In January, 2025, the Eaton and Palisades Fires tore through Los Angeles communities, destroying thousands of homes and displacing over 100,000 residents. In those early days, neighbors sheltered neighbors, relief funds flowed in, and survivors hoped for a swift recovery.
Survey Reveals Continuing Challenges
Between September 8th and 17th, we surveyed 2,335 fire-impacted residents across Altadena, Pacific Palisades, Malibu, and Pasadena for the Department of Angels’ third Community Voices: LA Fire Recovery Report. The findings reveal a clear pattern: survivors face interconnected challenges, including displacement, financial strain, insurance barriers, environmental concerns, and mental health pressures that require coordinated, cross-sector solutions to resolve.
These challenges extend beyond individual families. They have implications for community stability, regional economic health, and the long-term resilience of Los Angeles.
Mass Displacement Persists
Seventy percent of families are still displaced, a figure nearly unchanged since our June survey.
The financial impact is substantial. The median net loss among survivors is $200,000, exceeding most households’ annual income. For lower-income families, the strain is acute: one in five households earning under $100,000 report having to forgo food, and one in six are delaying necessary medical care.
Already, 10% of survivors earning under $50,000 have experienced homelessness since the fires, an early indicator of the housing stability challenges ahead.
Insurance Experiences Vary Significantly by Provider
For many homeowners, navigating insurance claims has become a significant barrier to recovery. Our data shows notable differences in survivor experiences across insurance providers.
The two largest insurers, State Farm and the California FAIR Plan (serving nearly a third of fire survivors), receive notably lower satisfaction ratings. Their customers report higher rates of claim complications, including denials, communication challenges, and protracted claim timelines, compared to customers of other carriers.
Survivors with standing homes face particular challenges. These are properties that sustained smoke and structural damage without total loss. These households report losing displacement coverage at four times the rate of total loss survivors, while often facing more complex claim adjudication processes.
These access challenges contribute to extended displacement, financial pressure, and delayed rebuilding timelines. In some cases, families return to properties before completing remediation or contamination testing due to coverage constraints.
Environmental Testing Remains a Priority for Survivors
Soil Testing Finally a Reality
Countless LA County families were still searching for answers about the safety of their soil. The need remained urgent, with nearly 30% of survivors seeking soil testing, but still facing obstacles that kept it out of reach.
Fire residue can introduce lead, arsenic, and other toxins into soil and structures. Without accessible testing and remediation resources, families face difficult choices about return timelines and living conditions.
In December, nearly one year after the fires, the Department of Angels and USC CLEAN Project hosted a free Community Soil Testing Day and resource fair at Will Rogers State Historic Park. Supported by California State Parks, the LA County Department of Public Health, Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, and more than a dozen community partners, the event unified environmental health expertise with recovery and mental health resources to make recovery more accessible.
By The Numbers:
- 300+ attendees engaged directly with trusted experts and partner organizations.
- 500+ soil samples collected by USC CLEAN for free lead testing, with 40+ residences
receiving volunteer assistance for soil sample submission.
- Hundreds accessed information from USC CLEAN, LA County Department of Public
Health, CAP.LA, and other environmental health researchers and experts.
- 40+ individuals completed on-site blood lead testing provided by the LA County
Department of Public Health.
Informed by lessons from our Altadena Community Soil Testing Day, the Palisades event activated a broad network of recovery organizations to meet residents’ needs beyond environmental testing. Partners offered hands-on support with insurance navigation, rebuilding questions, and case coordination.
USC CLEAN provided on-site training for both survivors and volunteers, enabling them to directly support residents in collecting and submitting samples. This shift not only removed practical barriers, but also created moments of cross-fire solidarity. As one volunteer and Eaton Fire survivor reflected, “It was meaningful for us to get a glimpse into the recovery in the Palisades and even connect with some people from the local Y while we collected soil samples on their field.”
The partnership with California State Parks highlighted the critical importance of environmental testing in community recovery, as the Will Rogers State Historic Park’s reopening was made possible, in part, through USC CLEAN’s testing. It created an opportunity to offer wellness resources in a cherished community setting, a need that grows more urgent as mental health challenges intensify.
The park’s namesake once said, “A stranger is just a friend I haven’t met yet.” The Palisades Community Soil Testing Day brought that sentiment to life, offering residents new points of connection, opportunities to rebuild social support, and a renewed sense of shared momentum in recovery.
Community Networks Provide Essential Support
Throughout the recovery process, one pattern has remained consistent: survivors turn first to neighbors, local leaders, and survivor-led groups for information, resources, and connection. These hyperlocal networks continue to serve as primary support systems.
Survivors also demonstrate a strong commitment to rebuilding to enhance fire resilience. More than eight in ten support investments in related upgrades and improvements, including underground power lines and community-level fire hardening.
Mental health remains a significant concern, with nearly three-quarters of survivors sharing that their mental health has worsened since the fires. Displacement appears to carry particular psychological weight.
While community connection and individual determination are valuable assets, they require complementary support from coordinated systems – including insurance, government services, and environmental health resources – to translate into sustainable recovery outcomes.
How the Department of Angels Is Responding
This survey and analysis reflect the Department of Angels’ core work to translate direct community feedback into actionable insights that inform policy solutions and strengthen recovery coordination.
We focus on connecting survivors with the resources, tools, and support systems needed to lead their own recovery:
- Advancing federal recovery funding and coordinating with local and state partners to
ensure effective resource distribution
- Supporting insurance accountability efforts to make policyholders whole and convening
a Finance & Insurance Solutions Working Group to develop accessible, fair, and climate-ready reforms
- Collaborating with leaders in public health, scientific research, and philanthropy to
expand access to coordinated, government-backed soil testing and remediation through initiatives like the LA Fire HEALTH Study, CAP.LA, and USC CLEAN
- Translating community input into practical rebuilding solutions, including alternative
construction approaches and streamlined permitting
- Strengthening survivor-led networks, including neighborhood response systems, block
captain programs, and peer support organizations
What Survivors Need to Move Forward
The work ahead is bigger than any one agency or sector. It’s going to take all players in the recovery ecosystem – moving in the same direction – to get funding flowing, hold systems accountable, and help survivors recover. That includes all of us: neighbors, community members, civic leaders, and residents across Los Angeles who can advocate, support local recovery efforts, and ensure survivors aren’t forgotten as the months pass.
- Survivors need federal disaster recovery funds to reach them quickly and effectively.
Without this support, families are taking on unsustainable debt while waiting for resources that may determine whether they can rebuild at all.
- Survivors need their insurance companies to honor the coverage they paid for with
timely claims processing and full payouts for rebuilding, repair, and remediation. The significant variation in experiences across carriers shows that this is achievable when systems prioritize policyholders.
- Survivors need extended rental assistance and mortgage relief that reflects the
multi-year timeline recovery actually requires. With 61% of insured survivors facing a coverage cliff within the year, families are making impossible calculations about whether they can afford to stay.
- Survivors need access to environmental testing and remediation without prohibitive
costs. Families shouldn’t have to choose between living in potentially contaminated homes and exhausting their remaining resources on testing and cleanup.
These needs emerged directly from what 2,335 survivors told us about their lived experiences nine months into recovery.
About This Research
The Department of Angels’ third Community Voices: LA Fire Recovery Report is based on a survey conducted September 8-17, 2025, of 2,335 adults who were living in fire-impacted communities in January 2025.
The Department of Angels is an independent nonprofit formed in the immediate aftermath of the January 2025 Los Angeles fires. They connect community-based organizations, government officials, civic leaders, and subject-matter experts to ensure fire-impacted communities can lead their own recovery, on their terms, with the support, resources, and information they need to thrive. To learn more about the fire recovery efforts and their organization, or to donate or get involved, visit their website at deptofangels.org. Reprinted with permission.