The Brief

On a recent spring Saturday, about 20 people gathered in a parking lot of a building off of Florence Avenue in South L.A. They each stood by a brand new, bright orange electric bike.

“How often do we get to experience electric bikes in South L.A.?” said Adé Neff, founder of Ride On Bike Shop in Leimert Park. “Electric bikes are all over the city. But they're not within South L.A.”

Until now. Neff is part of a coalition of community-based groups that helped launch a new e-bike rental program called South Central Power Up.

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The program brings 250 e-bikes to South L.A., where, after a safety training, residents will be able to get an e-bike to take home for at least a month, and then they will be able to renew the bike for free, for the first six months of the program. After that, they’ll be able to rent them for a small fee that will be determined later.

It’s part of a growing trend to make e-bikes more widely accessible — e-bikes run at least a few hundred bucks, and more often are more than $1,000. And, most car trips we take are relatively short, so e-bikes can help replace those miles and have a significant impact on climate pollution as well as help folks save money on gas. The South L.A. program is modeled after similar programs in Pacoima and Wilmington.

Adé Neff, owner of a bike shop in Leimert Park and long-time L.A. bicyclist, is part of a coalition of community-based groups that helped launch the new e-bike rental program.

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The goal is to bring a climate friendly and money-saving mode of transportation to an area that lacks dependable public transportation, has disproportionate levels of air and climate pollution, and where high gas prices are particularly burdensome.

“We're offering opportunities to folks that will allow them to have more autonomy and agency over their travel and commute,” said Lena Williams, program director for People for Mobility Justice, one of the community-based groups spearheading the program.

Williams said they aim to serve street vendors and other entrepreneurs such as delivery drivers, and people who frequently use public transportation or walk or bike to get around, as well as folks who want to save on gas money, or just have some fun on a bike without the physical exertion of a traditional bike.

“There’s a place for e-bikes within our society and our communities,” said Neff. “I was on a bike for 10 years in L.A. — I didn't have an electric bike. And I was going from South L.A. to Santa Monica to Long Beach to Pasadena, downtown and by the time I got to my destination, I'm winded, I'm sweaty. Whereas, I can get on the e-bike and get to my destination and I'm not exerting that much energy.”

Lena Williams, program director for People for Mobility Justice, one of the community-based groups spearheading the South Central Power Up e-bike program.

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An e-bike tour of South L.A. 

But on this particular Saturday, the group is going for a ride on the new e-bikes to have some fun and learn about South L.A. and the long fight for environmental and social justice.

South L.A. resident Patrena Shankling, 62, came out to try the bikes with her 32-year-old son Lonnie, who joined from Bellflower.

“I want to get out of my car and get some exercise in,” said Shankling. “It's good for the environment, good for me, health-wise.”

She said she also wants to save money on gas.

South L.A. resident Patrena Shankling, left, and her son Lonnie, came out to try the e-bikes and have some mother-son time together.

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South L.A. resident and community advocate Blanca Lucio said she’s long used regular bikes to get around but this is her first time on an electric one.

“Tengo muchos años este usando bicicleta,” she said. “En mi comunidad, la gente siempre anda caminando, anda en el bus, entonces cuando yo llegué a vivir en sur centro, yo era la mamá que siempre llevaba a los hijos en la bicicleta, la dejarlos a la escuela.”

“I have for many years used a bicycle,” she said. “In my community, people are always walking, taking the bus, so when I came to South Central I was the mother who always took the children on the bicycle to drop them off at school."

She said e-bikes are one way to get around more easily and address air pollution, an issue that’s particularly important to her.

Community advocates Blanca Lucio, left, and Guadalupe Rivas hanging out before the e-bike tour on a recent Saturday.

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Zaakiyah Brisker grew up in South L.A. and only uses a bike to get around. She got rid of her car because of the financial stress of paying the car off, the registration, and maintaining the vehicle, but also because it’s better for the environment.

“When I started riding my bike, it was easier because I used to live in mid-city and all of the shopping that I would do would be in Culver City, which is a totally walkable neighborhood,” Brisker said. “Since moving back to South Central, it's been a challenge because this is not a walkable area. But I love riding my bike so much and I believe in the values of not harming the planet and not adding to climate change as much as possible, especially as it relates to hood areas like South Central.”

It’s one reason why Brisker is a communications associate at Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education, or SCOPE for short, a long-time civil rights organization in South L.A. and another partner on the project, and the launching point for our ride today.

South L.A. resident Zaakiyah Brisker stands beside new electric bikes that will be available to rent for free for community members through the new South Central Power Up program

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Turning points for justice in South L.A.

After a safety briefing and getting comfortable on the bikes in the parking lot, it’s time to head out on our ride.

The group listens to Williams discuss safely using the e-bikes.

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We get off to a rough start. As soon as we tried to cross Florence Avenue, an aggressive driver tried to nose through our line of bikes crossing the street — evidence of the dangers bikers face every day on L.A. roads, especially here in South L.A., which has some of the least infrastructure for bikes.

But we safely make it to our first stop — the corner of Florence and Normandie, the very spot where the 1992 unrest began.

Once we got off Florence and onto quieter neighborhood streets, everyone started to relax and have some fun. Soon, the party grew.

Juan Brown, 21, and his buddy decided to join us on their own bikes. They popped wheelies and did other tricks, riding alongside us as we and people watching from outside their homes cheered.

“I ride my bike every day,” Brown said. “For fun, to get around, everything. It's bike life all day.”

21-year-old South L.A. resident Juan Brown joined us for part of our ride.

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But he said dangerous drivers and the lack of infrastructure for bikes is a major, and sometimes deadly, challenge. He says he’s lost friends who have been hit by cars. But it hasn’t stopped him. He said that’s because of the community that biking provides.

Our next stop is Exposition Park, where we talk about how gentrification and housing costs around USC are impacting the community. Next, we head to a former oil drilling site that, after a decade of organizing, the community successfully got shut down.

A map showing the "hubs" where South L.A. residents will be able to pick up e-bikes as part of the South Central Power Up program.

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We end our ride at Village Market Place off Vermont, which sells fresh, locally grown produce and other goods at an affordable price. And, by the way, it’s powered by solar panels.

The ride was 12 miles altogether, but all of us barely broke a sweat.

Our group rides towards Exposition Park.

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Each stop we made on our ride showed how the climate problem is really a justice problem, like how the racism and disinvestment that sparked the L.A. uprising is the very same disinvestment that makes south L.A. worse off when it comes to climate impacts such as extreme heat. And how the climate crisis intersects with food insecurity, and housing costs driving displacement and exacerbating financial stress.

But each stop also revealed the opportunity to turn that around — such as the former oil drilling site, which has been bought by a community trust that has the goal of turning it into a park with permanent affordable housing. Or how growing food locally is a way to boost health and resilience. And the effort to get e-bikes here and get more people out of cars and spur deeper investment in bike infrastructure and public transportation.

The threads tying it all together were the folks who have long pushed for these changes in south L.A.

Without infrastructure, too soon for e-bikes?

Throughout the ride, the lack of safe street infrastructure was glaringly obvious. It’s a problem across L.A., but more so in South L.A, where potholes are rampant, bike lanes are few and far between, and protected bike lanes are nonexistent.

So is it too soon to be pushing e-bikes?

“The streets of South Central are notoriously dangerous, whether you're walking, biking, driving,” Williams said. “But I think there is something super, super important about actually just taking up space — people being seen in this way that says, ‘This is what we're doing. The streets are intended to be multi-modal and we want to show the ways that we can coexist.’”

The slow progress on improving bike infrastructure has been a challenge that the e-bike lending program in Pacoima, Electro-Bici, which has now run for nearly three years, has also faced, said Miguel Miguel, policy director with Pacoima Beautiful, the grassroots group that is heading the project there.

“We're creating a program in a community where a program like this, the infrastructure for it, wasn't ever really thought of,” Miguel said. “It's almost like we're trying to paint the wall right before we fix the drywall. So some of the challenges have been like, we're offering this service, but how do community members now utilize the actual transportation network to be able to go from point A to point B.”

The Electro-Bici program received 100 refurbished electric bikes from the New York-based Shared Mobility Inc., which has provided "e-bike libraries" in several U.S cities.

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The huge lack of even the simplest infrastructure such as bike racks to lock bikes at destinations like grocery stores is also a major barrier, Miguel said. But that hasn’t made the program a failure — far from it actually. Miguel said one big lesson learned has been that the “need” doesn’t always have to come before the “want.”

“This is an activity that community members have been asking for, for a while, but unfortunately there's some true income inequality issues that don't allow folks to have access even just to a regular mechanical bike,” Miguel said. “If we come into this first thinking we want to repair people's relationship with their inner child, we want to repair people's relationship with what it is to have a bike – I think that's what these programs are.”

Miguel said many of the folks who regularly use the e-bikes through Pacoima’s program are either on the older side or the younger side, and rather than only using it to get to and from work or run errands, they’re often using the bikes for exercise, or to go to the park, or just ride around with friends.

“This is an opportunity to have community members step aside from the day to day of working, of living in a city, and into just being a child for a while and just enjoy playing and healing through playing.”

Williams would agree.

“Biking is medicine. If we allow the fears to keep us from getting there, it's such a detriment to our experience,” Williams said.

So e-bikes may be great for saving money on gas and getting around sustainably (they can truly help lower climate pollution), but they’re also just plain fun. And having fun — experiencing joy — well, that’s an important piece of building resilience too.

The election for Altadena's town council takes place in person: pencil on paper, no mail-ins.

That didn't change last year, despite the mass displacement caused by the Eaton Fire. Voting happened in November at library branches, the Grocery Outlet and a local pizza joint. It was a small dose of normalcy for a community still scattered with empty lots.

The results were surprising. The small-town election saw more participation than ever before in its 50 years. Nearly 900 people cast their ballots — almost double the normal turnout.

The Altadena town council holiday party and last meeting of the year in December was held in a large room at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.

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It's a small number for the community of around 41,000 people. Yet, for those involved in public service, the surge in participation reflects a bittersweet side effect of the devastation in Altadena.

As the region marks the first anniversary of the Eaton Fire, local representatives and activists say their community is stronger and more engaged than ever.

" The majority of Altadena is displaced," said Morgan Whirledge, a newly elected town councilmember whose home was destroyed last January. "That still almost double the amount of people came and voted was a testament to how much Altadenans want to return home."

Altadena is in unincorporated L.A. County. It has no mayor or city council. Instead, County Supervisor Kathryn Barger represents the community. The town council is its smallest and most direct form of government.

The council doesn't write legislation. It weighs in on county decisions and provides a forum for neighborly debates. Victoria Knapp, who was chair of the town council in 2025, said that before Eaton, council meetings were full of the types of disputes you'd imagine in a small but animated community: tree removal, speed bumps and sidewalks.

Then came the fire and, with it, a whole new role for the small council for a town largely without its own governmental structures to face the fire with.

" The Eaton Fire changed everything," Knapp said at the council's holiday party and last meeting of the year in December, which was held in a large room at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. "It changed the scale of the work, the urgency of our decisions and the meaning of public service itself."

The town council became a central hub for fire recovery and coordination.

"I have watched residents become organizers, strangers become collaborators and survivors become the heartbeat of our recovery," she said.

Anton Anderson is another new town councilmember in Altadena. He told LAist he decided to run to make sure his community in West Altadena would have a greater voice.

" The rebuild is going to change and impact Altadena forever," he said. "The opportunity that presents us is to really make sure that what's actually happening in Altadena can go up to the people who make decisions."

That spirit was on display at the town council's holiday party, which Supervisor Barger attended. The first thing she noticed when she walked in was that the crowd was double the size, compared to last year.

" Even though they may not reside in Altadena as we speak, as they rebuild, they're coming back," she said. "They're coming back even without the bricks and mortar."

It’s been a year since the most destructive fires in L.A. County history killed at least 31 people, reduced neighborhoods to ash and instantly changed the lives of tens of thousands of Angelenos.

Most survivors remain displaced. Temporary housing insurance funds are dwindling. Many whose homes still stand continue to fight to get the structures properly cleaned. And the majority of residents, underinsured or not insured at all, face a wide gap in the funds needed to rebuild. Survivors are digging into savings and taking out new loans.

At the same time, the grief, trauma and emotional devastation wrought by the Eaton and Palisades fires remain at times overwhelmingly present.

Every survivor’s situation is unique yet connected by loss, obstacles to recovery and a deep sense of connection to the places they called home.

To understand how residents are continuing to pick up the pieces, LAist spoke with six survivors — some families, some individuals — a year after the L.A. fires.

The barber

Barber Geoff Cathcart smiles as Jason Fulton inspects his haircut at Lawrence and Colbert in Altadena.

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It was a typical day at Altadena’s oldest salon, Lawrence and Colbert, a Black-owned business that has served the community for some 46 years.

Well, it was a typical day after the Eaton Fire.

Geoff Cathcart expertly styled the hair of longtime client Jason Fulton, the buzz of the shaver the backdrop to their conversation — also typical for the barbershop, yet all its own, about men and their mental health.

But the rest of the barber chairs were empty.

A year after the Eaton Fire, they’re empty much of the time.

Lawrence and Colbert salon in Altadena is pretty quiet these days. But barber Geoff Cathcart says he is seeing slow progress in the area's rebirth.

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The barbers and stylists here have seen their business plummet. The majority of their clients — mostly elders in Altadena’s tightknit Black community — lost their homes in the fire.

Cathcart, who grew up in Altadena, lost his rental and now commutes from Glendora.

“ I used to walk to my shop ... didn't have to worry about gas or commute or traffic or any of those things,” Cathcart said. “And now it's just different, just adjusting. But I still want to show up and be here for the community. This is where I made my roots.”

He plans to return to Altadena permanently, eventually. But finding an affordable rental in the area has proved impossible — prices have shot up since the fire. So he’s waiting for prices to go down or for his own family members to rebuild — three homes his extended family owned burned down.

Cathcart says most of his clientele have had to relocate to Glendale, Pasadena, Lancaster or even out of state. Half of the salon’s stylists have been forced to move on because of the lack of business. Cathcart, who has been barbering for more than 25 years, says he’s applied for other jobs to supplement his income.

“When you come up to Altadena, there's not a lot here at the moment, and so it's very depressing,” Cathcart said. “I've had clients who don't want to come back until things are built back. It's heartbreaking to see. I've kind of become desensitized to some extent because I witness this every day coming to work.”

A year later, though, he sees the community starting to come back.

“It's slow, definitely slow,” Cathcart said. “But I do see progress. I do have hope.”

Meanwhile, he’ll keep cutting hair and having the conversations he’s always had with his clients — often intimate and personal, though the tune of them now is dominated by the fire’s aftermath.

“Every conversation is, 'Where are you at in the rebuild? and, 'Do you need help?' 'What stage are you at?' And I find, at least for my clients and the people I've run across, there are some people making great progress, but there's some people that are just completely lost still,” Cathcart said. “ Every conversation is really a psychological and emotional evaluation of how everyone is doing.”

That’s something the fire couldn’t change, he said — the role of the Black barbershop, long a sanctuary for the community, a hub of information sharing and support. The shop may have physically survived the fire, but the loss of business since is an ongoing threat.

“If we lose this, then it's just one less place for us to go as a community, as a people and as a culture,” Cathcart said. " We've been trying to rebuild the community one step at a time by just showing up and coming to work.”

A mobile home paradise lost

Donna and Howard Burkons at their rental in Woodland Hills.

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Donna and Howard Burkons have lived out of four suitcases since January 2025. The longest they’ve stayed in one place is a few months — a friend’s condo in Redondo Beach, a six-week road trip to Colorado and Arizona, a couple of furnished rentals in Woodland Hills they found on a website for traveling nurses.

Only recently did Donna Burkons buy linens for the carousel of beds they’ve been sleeping in, plus a skillet and some utensils of their own.

The only thing from their home that survived the Palisades Fire was a 100-year-old iron skillet that Donna Burkons’ great-grandmother used to cook on a chuckwagon back in Indiana. They’re reluctant to buy much of anything — their constant moves since the fire have become something like momentum to keep up until they rebuild.

The Burkonses lived on a rented lot in the Tahitian Terraces mobile home park overlooking the Pacific — one of the few middle-class havens in the Palisades. Their deck was bigger than their home. Donna would watch the sunset every evening with a glass of wine. Howard would watch her watching it. They’d keep an eye out for the “green flash” to light up the horizon just before the sun dipped below it.

“We’d see cars parked along the ocean just to see the sunset, and we had it every day,” Donna Burkons said.

“And we didn’t ever take it for granted,” Howard Burkons said, finishing the thought — a common occurrence for the couple who have been together since they were 18, just two hippie kids from Scottsdale, Ariz., who fell in love, moved to L.A. to work in film and TV and built this dream life by the ocean.

One of the Burkonses' grandchildren drew their former home in the Palisades.

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That is until all but one of the 158 mobile homes in Tahitian Terraces burned in the Palisades Fire. One of their neighbors died. The mobile home park next door, home to another 150 or so residents, also burned.

Now in their 70s, the Burkonses are caught in a waiting game. They owned their mobile home but not the land it sat on. So they have to wait for their landlord to complete the necessary infrastructure and permitting before they can start to rebuild. On top of that, like most survivors, they’re deeply underinsured.

It’s not the fire, or the controversy about how it started, or Small Business Administration loan applications or the 55 pages of inventory they had to put together for insurance that are their biggest enemies. Right now, Howard Burkons says, their enemy is time. They estimate it could be years before they rebuild. Yet their temporary housing insurance will run out this summer.

“At our age, it felt like the pandemic stole a couple of years of our life, and now the fire is stealing another four or more years of our life,” Howard Burkons said.

Before the fire, a typical day was spent with their four grandchildren, babysitting or helping with carpooling. Donna Burkons loved to play pickleball with friends. Howard Burkons would swim in the mobile home park pool every morning. They’d go out dancing the two-step together — a hobby they fell in love with in their 50s and one they’ve kept up since the fire to hold on to something normal and joyful. Their grandkids help with that too.

The Burkonses thought about moving back to Arizona, where they own some rental units. But they couldn’t be so far from the kids and grandkids. And they can’t afford to buy a “stick-built” house elsewhere. So for now, they’re taking it day by day, waiting to get back to their mobile home paradise, their little lots overlooking the grand Pacific.

The family who never left

Ana Martinez at home.

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There’s an old water well outside of Ana Martinez’s house in west Altadena. At first glance, the spiraling metal design, charred and rusted, seems intentional, evoking a country charm.

But the metal was blackened by the Eaton Fire.

“ It's just a reminder of what we went through,” Martinez said. “We did lose a lot of pieces that melted, but it's there. Just like us, you know? We survived.”

The Martinez family home still stands — Ana, her husband, Carlos, and their sons fought the flames throughout that terrifying night a year ago. As the wooden fence and tree in front of their house caught fire, they hacked them apart with a chainsaw. Their neighbor’s house burned to the ground.

In the time since and in the absence of sufficient insurance, Ana said the family has spent down their savings and maxed out credit cards to repair the house — putting up a concrete fence, replacing the melted windows and singed roof, cleaning smoke and ash and installing new insulation, rebuilding the carport that was reduced to ash.

“We got less than $70,000 from the insurance, and we've spent almost $200,000 with everything that needed to be done,” Ana said. “So we're starting at zero again, but at least we have a home.”

The family’s determination to protect their property — a place Ana and Carlos Martinez raised their three children, where one of their sons lives with his own children now, in the front house — brought them all together, closer than ever.

But over the months following, as funds dwindled, as Carlos Martinez, an electrician, and their sons worked around the clock to make ends meet, as Ana Martinez, who is in charge of the bills, watched the costs pile up, tension grew.

“We've never had money, but we've never had problems paying our bills,” Ana Martinez said. “At the beginning, it brought us together. Now, it's been a lot of problems because it doesn't matter how much work gets done, there's not enough money. There’s been a lot of arguing.”

They’re giving themselves at least five years “before we could say, hopefully, that we’ll be back to normal.” The money will come back, Ana Martinez is sure.

She’s not as sure about their health — the Martinezes never left their home, breathing in the smoke of the fire, then the dust of the debris cleanup and construction surrounding them since.

She and her husband developed asthma — they now use nebulizers and carry inhalers. Both of them have started losing their hair from all the stress. Ana Martinez had a cancerous growth removed.

“There's days that I wake up and I feel like I've been punched in the stomach,” Ana Martinez said. “My throat always hurts ... this burning sensation in my throat.”

Then there are the less tangible reminders: like when a neighbor recently had a barbecue and Ana ran outside, smelling smoke, frantically scanning for flames. Or the spike of terror she feels when the Santa Ana winds start up, or when the sun sets, its orange glow reminding her of the fire’s apocalyptic days. The apparently random moments of grief that well up, painful in her chest.

“ I've never been a person that would cry for no reason,” Ana Martinez said. “It's changed me.”

Parts of the well melted, but like the Martinezes, it survived.

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The lemon tree is putting out fruit.

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A year on, those emotions are lessening, or at least, she’s finding ways to let them move through her more easily. Ana says she feels more present, she notices the little things more. The lemon trees in her yard that somehow returned, that have borne fruit despite the flames. The beauty of the massive surviving oak that continues to shade their home. She says she’s less inclined to grow angry when someone cuts her off in traffic or is rude at the grocery store.

“We don't know what people are carrying around, you know? If we lash out for no reason, it's because we have so much internally that sometimes we just don't know how to control our emotions,” Ana Martinez said.

Despite the stress of it all, and the survivor’s guilt she continues to feel, watching neighbors sell their lots or struggle through the process of rebuilding, she finds solace in gratefulness.

“ That's what I've learned so far because there's been days that I'm just grateful that I'm able to get out of bed,” she said. “It's made me very mindful to appreciate what we have. ... We have life, and that's all that matters.”

The Holocaust survivor

Rachel Schwartz's home after the Palisades Fire.

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Rachel Schwartz lived in a house way up on a hill, where she could see the ocean. She loved clear days when Catalina Island emerged from the haze on the horizon, its rugged silhouette vivid on a glittering sea.

Schwartz called the Pacific Palisades home for nearly three decades, and all she wants to do is get back. In the meantime, the 94-year-old is living in an apartment off a busy road in Westwood.

“It left me, I'm afraid, with a severe depression,” Schwartz said. “The doctor said this is part of losing everything.”

She said she’s no longer the person she used to be — upbeat, always ready to try new things.

“Right now, nothing interests me except my wish to rebuild my home,” Schwartz said.

This is not the first time Schwartz has lost everything.

Born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1931, she and her older sister were the sole members of her immediate family to survive the Holocaust. After the war, the two girls landed in Detroit, where they had some relatives. Schwartz was just 15.

Eventually, Schwartz, her husband and their two young children moved to L.A. She and her husband divorced, and Schwartz built a career as an accountant, then real estate agent — she still works to this day. She eventually remarried. In 1997, she and her future second husband were able to purchase a townhouse in the Palisades, a dream. It was the house she planned to stay in the rest of her life.

Then came the fire.

“ I told my mother, ‘Mom, you've been through three concentration camps and a three-week march,’” said Bruce, Schwartz’s son. “You can survive this fire if you survived that.”

“This fire is like a  second Holocaust. Everything gone, everything burned,” Rachel Schwartz said. “If not for Bruce, I wouldn’t have made it.”

But now, Rachel and Bruce Schwartz, who lived with her, are racing against a seemingly stuck clock. They haven’t been able to start the rebuilding process because of complications with the rules of their homeowners association — 17 units burned; eight didn’t. The HOA requires 75% of the members to approve a rebuild in the case of calamity, and the majority of residents voted against it.

“There are many unanswered questions as to what is going to happen to us,” Bruce Schwartz said. “ We're stuck in limbo, and I think it's going to be three to five years before we have a clear picture.”

Not only are there complications with the HOA, but they’re also severely underinsured — just a few months before the fire, State Farm dropped them, and residents had to instead get on the California FAIR plan.

Meanwhile, their temporary housing insurance is running out. And anger about the cause of the fire — a reignition of a fire that started a week before and wasn’t completely put out — and the ongoing lack of accountability remains a constant.

“I feel that it was a great negligence why the fire was not put out,” Rachel Schwartz said.

But a year on, they are both growing tired of the anger and the grief like a constant cloud hanging over them.

“We just have to move on from it because there's been so much sorrow and so much feeling bad, that it's time to start feeling good,” Bruce Schwartz said. “It's time to move forward and rebuild our community.”

Rachel Schwartz nodded as her son spoke. She still can get her nails and hair done, she joked, so things can’t be all that bad.

“ I came from Europe as a small girl, and even in this tragedy, we still have enough to eat. We have comfortable beds to sleep,” she said. “I look out and the sun is shining. And I still feel very grateful to be in America.”

A prefab symbol of hope

Charlotte and Steve Gibson hosted a construction-viewing party for their neighbors.

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On a quiet street of mostly empty lots in Altadena, a celebration recently took place. Steve and Charlotte Gibson’s new home is nearly finished — they expect to move in at the end of this month.

“It seemed like nothing was happening for a long time. ... We didn’t see any movement for months and months,” Steve Gibson said. “And now it feels really rapid.”

The couple had lived in their 1923 wood-framed house for 22 years before it was reduced to ash by the Eaton Fire. Their new house is dramatically different — a 900-square-foot, hyper modern, steel-framed prefabricated home. It’s all electric, with solar panels and a battery. The Gibsons plan to landscape with mostly California native plants, as well.

They had concerns about being one of the first to rebuild. Would their old neighbors return? Would they be alone and surrounded by construction for years to come?

But on a recent day, as they looked at the modern, rectangular boxes that will become their new home, “the hope, the promise, the future outweigh those concerns by a mile,” Charlotte Gibson said.

It’s why they hosted a “construction viewing party” in December — to show their neighbors rebuilding is possible.

Another couple from up the street stopped by to say they were going with the same Gardena-based prefab housing company, called Cover.

“ We're nowhere near this yet, but we’re very excited,” the wife said as a toddler gripped her hand. “We came to stalk your house to see what it's going to look like, so thanks for doing this.”

The Gibsons are in for a big change. The home they lost was built in the 1920s. Their new home is prefabricated and modern.

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Plans show what the Gibsons' new home will look like when complete.

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The Gibsons still face a several-hundred-thousand-dollar gap in how much their insurance paid out and how much they’ve had to spend on their rebuild. They hope the Small Business Association disaster loan they applied for will cover that.

Despite the uncertainty and the grief of all that’s been lost, their determination and stamina to rebuild and return has remained in large part due to community ties made long before the fire.

“Thankfully our neighbors on this block ... the ones that are closest to us and that we're closest to, they're all rebuilding,” Charlotte Gibson said. “ And that was a huge lift.”

The family next door, the Pattersons, are among those neighbors. They hope to move in by summer.

“ I feel so hopeful for the future and for Altadena,” said 22-year-old Mona Patterson. “It's just nice knowing that our community's coming back and that the Altadena that I knew and grew up with is still here.”

The block may end up looking very different. But as long as the people who made it what it was come back, the Gibsons are sure it will once again feel like home.

“We’ve heard from people who were here today, the progress they've made, so that's encouraging,” Steve Gibson said. “That makes me think, 'Hey, we're not going to be here all alone for long.'”

Rebuilding side-by-side

The Horusickys, left, with their daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren (and Roxy the dog) at one of their homes under construction.

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The sound of construction is a constant on a formerly quiet street in the Marquez Knolls neighborhood of Pacific Palisades.

A foundation is being laid on one lot. Next door, the new wood framing of a single-story house is getting finishing touches. When they’re done, three generations will live side by side. Again.

The sound of hammers and drills is a welcome symphony as Andrea Horusicky Heindel, her husband, Jason Heindel, and their teenagers, Misha and Jakob, enter the partially built home.

Andrea Horusicky Heindel grew up in the house that stood here before, a place that encompassed the family’s history — her father, Michael Horusicky Sr., and mother, Jana, landed in the Palisades after escaping from Czechoslovakia after the 1968 Soviet invasion. Andrea was born soon after.

In 2012, Andrea and her husband were able to purchase the house right next door. They built a little gate in the fence between them so the kids could easily visit their grandparents.

“We’ll try to bring that back again,” Andrea said.

Michael Horusicky Sr., now in his 80s, built a successful construction company for over 40 years in the Palisades — a reason he has the know-how to move so swiftly on his rebuild today, as well as the friends to get it done, electricians and contractors, many of whom lost their own homes in the fire.

Jana and Michael Horusicky Sr. can see the progress on their daughter's home next door from their own home under construction.

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Michael Horusicky Sr.'s construction experience has helped jump-start the families' rebuilds.

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He hopes he and Jana can move in by May, but he knows it won’t be the same. His daughter and her family hope to be in their house by late fall.

“ I don't have a problem building a house, but I have problem with losing the house — it’s going to be empty,” Michael Horusicky Sr. said. “And my age is another problem. So I have to do it quick.”

Meanwhile, the family of six and one dog are living in a rental nearby. The kids are rotating paying for Ubers to see displaced friends whose houses they used to bike to. The parents are navigating insurance and contractors as they both work full-time jobs. Their temporary housing insurance is running out, and the family is having to take out loans to afford the rebuild.

“We’re determined to make it work, but it’s stressful, and there’s a lot of uncertainty,” Jason Heindel said.

A year after the fire, the timeline to recover seems to be getting longer — permitting is moving slowly, the rains have caused delays, and they say there’s little guidance from the city about connecting to new infrastructure.

“ We have to just keep going, it seems like, at a marathon's pace since Day 1,” Andrea Horusicky Heindel said. “The list of things to do is endless.”

Being back in the Palisades, despite being surrounded by destruction, feels more comfortable. The family doesn’t have to explain themselves. Everyone they run into here lost something.

The family is sure the jacaranda tree out front, though a bit charred, will bloom again. Despite their love-hate relationship with the tree’s sticky purple flowers, they can’t wait for spring this year.

“We're saving our tree because that was the only thing we had left,” Andrea Horusicky Heindel said. “We decided if it survived, it deserves to stay.”

As this week marks the first anniversary of the devastating wildfires in Altadena and Pacific Palisades, many community organizations are taking time to commemorate the event. There’s a wide range of ways for folks to participate, from heading to a fundraising concert to volunteering to attending a vigil, so we’ve put together a list of events to help you mark this somber anniversary and celebrate the resilience of Los Angeles.

And our staff continues to share their resolutions for exploring LA in the coming year. Reporter Yusra Farzan plans to check out the Valley Relics Museum, try a waffle with maple butter from the new diner Max & Helen’s and explore the Secret Forest gallery in Burbank. LAist’s Director of Programming Jenn Baughman will head to a woodworking class at Allied Woodshop in East LA, make a return visit to the always delish Mercado La Paloma and spend a Friday afternoon at the Norton Simon art museum in Pasadena, when it’s free to all residents. What’s on your LA New Year’s resolution list? Let us know at bestthingstodo@laist.com

Elsewhere on LAist.com, explore where you can let your city dog learn to hone its natural herding instincts and read about the L.A. food trends we expect to see in 2026.

Events

A Concert for Altadena

Wednesday, January 7, 6:30 p.m.
Pasadena Civic Auditorium 
300 E. Green Street, Pasadena
COST: $150; MORE INFO

Indie band Dawes has been one of the most visible survivors and supporters of the Eaton Fire community since the 2025 wildfires. They are putting their notoriety to good use by planning A Concert for Altadena, happening January 7 and featuring some major musical talent, including Jackson Browne, Mandy Moore, Ozomatli, Jenny Lewis, Lord Huron, Rufus Wainwright and many more. Hosted by John C. Reilly, the show benefits the Altadena Builds Back Foundation, which is spearheading long-term recovery and rebuilding efforts.

House Museum: One-Year Fire Anniversary

Wednesday, January 7, 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. 
House Museum Chimney Yard 
Shuttle leaves from 333 Los Liones Drive, Pacific Palisades 
COST: FREE (RSVP info@house.museum); MORE INFO

I wrote about the ambitious House Museum project to preserve the chimneys of architectural houses lost in the Palisades Fire last year for The Art Newspaper. Now, their innovative concept is becoming a reality. Join community leaders and the architects involved in the process at a site in the Palisades for a discussion about the project and the neighborhood’s future.

Maria Moyer: Water Tapping on Velvet

January 7 through January 31, 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. (Weds. to Sun.)
Stroll Garden 
Hollywood Hills (email or DM for exact address)
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

Maria Moyer’s mesmerizing hand-built ceramic sculptures take over Stroll Garden in the Hollywood Hills for a peaceful art exhibit. Her work incorporates elements from nature and has been shown around the world. You have to email or DM the gallery for the exact address, preserving the space’s secluded feel, but walk-ins are welcome.

Death Cafe 

Tuesday, January 6, 6 p.m.
Heavy Manners Library 
1200 North Alvarado Street, Echo Park
COST: FREE, DONATIONS WELCOME; MORE INFO 

Not to start the year on a dark note, but look, death is a part of life, right? A facilitated conversation about the grief process will be led by Emily Yacina. The event aims to break taboos and open the doors to talk about death as a way to take advantage of the time we have in life. It’s a beautiful idea; coffee and doughnuts will be served.

L.A. Zoo Lights: Animals Aglow

Through January 11
L.A. Zoo 
5333 Zoo Drive, Griffith Park 
COST: FROM $19; MORE INFO 

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Christmas has come and gone, but the L.A. Zoo lights are still aglow for a little while, so you can continue to soak up the holiday spirit as we head into January. Explore lights and installations celebrating the wildlife of the world, from Africa to Southeast Asia, as well as our local plants and pollinators. There are drinks for the grownups, photo ops for the kids and much more.

Duran Duran 

Thursday, January 8, 7:30 p.m.
Honda Center
2695 E. Katella Ave., Anaheim
COST: FROM $127.20; MORE INFO 

Roger Taylor, John Taylor, Simon Le Bon and Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran perform during I-Days Festival at Ippodromo San Siro.

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I would be remiss not to let you know that ‘80s greats Duran Duran are at the Honda Center. I saw them last January at Yaamava' Theater, and they’ve definitely still got it. Can’t recommend highly enough starting your year like Rio and dancing on the sand.

Sheila E. & The E-Train 

January 7 and 8 
Blue Note 
6372 W. Sunset Blvd., Hollywood 
COST: FROM $65.87; MORE INFO

Sheila E. performs onstage with Anderson .Paak during the FIREAID Benefit Concert for California Fire Relief at The Kia Forum.

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Prince may be gone, but Sheila E. is going strong. See the most badass drummer of them all at the new Blue Note with her band, the E-Train. Her music is soulful, speaking to her Latin upbringing and honoring her very musical family. Sheila E.’s latest album, Bailar, came out in 2024, and the single “Bemba Colorá” won a Grammy for best global musical performance.

Lectures on Tap: The Art of Trader Joe’s 
Tuesday, January 6, 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Arts District (exact location given in confirmation email)
COST: $39.19, WAITLIST MAY BE AVAILABLE; MORE INFO

Trader Joe's branded coffee.

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As of this writing, this one is almost sold out, but I can’t kick off the year without mentioning the overwhelming success of the Lectures on Tap series, which brings experts to the bar to talk about a wide range of issues — and I mean wide range. This week’s is on how Trader Joe’s makes the supermarket beautiful with its consistent packaging and hidden art treasures, from bag design to weekly ad flyer. Upcoming topics include everything from theater to ancient Athens to NASA.

Two of the three hikers found dead last week at Mt. Baldy have been identified.

They are Juan Sarat Lopez, 37, and Bayron Pedro Ramos Garcia, 36, according to authorities on Saturday. Both men are Guatemalan nationals living in Los Angeles.

Investigators believe the two fell from the Devil’s Backbone Trail the same day they were found.

Their bodies were discovered when a search-and-rescue crew was dispatched to search for another missing hiker, who was reported to have fallen 500 feet near Devil’s Backbone Trail.

That person was identified later as Marcus Alexander Muench Casanova, 19, of Seal Beach.

Trails still closed

Hiking trails on and around Mount Baldy have been closed by authorities after the deceased hikers were found, until 11:59 p.m. Jan. 7.

“Our primary responsibility is the preservation of life,” Sheriff Shannon Dicus said in a social media message sent on New Year's Eve. “Closing these trails is a necessary step to mitigate ongoing risks. We urge the community to respect these boundaries.”

The following trails will be closed:

• Forest System Trail No. 7W12 - Mount Baldy Trail
• Forest System Trail No. 7W02 - Mount Baldy Bowl Trail
• Forest System Trail No. 7W05 - Devil’s Backbone Trail
• Forest System Trail No. 7W06 - Three T’s Trail
• Forest System Trail No. 7W07 - Icehouse Canyon Trail
• Forest System Trail No. 7W07A - Chapman Trail
• Forest System Trail No. 7W08 - Ontario Peak Trail