Altadena, Calif. — In the wee hours of the morning of January 8, Monica Stuhlman thought she was going to die.
Driving down the hill of her Southern California street, she took one last look at her neighborhood as it was going up in flames — squinting through the darkness as pockets of fire lit up the landscape amid that night's power outages. Black smoke and embers filled the air as gusts of hot Santa Ana winds wrapped around her vehicle.
It's a miracle she got out of Altadena at all, given that no emergency cruisers came to warn the residents, and no evacuation notice was issued.
"The reason I knew was because my neighbor around the corner, her house had caught on fire," Monica recalls. At that point, she called her husband, John — a Marine veteran who is now a paramedic, firefighter, and fire inspector for the city of Los Angeles — who was responding to the Palisades Fire. "I said, 'You need to come home. We're going to lose everything.'"
As Monica searched unsuccessfully for a hotel to stay the night, John suited up and tried to fight the fire in his own neighborhood. He saved their Jeep and a couple of boxes of personal effects. But once houses began exploding around him, power lines started falling left and right, and his own propane tank started hissing, he realized he had minutes to spare before he'd go up in flames, too.
"There was nobody stopping people from coming in," John recalls. That prompted him to direct traffic for about 20 minutes and inform his neighbors that their houses were already gone.
These days, there's an eerie energy in the air in this unincorporated Los Angeles County suburb. What used to look like a little slice of heaven — with its rolling hills, palm trees, and bougainvillea flowers — now looks more like the wreckage from a nuclear blast. Incinerated cars sit in abandoned driveways amid the ash and rubble. Charred palm trees, rusted fences, and bare chimneys are often the only bones that remain of old homes. Some lots have been untouched since the fires as residents weigh whether to rebuild or sell.
Standing in their vacant lot on a cloudy morning here in late April, Monica and John Stuhlman explain the daunting details that surround the permitting and rebuilding process: finding an architect, paying thousands out of pocket to get a demo done, getting soil testing for toxic waste, and so much more.
The grief these residents are experiencing after losing their dream homes and all their possessions is compounded by the onerous permitting, fireproofing, and rebuilding requirements to comply with California's building code — such as fire-resistant roofs, solar panels, and automatic sprinklers.
Confusion abounds even after Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order declaring a state of emergency and suspending the California Environmental Quality Act and the Coastal Act — two of the state's most stringent environmental laws — for homes and businesses that are being rebuilt after the January wildfires. Residents complain about the pace of permitting review. As of late April, only one single-family-home rebuild permit had been approved in Altadena — thanks to the work of Habitat for Humanity.
The problem, John says, is that "California overregulates."
"You don't want to put solar panels on? They're going to make you put solar panels on. No wood-burning fireplaces," John says. "I asked about a gas range, about a gas hot water heater, about a gas stovetop. Yes, you can do it, but you have to have the ability to go electric. I don't want electric." John suspects their property taxes will double to account for construction rates.
These burdensome and costly code requirements coincide with a host of other factors that complicate the rebuilding process, such as navigating insurance claims and zoning requirements. Some residents who are distrustful of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers are hesitant to let anyone touch their lots. Looting is another huge problem — to the point that some residents are debating hiring private security to guard their construction materials.
Others say they are worried about an uptick in labor costs because of increased demand and the likelihood that the price of construction materials will spike in response to the new administration's trade policies.
"If we were looking at $600 per square foot on the high end, is it going to be $700, $800 because of the tariffs? Especially since everything is made in China," says Altadena resident Robert Covarrubias, a principal solutions architect whose 15-year-old home burned down in January. He recalled receiving a call from security company ADT at 4:30 a.m. on January 8, informing him that someone had broken into his house. "That's when I knew that my house was on fire," he says of the call he received with his family in a hotel, where they would sleep for 18 days following the fire.
Others are worried that new building developments will affect their property values and the character of the neighborhood — where many historic homes stood before the fire.
"We're renting, and we've been looking at houses to buy, and we're going to let that property sit for a while, because we just don't know how long this is going to go on," says Erin Foley, the neighbor who warned Monica Stuhlman that the fires were coming after her own 100-year-old home got caught in the blaze.
Foley says she and her husband — who are nearing retirement — have gotten three different answers from the tax assessor's office about how much they can rebuild, and they worry about how the fires will affect their taxes and insurance in the future. "Our insurance company was already trying to dump us," she says.
All this after the nightmare she experienced in early January. The night she lost her home, Foley called 911 multiple times before the fires hit and after "balls of flaming fire" began rolling through her yard. Given the power outages, she couldn't tell whether the fire was catching on shrubs or trees. Emergency dispatchers didn't help. "I called back and I said, 'Hey, are you guys coming?'" And the guy just fumbled over his words. He was like, 'Well, ma'am, you know, it's really busy out there.'"
He never directly told her "No, we're not coming," she recalls, but "I could just tell that they weren't." So, she grabbed her mother, the cat, some necessities, and left. She counts among her blessings that she'd kept her electric gates open before the fire. "If I hadn't opened them, we would have been stuck on the property."
Others weren't so lucky. Four doors down, her elderly neighbor took out his hearing aids and died in his sleep. "Nobody's taking accountability," she says.
These fires, which killed at least 18 people, also ravaged community centers, churches, and life plans for residents who are in or nearing retirement. Some residents say their neighbors in their seventies, eighties, and nineties are selling their plots and going to live with relatives or in senior living facilities, given the length of the rebuilding process.
The Stuhlmans are renting a house in Monrovia and praised Habitat for Humanity for helping them navigate the rebuilding process. "We've gotten donations from the Los Angeles Firemen's Relief Association. So, we've been blessed," Monica says while petting their dog Winston, who also survived the fire. "But I feel bad for the people who don't have insurance or who are underinsured. . . . How are they doing? Where are they staying?"
Many of the shelters are at capacity, meaning some people are sleeping in their cars. In some cases, wildfire victims whose cars were incinerated in the fires have resorted to sleeping outside. One relief worker spoke to National Review about a 92-year-old woman who has nowhere to go and is sleeping on a La-Z-Boy in her smoky house.
'I feel that everybody's forgotten about us'
Monica and John have big plans for their next home. She wants Spanish-style interior design. He wants a detached garage and a pool. But even as they try to muster enthusiasm for the rebuilding process, they mourn their neighbors who will move away or who have yet to start the debris cleanup process.
And even if they manage to rebuild their house on the earlier side, they are already dreading the continued sound of construction that will hum in the background for decades, and of course the very real possibility that wildfires will return. They estimate that the neighborhood won't be fully rebuilt for another 20 years.
The community is frustrated that the news cycle has moved on from its troubles, and many living here feel that local officials aren't in tune with residents' frustrations with the rebuilding process.
"I feel that everybody's forgotten about us," Monica says. "The government — they don't care. The mayor doesn't care, the governor doesn't care. All they're thinking about is revenue, the Olympics, the World Cup, and that's it."
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