2025

Story by The Washington Post. LAHAINA, Hawaii — It’s quiet again. Construction crews have hauled away toxic debris, but entire neighborhoods still sit empty. Only six homes have been rebuilt in the county. Much of the town sits in the purgatory between the all-out emergency from 18 months ago, and whatever comes next. The wildfires…

Story by Los Angeles Times. When wildfires swept through Los Angeles, people and corporations from around the world responded by opening their wallets in a way that broke records for generosity. Money poured into thousands of different recipients, from venerable nonprofits such as the United Way and Habitat for Humanity, to individual families through GoFundMe, to specialized groups working to replace…

Story by Los Angeles Times. California’s elected insurance commissioner has asked the state’s insurers to make maximum payments for the contents of homes destroyed in last month’s Southern California fire disaster without requiring policyholders to provide a complete inventory of all they lost. Commissioner Ricardo Lara’s office encouraged insurers to make the payments, saying the…

Story By KQED For many of us, the idea of rebuilding your life after losing your home and belongings to a wildfire is unthinkable. But for many in Los Angeles, that’s now the reality after a firestorm leveled thousands of homes and businesses in early January. This kind of recovery is “a long, hard road,” said…

Story by The Press Democrat. The long-suffering effort to exempt victims of utility-sparked wildfires from paying federal taxes on compensation for their losses cleared a major hurdle late Wednesday. “Today is a milestone,” said Jennifer Gray Thompson, a key advocate for the measure, which was approved 357-70 by the U.S. House of Representatives as part…

Story by Heatmap News Two weeks after two of California’s most destructive wildfires on record sparked on the same day in Los Angeles, tens of thousands of displaced residents are taking the first steps of their recovery processes. Officials have started lifting evacuation orders for both the Eaton and Palisades fires, allowing families to return to their properties for the first…

Story by USC Price School. After devastating wildfires destroyed parts of Los Angeles County, thousands of people are now beginning the long road to recovery. What can policymakers do to help? To find out, we turned to Jennifer Gray Thompson, an alum of the USC Price School of Public Policy and one of the nation’s leading experts on…

Story by KQED, Forum. Set up a P.O. box. Learn your insurance policy. Know it’s OK to mourn the material objects you lost, or to refuse donations you don’t need. These are just some of the many pieces of advice survivors of past California wildfires have for victims of the Los Angeles wildfires. We’ll talk…

Story by CNN US. CNN — No stranger to natural disasters, Pasadena resident Pedro Rojas keeps a safety bag in his car with essentials like a jacket, gloves and running shoes in case he needs to flee at a moment’s notice. Rojas didn’t wait for an evacuation order. He and his family rushed out of their home…