For Altadena resident Chien Yu, an 18-year firefighting veteran, battling the blazes that hit the Los Angeles area last month turned personal when he lost his home and watched his own community burn.
His family of four lost everything, like families throughout his scorched neighborhood.
“This is where we lived for almost 8 years,” Yu said, adding that he’s hoping other residents in the area will rebuild their homes.
State and city leaders are also pushing to quickly rebuild more than 15,000 burnt structures, but some experts are questioning whether rebuilding in areas with an elevated risk of wildfires is the right thing to do.
“The dilemma is when you put 10 million people in and around fire zones, sometimes they get burned,” said Char Miller, a professor at Pomona College with expertise in fire management in urban landscapes.
A 40-year drought, arid vegetation and explosive Santa Ana winds in a heavily populated area created a recipe for disaster in Los Angeles this January. In California, 19 out of 20 of the biggest fires in the state’s history have happened since 2003 and 13 of them since 2017, according to Cal Fire.
For Miller, it’s a worrying trend that should be taken into account for any future plans.
“If you build back exactly the same way, expect the same result,” Miller said.
Instead of rebuilding, Miller believes state and local governments should buy out homeowners in the most fire-prone neighborhoods.
A similar program was implemented in 2017 in Houston after Hurricane Harvey caused $125 billion in damage. Rather than rebuild in flood plains, the city used federal dollars to buy out more than 400 homeowners, demolished the properties and used the land for flood control.
The financial toll of the wildfires in Los Angeles is estimated at up to $275 billion, according to AccuWeather — more than double the damages of Hurricane Harvey.
But without federal support, the buy-back program is just not realistic on a big scale, Miller said.
“There’s neither the political will, and we don’t know about the money,” Miller said
Another big ask is convincing homeowners to sell. Chien Yu, like many victims of the Los Angeles fires, want to rebuild in the same place.
“We want to be back. The kids want to be back…We’re going back,” Yu said.
