of contention for other parents who hoped their students could return to campus as quickly as possible.

Experts largely praised LAUSD’s efforts as thorough and comprehensive, with the exception of atmospheric VOC testing.

Sanitation staff washed building exteriors, wiped down all surfaces and thoroughly vacuumed with filters to remove hazardous substances. Any soft objects such as rugs or clothing that could absorb and retain contamination were discarded. The maze of ducts and pipes making up the school’s HVAC system was also thoroughly cleaned.

Crews carried out tests throughout the process to confirm their remediation work was successful and isolated sections of buildings once the work was completed. They then carried out another comprehensive series of tests to ensure the isolated areas were not recontaminated by further work.

Environmental consultants even determined that a few smaller buildings could not be effectively decontaminated and therefore had them demolished.

Torres said LAUSD plans to conduct periodic testing to monitor the air in the school and the district is open to suggestions from parents.

For Whelton, the good news is that the school could easily do full VOC testing in a week, if it wanted.

“They are close to giving the school a clean bill of health,” he said. “Going back and doing this extensive VOC testing … would be the last step they should take to determine whether or not health risks remain for students, faculty and visitors.”