Rebuild:LA – Détails, épisodes et analyse

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In the second of our two-part episode with Eaton Fire survivors Andrew King and Angela Giacchetti, host Cameron Barrett asks the two about their work on the Department of Angels' quarterly survey of fire survivors, Community Voices: LA Fire Recovery Report. The research is uncovering some difficult truths about the recovery and rebuilding efforts in Pacific Palisades and Altadena. 70% of those surveyed say they can’t return home. Nearly that many report struggling with their mental health, and the majority of survivors say they have run out of savings and are taking on debt. King and Giacchetti are not only administering the report, but have been instrumental in the development of questions, knowing that their first-hand knowledge as fire survivors makes them uniquely qualified to ask the questions that matter.

Resources:

• Department of Angels
• Community Voices: LA Fire Recovery Report
• Palisades Long Term Recovery Group
• Palisades Recovery Coalition
• Eaton Fire Survivor’s Network
• Eaton Fire Collaborative
• Disaster Case Management

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Andrew King and Angela Giacchetti didn’t know each other on January 7, 2025. They lived only a few blocks apart - in Altadena. When the Santa Ana winds got so strong that power started failing, King loaded his two kids and his wife into their minivan and took off to a nearby hotel in Pasadena. Better safe than sorry, he figured. Giacchetti and her husband were new parents. Their son was only nine months old, and their main concern was him. But they figured they could wait until the evacuation order came. Even if authorities told them to “get ready,” they still planned to go, because of the baby. Better safe than sorry, they figured. Yet the order never came. When they lost power, they packed the car and headed to a friend’s house in Silver Lake. Neither family ever thought that one of the deadliest wildfires in Southern California was just getting started. It would be several months later when King and Giacchetti would meet, as they started their work with the newly formed non-profit, born of the fires, the Department of Angels. This week, King and Giacchetti sit down with host Cameron Barrett for the first of a two-part episode to tell their harrowing stories of evacuation and their long roads to recovery.

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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

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This week is the first half of another conversation we’re stretching over two episodes, and that’s because of the complexity of what we’re discussing - evacuation. Why didn’t it work in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena when wildfires raged through both communities this January? Why does the death toll for the fires keep rising? Los Angeles County Sheriff’s just recently identified yet another victim of the Eaton Fire, a 74-year-old man who didn’t get out in time. Why can’t we get this right? What can we do to increase survivability when the next fire strikes? We ask all those questions and more of David Barrett, the Chief Officer of our non-profit, MySafe:LA, this week, and find out about new software that could make notifications and evacuations easier for both municipalities AND residents.

Resources:

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

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This week Cameron Barrett sits down with two Fire Chiefs who have just completed projects in their respective homes to give them the best chance of making it through a wildfire. Chief Frank Bigelow is CAL FIRE’s Deputy Director of Community Wildfire Preparedness and Mitigation. Chief Jose de Jesus Lopez is a retired Assistant Chief for Los Angeles County Fire Department, and currently serves on the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection. Bigelow and his family have just moved in to a newly built home outside of Fresno, where he and his wife have made exacting decisions to build a home that is both state of the art and fire resistant. Lopez has come at it from an entirely different angle, taking a house built in 1960, and retrofitting it to be fire resistant. We recorded this week’s episode right in Lopez’s backyard, which overlooks El Prieto Canyon and the Angeles National Forest. Lopez is one of the lucky ones. His neighborhood is in Altadena, but is a California Fire Safe Council, and survived both the Station Fire in 2009 and the Eaton Fire in January. Find out what decisions they made to protect their homes.

Resources:

• Wildfire:LA
• State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection
• Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety “Wildfire Prepared Home” Standards
• National Institute for Standards Technology’s Hazard Mitigation Methodology
• CAL FIRE Home Hardening
• CAL FIRE Defensible Space

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Part II of our conversation with State Fire Marshal Daniel Berlant finds us tackling one of the most contentious topics in wildfire prevention - Zone Zero. The state is still trying to define exactly what Zone Zero will entail, but homeowners are already filling social media and text strings with nightmares of having to create moonscapes of bare dirt around their homes to qualify for fire insurance. So, what exactly is ZoneZero, and what does CAL FIRE want you to do to be in compliance? That's what we cover in the second half of our conversation with Chief Daniel Berlant.

Resources:

• CAL FIRE
• Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety’s Living with Wildfire
• Ready for Wildfire
• CAL FIRE Fuels Reduction
• Board of Forestry and Fire Protection July Committee Meeting and Agenda
• Becoming an NFPA Firewise USA Site

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This week is the first of a two-part conversation with State Fire Marshal Daniel Berlant. He leads the wildfire prevention and preparedness efforts for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE). California is home to nearly 40 million people, who live all over the 164-thousand square acres of land that make up the state. The third-largest state in the country by area, and the most populous state in the country by far. It’s safe to say that when it comes to wildfire, Berlant has his work cut out for him. In our first episode, Berlant discusses his department’s response to the Eaton Fire and how CAL FIRE is trying to “treat” hundreds of thousands of acres of wildland to restore natural habitat while protecting the increasing number of people moving into the WUI.

Resources:

• CAL FIRE
• Eaton Fire Maps and Data
• CAL FIRE Fuels Reduction
• Board of Forestry and Fire Protection July Committee Meeting and Agenda

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