At the same time, the grief, trauma and emotional devastation wrought by the Eaton and Palisades fires remain at times overwhelmingly present.<\/p>\n
Every survivor\u2019s situation is unique yet connected by loss, obstacles to recovery and a deep sense of connection to the places they called home.<\/p>\n
Keep up with LAist.<\/p>\n
If you’re enjoying this article, you’ll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less. <\/p>\n
To understand how residents are continuing to pick up the pieces, LAist spoke with six survivors \u2014 some families, some individuals \u2014 a year after the L.A. fires.<\/p>\n
The barber<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767622692_425_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Barber Geoff Cathcart smiles as Jason Fulton inspects his haircut at Lawrence and Colbert in Altadena.<\/p>\n
Geoff Cathcart, Altadena barber, discusses his business after the Eaton Fire<\/p>\n
It was a typical day at Altadena\u2019s oldest salon, Lawrence and Colbert, a Black-owned business that has served the community for some 46 years.<\/p>\n
Well, it was a typical day after the Eaton Fire.<\/p>\n
Geoff Cathcart expertly styled the hair of longtime client Jason Fulton, the buzz of the shaver the backdrop to their conversation \u2014 also typical for the barbershop, yet all its own, about men and their mental health.<\/p>\n
But the rest of the barber chairs were empty.<\/p>\n
A year after the Eaton Fire, they\u2019re empty much of the time.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767622694_515_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The barbers and stylists here have seen their business plummet. The majority of their clients \u2014 mostly elders in Altadena\u2019s tightknit Black community \u2014 lost their homes in the fire. <\/p>\n
Cathcart, who grew up in Altadena, lost his rental and now commutes from Glendora.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aI used to walk to my shop … didn’t have to worry about gas or commute or traffic or any of those things,\u201d Cathcart said. \u201cAnd 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
He plans to return to Altadena permanently, eventually. But finding an affordable rental in the area has proved impossible \u2014 prices have shot up since the fire. So he\u2019s waiting for prices to go down or for his own family members to rebuild \u2014 three homes his extended family owned burned down.<\/p>\n
Cathcart says most of his clientele have had to relocate to Glendale, Pasadena, Lancaster or even out of state. Half of the salon\u2019s 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\u2019s applied for other jobs to supplement his income.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you come up to Altadena, there’s not a lot here at the moment, and so it’s very depressing,\u201d Cathcart said. \u201cI’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.\u201d<\/p>\n
A year later, though, he sees the community starting to come back.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s slow, definitely slow,\u201d Cathcart said. \u201cBut I do see progress. I do have hope.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, he\u2019ll keep cutting hair and having the conversations he\u2019s always had with his clients \u2014 often intimate and personal, though the tune of them now is dominated by the fire\u2019s aftermath.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery 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,\u201d Cathcart said. \u201c\u200aEvery conversation is really a psychological and emotional evaluation of how everyone is doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s something the fire couldn\u2019t change, he said \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we lose this, then it’s just one less place for us to go as a community, as a people and as a culture,\u201d Cathcart said. “\u200aWe’ve been trying to rebuild the community one step at a time by just showing up and coming to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
A mobile home paradise lost<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767622696_600_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Donna and Howard Burkons at their rental in Woodland Hills.<\/p>\n
Donna and Howard Burkons have lived out of four suitcases since January 2025. The longest they\u2019ve stayed in one place is a few months \u2014 a friend\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Only recently did Donna Burkons buy linens for the carousel of beds they\u2019ve been sleeping in, plus a skillet and some utensils of their own.<\/p>\n
The only thing from their home that survived the Palisades Fire was a 100-year-old iron skillet that Donna Burkons\u2019 great-grandmother used to cook on a chuckwagon back in Indiana. They\u2019re reluctant to buy much of anything \u2014 their constant moves since the fire have become something like momentum to keep up until they rebuild.<\/p>\n
The Burkonses lived on a rented lot in the Tahitian Terraces mobile home park overlooking the Pacific \u2014 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\u2019d keep an eye out for the \u201cgreen flash\u201d to light up the horizon just before the sun dipped below it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d see cars parked along the ocean just to see the sunset, and we had it every day,\u201d Donna Burkons said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we didn\u2019t ever take it for granted,\u201d Howard Burkons said, finishing the thought \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767622698_497_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
One of the Burkonses’ grandchildren drew their former home in the Palisades.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019re deeply underinsured.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt 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,\u201d Howard Burkons said.<\/p>\n
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\u2019d go out dancing the two-step together \u2014 a hobby they fell in love with in their 50s and one they\u2019ve kept up since the fire to hold on to something normal and joyful. Their grandkids help with that too.<\/p>\n
The Burkonses thought about moving back to Arizona, where they own some rental units. But they couldn\u2019t be so far from the kids and grandkids. And they can\u2019t afford to buy a \u201cstick-built\u201d house elsewhere. So for now, they\u2019re taking it day by day, waiting to get back to their mobile home paradise, their little lots overlooking the grand Pacific.<\/p>\n
The family who never left<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767622700_821_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Ana Martinez at home.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s an old water well outside of Ana Martinez\u2019s house in west Altadena. At first glance, the spiraling metal design, charred and rusted, seems intentional, evoking a country charm.<\/p>\n
But the metal was blackened by the Eaton Fire.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aIt’s just a reminder of what we went through,\u201d Martinez said. \u201cWe did lose a lot of pieces that melted, but it’s there. Just like us, you know? We survived.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Martinez family home still stands \u2014 Ana, her husband, Carlos, and their sons fought the flames throughout that terrifying night a year ago<\/a>. As the wooden fence and tree in front of their house caught fire, they hacked them apart with a chainsaw. Their neighbor\u2019s house burned to the ground.<\/p>\n 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 \u2014 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.<\/p>\n \u201cWe got less than $70,000 from the insurance, and we’ve spent almost $200,000 with everything that needed to be done,\u201d Ana said. \u201cSo we’re starting at zero again, but at least we have a home.\u201d<\/p>\n The family\u2019s determination to protect their property \u2014 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 \u2014 brought them all together, closer than ever.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’ve never had money, but we’ve never had problems paying our bills,\u201d Ana Martinez said. \u201cAt 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\u2019s been a lot of arguing.\u201d<\/p>\n They\u2019re giving themselves at least five years \u201cbefore we could say, hopefully, that we\u2019ll be back to normal.\u201d The money will come back, Ana Martinez is sure.<\/p>\n She\u2019s not as sure about their health \u2014 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.<\/p>\n She and her husband developed asthma \u2014 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.<\/p>\n \u201cThere’s days that I wake up and I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach,\u201d Ana Martinez said. \u201cMy throat always hurts … this burning sensation in my throat.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019s apocalyptic days. The apparently random moments of grief that well up, painful in her chest.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aI’ve never been a person that would cry for no reason,\u201d Ana Martinez said. \u201cIt’s changed me.\u201d<\/p>\n Parts of the well melted, but like the Martinezes, it survived.<\/p>\n The lemon tree is putting out fruit.<\/p>\n A year on, those emotions are lessening, or at least, she\u2019s 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\u2019s less inclined to grow angry when someone cuts her off in traffic or is rude at the grocery store.<\/p>\n \u201cWe 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,\u201d Ana Martinez said.<\/p>\n Despite the stress of it all, and the survivor\u2019s guilt she continues to feel, watching neighbors sell their lots or struggle through the process of rebuilding, she finds solace in gratefulness.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aThat’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,\u201d she said. \u201cIt’s made me very mindful to appreciate what we have. … We have life, and that’s all that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n The Holocaust survivor<\/p>\n Rachel Schwartz’s home after the Palisades Fire.<\/p>\n (<\/p>\n Courtesy of Bruce Schwartz<\/p>\n )<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cIt left me, I’m afraid, with a severe depression,\u201d Schwartz said. \u201cThe doctor said this is part of losing everything.\u201d<\/p>\n She said she\u2019s no longer the person she used to be \u2014 upbeat, always ready to try new things.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, nothing interests me except my wish to rebuild my home,\u201d Schwartz said.<\/p>\n This is not the first time Schwartz has lost everything.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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 \u2014 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.<\/p>\n Then came the fire.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aI told my mother, \u2018Mom, you’ve been through three concentration camps and a three-week march,\u2019\u201d said Bruce, Schwartz\u2019s son. \u201cYou can survive this fire if you survived that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis fire is like a \u200asecond Holocaust. Everything gone, everything burned,\u201d Rachel Schwartz said. \u201cIf not for Bruce, I wouldn\u2019t have made it.\u201d<\/p>\n But now, Rachel and Bruce Schwartz, who lived with her, are racing against a seemingly stuck clock. They haven\u2019t been able to start the rebuilding process because of complications with the rules of their homeowners association \u2014 17 units burned; eight didn\u2019t. The HOA requires 75% of the members to approve a rebuild in the case of calamity, and the majority of residents voted against it.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are many unanswered questions as to what is going to happen to us,\u201d Bruce Schwartz said. \u201c\u200aWe’re stuck in limbo, and I think it’s going to be three to five years before we have a clear picture.\u201d<\/p>\n Not only are there complications with the HOA, but they\u2019re also severely underinsured \u2014 just a few months before the fire, State Farm dropped them, and residents had to instead get on the California FAIR plan.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, their temporary housing insurance is running out. And anger about the cause of the fire \u2014 a reignition of a fire that started a week before<\/a> and wasn\u2019t completely put out<\/a> \u2014 and the ongoing lack of accountability remains a constant.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel that it was a great negligence why the fire was not put out,\u201d Rachel Schwartz said.<\/p>\n But a year on, they are both growing tired of the anger and the grief like a constant cloud hanging over them.<\/p>\n \u201cWe 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,\u201d Bruce Schwartz said. \u201cIt’s time to move forward and rebuild our community.\u201d<\/p>\n Rachel Schwartz nodded as her son spoke. She still can get her nails and hair done, she joked, so things can\u2019t be all that bad.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aI came from Europe as a small girl, and even in this tragedy, we still have enough to eat. We have comfortable beds to sleep,\u201d she said. \u201cI look out and the sun is shining. And I still feel very grateful to be in America.\u201d<\/p>\n A prefab symbol of hope<\/p>\n Charlotte and Steve Gibson hosted a construction-viewing party for their neighbors.<\/p>\n On a quiet street of mostly empty lots in Altadena, a celebration recently took place. Steve and Charlotte Gibson\u2019s new home is nearly finished \u2014 they expect to move in at the end of this month.<\/p>\n \u201cIt seemed like nothing was happening for a long time. … We didn\u2019t see any movement for months and months,\u201d Steve Gibson said. \u201cAnd now it feels really rapid.\u201d<\/p>\n 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 \u2014 a 900-square-foot, hyper modern, steel-framed prefabricated home<\/a>. It\u2019s all electric, with solar panels and a battery. The Gibsons plan to landscape with mostly California native plants<\/a>, as well.<\/p>\n 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?<\/p>\n But on a recent day, as they looked at the modern, rectangular boxes that will become their new home, \u201cthe hope, the promise, the future outweigh those concerns by a mile,\u201d Charlotte Gibson said.<\/p>\n It\u2019s why they hosted a \u201cconstruction viewing party\u201d in December \u2014 to show their neighbors rebuilding is possible.<\/p>\n Another couple from up the street stopped by to say they were going with the same Gardena-based prefab housing company, called Cover<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aWe’re nowhere near this yet, but we\u2019re very excited,\u201d the wife said as a toddler gripped her hand. \u201cWe came to stalk your house to see what it’s going to look like, so thanks for doing this.\u201d<\/p>\n The Gibsons are in for a big change. The home they lost was built in the 1920s. Their new home is prefabricated and modern.<\/p>\n Plans show what the Gibsons’ new home will look like when complete.<\/p>\n The Gibsons still face a several-hundred-thousand-dollar gap in how much their insurance paid out and how much they\u2019ve had to spend on their rebuild. They hope the Small Business Association disaster loan they applied for will cover that.<\/p>\n Despite the uncertainty and the grief of all that\u2019s been lost, their determination and stamina to rebuild and return has remained in large part due to community ties made long before the fire.<\/p>\n \u201cThankfully our neighbors on this block … the ones that are closest to us and that we’re closest to, they’re all rebuilding,\u201d Charlotte Gibson said. \u201c\u200aAnd that was a huge lift.\u201d<\/p>\n The family next door, the Pattersons, are among those neighbors. They hope to move in by summer.<\/p>\n![\"Charred](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767622701_912_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767622703_68_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
![\"Three](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767622705_769_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n