First rebuilding permit issued for Eaton Fire burn scar
After months of cleanup
By Matthew Rodriguez, Lesley Marin
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LOS ANGELES (KCAL/KCBS) — After months of cleanup, residents in Altadena and Pacific Palisades have started the arduous process of rebuilding homes after the disastrous wildfires leveled communities.
Just hours after the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors passed a motion to fast-track the recovery process, officials issued the first permit for Altadena homes affected by the Eaton Fire and a construction crew started breaking ground on the Palisades rebuild.
“Today was day three of preparing for the foundation,” said Cory Singer, who is part of the rebuilding crew in the Palisades. “We removed the previous foundation and hopefully pour concrete by the end of the week.”
In Altadena, Supervisor Kathryn Barger said that Habitat for Humanity essentially reused the original plans to reconstruct the home burned by the Eaton Fire. She praised the effort but voiced her frustration toward the laboring process that has been slow for many others.
“I’m happy for Habitat but it still highlights my frustration because they literally finished the home three years ago, so they just dusted off the plans and resubmitted them,” Barger said.
The Eaton and Palisades fires started on Jan. 7 amid a “life-threatening” Santa Ana storm that produced 100 mph gusts. The howling winds hampered firefighting efforts throughout Southern California by grounding all water and retardant-dropping aircraft until weather conditions improved. With flames raging out of control, crews had little chance of stopping embers from spreading to homes.
The blazes burned a combined 37,469 acres and leveled entire communities in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena neighborhoods of LA County.
The Eaton Fire destroyed 9,418 buildings, the second-most destructive fire in California history. It damaged another 1,074 buildings. The Palisades Fire is the third most destructive fire in state history, with 6,837 structures destroyed.
A UCLA study estimated that the wildfires caused as much as $164 billion in losses and resulted in an insurance crisis. State Farm noted that the company received more than 8,700 claims totaling more than $1 billion by Feb. 1. To remedy this, it requested emergency rate increases of 22% for homeowners, 15% for renters, 15% for condominium tenants and 38% for rental dwellings, according to the Insurance Commissioner’s office.
“I don’t think you can realize how rough it is, how devastating is until you see it,” President Trump said while visiting the Pacific Palisades in January. “I mean, I saw a lot of bad things on television, but the extent of it, the side of it, we flew over it in a helicopter. We flew to a few of the areas, and it is devastation.”
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