It Could Take Weeks Before Displaced L.A. Residents Can Go Home

The tens of thousands of people displaced by the devastating wildfires in the Los Angeles area are increasingly anxious to know when they can return home — or to what remains of their properties.

Officials say crews are working to reopen closed areas, snuffing out hot spots and clearing hazardous debris, but no timeline has been announced for lifting the evacuation orders.

Experts have warned that it could take weeks before people can return to the hardest-hit neighborhoods because of the amount of work needed to ensure the safety of residents.

Firefighters are still trying to contain the Palisades and Eaton fires, the biggest ones in the Los Angeles region, a prerequisite to allowing people to return. Both remained largely out of control on Wednesday evening, though their growth had slowed.

Captain Erik Scott of the Los Angeles Fire Department said the timeline for people returning to their neighborhoods can vary. It depends on the extent of the damage, which needs to be mapped and carefully assessed in every impacted community, he added. There is also the threat of hazardous materials, such as asbestos and chemicals.

“We want people to have realistic expectations,” Mr. Scott said.

It took weeks in the aftermath of some previous destructive blazes for people to return. In 2018, the Camp fire destroyed most of Paradise in Northern California and killed 85 people. The final evacuation orders in that town were lifted more than a month after the fire started.

Similarly, after a devastating fire in Lahaina on the island of Maui killed more than 100 people in 2023, it was nearly two months before the first of the thousands of displaced residents could return to their properties.

The suppression of the fire is only one step in the process, according to fire officials. There are yet more safety and infrastructure issues to tackle. Workers need to clear and replace downed power lines, stabilize partially collapsed buildings and remove toxic ash from the ground.

“That’s why the orders are still in place,” said David Acuna, a battalion chief with Cal Fire. “It’s not just about the fire. There are all these other elements to address.”

The grim search for human remains has further complicated efforts to clear neighborhoods. Officials are using cadaver dogs to comb through the thousands of structures damaged or destroyed in the fires to locate remains.

“We have people literally looking for the remains of your neighbors,” Sheriff Robert Luna of Los Angeles County said at a news conference on Monday. “Please be patient with us.”

Even for those whose homes survive, the lifting of evacuation orders does not necessarily mean they can return to live in them right away, warned Michael Wara, a climate policy expert at Stanford University.

“There’s going to be smoke damage,” he said. “There’s going to be the fact that you don’t have utilities.”

In Pacific Palisades, the recovery process was underway in its incinerated downtown. The air buzzed with the sound of jackhammers, bulldozers and tree shredders. Workers cleared debris, pulled down charred utility poles and ground up the skeletal limbs of burned eucalyptus trees.

Ali Sharifi managed to inspect his lower Palisades home on Tuesday. Aside from a burned backyard fence, it was intact. Yet the destruction around it, including charred schools, churches and grocery stores, gave him second thoughts about returning.

“Who wants to live in a ghost town?” Mr. Sharifi said.

Erica Fischer, an associate professor at Oregon State University who studied the aftermath of the Camp fire, said that a fast recovery is not always a good one, especially if it means rebuilding in ways that contributed to the disaster.

Of the ongoing evacuation orders in California, she said, “I know it’s not convenient, and it’s disruptive, but it keeps people out of harm’s way.”