One year after the January 2025 wildfires devastated Pacific Palisades and Altadena, recovery across Los Angeles remains slow, uneven, and deeply inequitable. More than 16,000 structures were destroyed, yet rebuilding has largely favored wealthier homeowners and developers, while many displaced residents remain underinsured or priced out altogether. As rebuilding drags on, outside investors are reshaping fire-impacted neighborhoods like Altadena, raising concerns about displacement and the long-term erosion of racial and economic diversity.
These findings reflect reporting by The Guardian, which examined the region’s prolonged recovery and the systemic failures exposed by the fires. Climate change–driven extremes—including record winds and prolonged drought—turned the blazes into fast-moving urban infernos, underscoring the limits of existing infrastructure and emergency planning.
Megan Mullin, professor of public policy and faculty director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation chairs a commission advising on resilient rebuilding. “The challenge we face long term is how much are we willing to do and how much are we willing to pay to protect ourselves from fire?” she said.
New data underscore the stakes. In the first nine months after the Eaton fire, outside investors purchased roughly two-thirds of the 241 lots sold in Altadena, according to recent research from UCLA’s Latino Policy and Politics Institute.
Researchers say the full scope of the disaster is still coming into focus. “As we dig into it all, we are also seeing the massive gaps,” said Edith de Guzman, a UCLA climate researcher studying wildfire resilience. “There are so many dimensions we need to consider as we think about what resilience actually looks like. Now that we’re approaching the one-year mark, we’re only just beginning to understand the magnitude.”
