For Eaton Fire survivors, rebuilding is full of surprise, hardship, and joy

A UCLA report finds that the value of the homes wiped out by the Eaton and Palisades fires one year ago is a combined $27 billion. There were 12,500 houses destroyed by the fires. On a single street in the community of Altadena, 15 houses were destroyed — mine among them. Another of them belonged to Louie and his family.

“So we were a total loss, a ‘grounder,’ as they call it,” he said.

Louie lived on my side of the street, south corner.

“And we had a couple oak trees that survived in the back. But other than that, it was totally just burnt to ashes,” he said.

When the initial shock of escaping flying embers morphed into talk of what’s next, Louie and his wife were all in.

“My wife and I decided that we were committed to rebuilding, and we went pretty full throttle and just dove into this unknown world for us — architecture and design and building.”

They had plans to rebuild 200 square feet bigger, and found an amazing architect who was also a good friend. Then three months later, there was a new surprise — one both delightful and daunting.

“We found out that my wife was pregnant with our second child, and that was sort of the U-turn on everything,” Louie said.

Some neighbors asked for first names only for this, so they could speak more freely, with insurance and other financial matters in flux. Louie does marketing for one of the cable and streaming TV channels, a man who could see he had a plot twist on his hands.

“Do we want to have a newborn, a toddler, full-time jobs, and then also a rebuild?”

There’s also a dog in the mix, who might run outside and bring into the house soot containing who-knows-what. Remember, this wasn’t a forest fire that consumed natural wood and brush; it was an urban fire where smoke contained cars and whatever else was piled up in people’s garages and attics.

“I didn't want to put the strain on the family and our careers and in what was already becoming another full-time job,” Louie said.

More on rebuilding in the aftermath of last year’s fires

• After the LA fires, finding a contractor to rebuild is no small feat

• A Los Angeles-area developer gives advice on rebuilding after the fires

• Cheaper, faster and safer: Some LA builders and architects want a different approach to rebuilding

• Between two neighbors: Rebuilding after the Southern California fires

• How do you sell a home that’s burned down?

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Then, visible across from my burned patch, there’s some happy, fresh plywood visible, with an address one street over.

This is my neighbor Erika’s new home. She gave me a tour of the open-concept plan, the new kitchen, the new living room. She’s an executive producer in the television and streaming world.

Right after the fire, she got to work producing with a contractor who’d previously built a den for her that became her favorite room in her old house. Just after Labor Day, her crew poured the foundation.

When I first visited just before Thanksgiving, her frame was up, including the subfloor and roof joists. It was to the point her neighbors threw her a party to use magic markers to write “hope and love” tidings onto the bare wood.

“You can see there's messages. Like, here, ‘May God bless your home.’ There's one: ‘Congrats, welcome home.’ And it was just a celebration of new beginnings,” Erika said. “So all of the positive messages will live within the walls of my home forever.”

Erika’s strategy was to get moving, even with the all-out push for insurance money in progress. She had a contractor, and she also paid a project manager to get those plans through the often-confused county permitting process before the expected onslaught of new building applications.

“I started relatively early, so I got the jump in ahead of time,” she said.

Still, the onslaught of building has yet to come. Across Los Angeles County — encompassing most of the two biggest fires last year — 16,000 structures were destroyed, most of them homes. As the New Year began, just 1,100 building permits had been issued, and rebuilding was actually in progress on only half of those — 527 properties.