Pasadena, Altadena face long road 19 months after Eaton Fire

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(The Center Square) – Recovering from a devastating community-wide fire is not easy - or fast. Just ask residents of Pasadena and Altadena.

The Eaton Fire of January 2025 damaged or destroyed many homes in the San Gabriel Valley communities, located in inland Los Angeles County. The blaze burned 14,921 acres and was one of the worst in the county's history.

Structures are being rebuilt, but it's expected to be a multi-year or decade-long process.

Pasadena City Councilmember Rick Cole said the process is being hindered by bureaucratic delays, insurance struggles and shifting resident demographics.

"All those three things are the reason it takes five to 10 years,” Cole told The Center Square.

“People say, 'The government is screwing me' or 'The insurance companies are screwing me,' but overall, it's much more complicated than that," said Cole, who represents the city's District 2.

Within the Pasadena city limits, 185 structures were destroyed in the fire. Most of those properties were single-family homes, accessory units and garages located in neighborhoods such as Upper Hastings Ranch, Victory-Rose and Dundee Heights. Inspectors for the city deemed 133 of those properties as completely uninhabitable or structural collapse hazards.

Meanwhile, eight campuses across the Pasadena Unified School District were damaged or destroyed. The district was temporarily shut down, disrupting learning for thousands of students.

As difficult as this was, the situation was worse in the neighboring unincorporated community of Altadena. Thousands of buildings, including homes and businesses, were lost to the fire, along with churches and other gathering places.

About 10,000 homes were damaged or destroyed in the Eaton Fire, most of them in Altadena. According to the Los Angeles County Permitting Dashboard, approximately 100 homes have been rebuilt in the Pasadena/Altadena area. An additional 1,800 are under construction, with another 3,000 building permits submitted or issued. 

In other words, just 1% of homes lost to the Eaton Fire have been rebuilt.  

As Cole explained in a previous story from The Center Square, half of Altadena was depopulated overnight.

Ice cream business owner Jessica Mortarotti called it a “destabilizing” time with a lot of stress and unknowns. Restaurant owner Eric Tjahyadi called it “devastating.”

Today, some people are building homes, and businesses are open, but things are not like they were before the fire.

"Altadena was very green, and now it's very brown,” Cole told The Center Square this week during a phone interview.

As for the future physical transformation of neighborhoods, Cole said, homes built today differ greatly than those built in the 1960s. For one thing, homes are larger and more prominent, and owners are younger.

“It’s going to be a very different community,” Cole said.

The city council member, who has been in public service four decades, said elected officials need to be thinking strategically.

“Because who else will?” asked Cole, rhetorically.

Beyond immediate disaster recovery, Cole highlighted broader systemic issues facing Southern California: aging infrastructure, demographic shifts, high cost of living and an outdated property tax/financial framework dating back to Proposition 13 in 1978.

"Southern California was built for a very suburban, auto-oriented defense world, with everyone's two and a half kids in a station wagon,” said Cole. “Now we have a radically different economy, radically different demographics and an evolving different way of life."

To put it another way, Cole said the region has a mid-20th century finance system for a 2026 global economy.

“We actually have some serious reckoning to do to maintain the fourth largest economy in the world and be able to equitably and sustainably finance basic government services,” said Cole. "The next governor is going to have that land squarely."

In the meantime, residents and legislators are trying to preserve Altadena's charm as a community of neighborhoods of single-family homes. As previously reported by The Center Square, legislators are advancing Senate Bill 1090, which exempts Altadena from California housing zoning laws that allow multi-unit housing developments on formerly single-family lots. If passed by the Legislature, the bill means Los Angeles County, which governs Altadena, could limit the lots to single-family homes.