6,000 Homes Burned Only 7 % in the Rebuild Process

The January 2025 Palisades Fire destroyed a town: businesses and homes. It was estimated that of the 7,000 destroyed structures, about 6,000 were residences.

About 14 months after the fire, how many actual houses have started construction? The city counts permits rather than structures and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said that 1,300 rebuilding plans had been approved.

Pali Builds, a local company that tracks permits for new home fire rebuilds, found 574 permits. “Our permit numbers are based on new home fire rebuilds,” said co-founder Kambiz Kamdar said.

Huntington resident Craig Weston, who lost his home and is rebuilding, has been driving around neighborhoods and counting. He said that roughly about 400 homes have started or are in construction (excluding Castellammare), which would more closely align with Pali Builds numbers.

Weston said he started building in August and strictly from observation, it didn’t seem like a lot of houses were going up. He started counting to satisfy his curiosity about the numbers in news stories. “We’re they double counting?” he asked. “Are the houses actually going up or not?”

Weston counted again yesterday and said his numbers might not be “to the penny, but it’s close.”

Weston went neighborhood by neighborhood.

In the Alphabet streets, “They lost about a thousand homes and currently about 140 are going up.” By “going up,” he doesn’t mean that fencing has been put up, but that grading and framing are occurring.

In his neighborhood, which had 550 homes and lost 200 in the Palisades Fire, there are 38 under construction.

South of Sunset between Temescal and Potrero Canyon, the Via bluffs/Swarthmore, “There are about 50 houses going up.

“That’s a lot better than a few months ago, when I was taken aback by how little was going on there,” Weston said.

South of Sunset in the El Medio, Bienveneda area he counted about 50 new homes going up.

In the Marquez Knolls area south of the school to Sunset, he counted about 40 homes. In the upper Knolls he counted 50.

This editor drove around Los Lomas today (above Sunset) with Weston to about Bienveneda and counted about 16 houses under construction. This area wasn’t as decimated as the Alphabet Streets or the Via bluffs. There were rows of homes gone and there were also blocks of homes still standing that had not been touched by the fire.

In the Highlands, Weston said he was surprised at how many homes were still standing. “There wasn’t as much damage, except for the huge complex [the Woodies] on the left.” (The Woodies burned on January 8.)

If one totals Weston’s count over the past few days, “We estimated about 400 houses that are actively going up,” he said. “People are saying about 6,000 homes burned down so that takes us just to under 7 percent.”

He was asked if he had a guess as to why so few homes were going up.

“It all comes down to money,” he said. “The houses that are going up first had good insurance or the people had money in the bank.”

He also explained that many residents like those on the Alphabet Streets had homes on flat lots, which meant construction was cheaper and easier, without the need for retaining walls or caissons, like houses built on the hills.

Weston thinks the next round of building will include, “people who had to get a loan, work with insurance companies, or have help with family money.”

“If we can get the lawsuits settled, we’ll see a huge number of homes going up,” he predicts.

There are a thousands of residents who are waiting on a lawsuit that’s been filed against the City and State for failure to protect them and their properties from the fire.

He also worries that maybe as many as 20 percent never come back.

Weston said Pacific Palisades is “a little pocket of serenity. I’m praying for everyone who wants to come back, that they can.”

There are fields of weeds in Pacific Palisades on lots that formerly held houses/homes.