It took only a spark, and it was gone.
Not only a dwelling, however total neighborhoods and communities have been largely wiped off the map following the spate of January wildfires that devastated southern California. The affect of the destruction was felt far past the borders of those communities and the tens of billions in injury will take years to scrub up.
From the emotional toll of dropping nearly every thing to the monetary burden of beginning over, ABC Information is chronicling the journeys of some affected Los Angeles residents over the subsequent a number of months as they attempt to rebuild from the ashes of the Los Angeles fires.
The Palisades and Eaton fires each erupted on Jan. 7, fueled by extreme drought situations and powerful Santa Ana winds, 1000’s of firefighters battled flames throughout 45 sq. miles of densely populated Los Angeles County.
After burning for twenty-four days, each fires have been absolutely contained on Jan. 31, with over 37,000 acres burned and greater than 16,000 buildings destroyed.
No less than 29 folks have been killed within the two fires — 17 within the Eaton Hearth and 12 within the Palisades Hearth, in keeping with the Los Angeles County health worker.
Those that survived at the moment are left to choose up the items of their lives that have been so instantly modified endlessly.
Marcus and Ursula Ubungen left their Altadena, California, dwelling simply earlier than bedtime on Jan. 7, fearing a late-night evacuation would disrupt their two younger kids’s routine.
Little did they know that night time, the Eaton Hearth would upend their lives fully — decimating their dwelling of 4 years, decreasing their kids’s faculty to rubble and leaving them nonetheless looking for a way of normalcy over two months later.
“You realize, days out from the hearth seems to be very completely different than a month out, proper? It has felt so quick, like we have lived many lifetimes in between the hearth and right this moment,” Ursula Ubungen stated.
Selecting up the items
“It is a course of the place you are numb and shocked. Within the first week, you’ll be able to’t even do something. Second week, you are panicking and also you’re simply reliving and then you definately form of attempt to flip the nervousness into the trail ahead,” Katia Hausman, a Pacific Palisades resident, instructed ABC Information.
Katia Hausman and her husband, Adam Hausman, settled into the coastal neighborhood as newlyweds in 2012, buying a condominium tucked above Temescal Canyon with views of the Pacific Ocean.
Six weeks because the Palisades Hearth compelled them to flee their dwelling, the couple has returned twice to their red-taped former dwelling, trying to discover something salvageable within the ashes.
Katia and Adam Hausman’s 9-year-old daughter’s water bottle discovered within the wreckage.
Katia and Adam Hausman
“[It’s] a bizarre feeling, some might say, ‘like, why they even go there? Why do you wish to see it?’ However for me, personally, I do wish to see… to take only one extra take a look at what I used to have,” Katia Hausman stated.
“We noticed our daughter’s water bottle, and we acknowledged it, and that is type of like a glimpse of our lives that we had … we’re shifting on to the subsequent stage. However these are the little bits and items that you simply nonetheless hold on.”
“Actually,” Katia Hausman instructed ABC Information, “We took one little saucepan simply because I wished what was mine.”
Katia and Adam Hausman discovered their household’s pot within the rubble.
Katia and Adam Hausman
Dale Fielder, 68, and his spouse, Patricia, moved to Altadena in 2009 shortly earlier than they married. Fielder stated their home was the primary one they checked out and so they instantly fell in love.
“I will always remember, I sat out on the terrace there, and I stated, ‘That is our dwelling,'” he instructed ABC Information. “Now the shock is type of sporting off and actuality is setting in, and we simply realized, I actually miss our dwelling.”
Dale Fielder, 68, and his spouse, Patricia, misplaced their dwelling in Altadena, Calif., in the course of the Eaton hearth in January 2025.
Courtesy of Dale Fielder
On the night time of Jan. 7, Fielder, a musician, was taking part in at a jazz membership, and his spouse was getting calls from mates, saying that they had a heard a couple of hearth and in the event that they have been alright. Within the early hours of the morning, they obtained an evacuation warning and packed as much as go to a pal’s home. They might see the fires from their home windows.
“You by no means assume that your own home goes to be the one which will get burned down, you already know?” he stated. “I am considering, ‘Oh, I will have the ability to go, possibly every thing will probably be scorched up somewhat good.”
Altadena musician on dropping dwelling to Eaton hearthAltadena jazz musician Dale Fielder shared his expertise dropping his historic file assortment, devices and life-long private music archive to the Eaton wildfire.
Dale Fielder
The subsequent day, Fielder drove again to his neighborhood. As he traveled, he noticed home after home destroyed, till he reached his.
“I get to my block … and I couldn’t imagine it,” he stated. “Not a single home was standing an I will always remember that so long as I dwell … And at last I pull up in entrance of my home, and simply — it was smoldering. It was gone. And that is once I simply sat in that automotive. I could not transfer. And I, for 15, 20 minutes, I simply cry. I bellowed.”
Fielder took movies of the stays of his dwelling and shared them on social media. He is returned a couple of occasions since that day, making an attempt to see if any of his and his spouse’s belongings had been saved. He discovered nothing, together with a number of of his devices and 1000’s of pages of unique sheet music.
“I run the impartial jazz label Clarion jazz out of my storage I transformed right into a studio workplace, simply flattened, simply nothing,” he stated. “The whole stock gone. I took my saxophones, however I left my clarinet flutes and piccolos, and I had an 88-key digital piano that was gone. However probably the most useful and vital factor to me, personally, was my music. I had about eight completely different piles of manuscripts, which matches again to the 70s, once I first began writing. I’ve about 25% of it however 75% of it’s gone.”
The Ubungens, who grew to become first-time home-buyers with their Altadena residence, stated the barrage of duties on prime of tending to their kids’s wants compelled them to “step out of their grief.”
“As dad and mom, you continue to must mother or father whether or not or not you are grieving, whether or not or not you have simply skilled a really traumatic catastrophe, and so there are these like tensions and these huge ranges of feelings… together with this mounting to-do checklist,” Ursula Ubungen stated.
Altadena photographer misplaced livelihood, private reminiscences in Eaton hearthUrsula and Marcus Ubungen misplaced every thing within the devastating Eaton wildfire, together with all of Marcus’ images gear and valuable household pictures.
Marcus Ubungen
Marcus Ubungen, an expert photographer and director, stated on prime of every thing else engulfed in flames, was his tools, a decade of price of pictures on laborious drives, his total movie adverse archive and the footage from a documentary 5 years within the making.
“I do not assume it absolutely has hit my physique but — like I do not assume my physique has absolutely digested what has occurred with that, as a result of we have been looking for housing and get my picture gear,” he stated.
Discovering a brand new dwelling
For the Hausman household, being near the daughter’s faculty was a necessity — and likewise a major problem.
As a result of they needed to be location-specific, the Hausman household was unable to make the most of the Federal Emergency Administration Company (FEMA) lodging reimbursement because the solely accommodations obtainable to guide have been over 30 miles away from their daughter’s faculty, in Lengthy Seaside, California.
Not figuring out the place to show, the Hausmans stated a household at their daughter’s faculty supplied for them to remain of their transformed storage whereas they secured short-term housing for the rest of the college yr.
The fact of sustaining a mortgage, paying HOA charges and likewise paying hire has the household taking a look at a future outdoors of California.
“Perhaps we will energy by way of one other yr right here for our daughter to complete elementary faculty,” Adam Hausman stated, “[But] we simply can not afford to remain in LA, and we will probably be compelled out throughout this rebuild.”
The Hausmans acquired a lack of use payout from their insurance coverage coverage that totaled $5,760, equating to $480 a month for the primary yr of help, the household stated.
Throughout the town, the Ubungens stated they really feel so lucky to have discovered a spot to briefly name dwelling. Their rental is simply over 10 miles away from the once-idyllic Altadena suburb, left unrecognizable by the Eaton Hearth’s wrath.
However whereas processing the lack of their dwelling and the devastation of their group, the Ubungens, dad and mom to a 7- and 2-year-old, have now been thrust right into a world of insurance coverage claims.
“I did not anticipate the quantity of life admin work that might include a catastrophe,” Marcus Ubungen stated.
“Coping with every thing you have misplaced and all of the reminiscences and treasures which you could by no means get again — after which layer on the added stress of ‘you want to fill out this paperwork, you want to communicate to this individual’ — it is only a lot, and should you do not perceive what you are truly coated for, it could possibly be actually annoying,” Marcus Ubungen added.
Fabiola Sammartino, 62, misplaced her condominium in Pacific Palisades, Calif., due the Palisades hearth in January 2025.
Courtesy of Fabiola Sammartino
Fabiola Sammartino, 62, initially from Rome, moved to Los Angeles in 1992 and had lived in a rented condominium within the Pacific Palisades since 2022. The constructing burned down within the Palisades Hearth.
Sammartino stated she wished to see her outdated constructing however could not deliver herself to return for a lot of weeks. She went with a former neighbor fort the primary time over the last weekend of February.
“As a result of I used to be on the backside … every thing fell on my condominium. So every thing crashed on me,” she instructed ABC Information. “I needed to see my dwelling, what had occurred to my dwelling. Going again to my neighborhood for the primary time after January 7, simply getting there was painful. Realizing I’ll by no means drive these stunning streets once more to go dwelling, and seeing my neighborhood completely destroyed, was one thing I by no means thought would have occurred to me.”
“However I needed to see my dwelling with my very own eyes to grasp what had occurred, if it was true what I had been instructed,” Sammartino continued. “They name it ‘closure,’ I suppose. However I did not get that.”
Sammartino stated she has since discovered a small studio condominium in Brentwood — a suburban neighborhood — in western Los Angeles that she will afford, however she’s not completely happy and misses her outdated condominium.
Pacific Palisades resident opens up about psychological well being after wildfiresFabiola Sammartino opened up about dropping her dwelling to the Palisades wildfire and the harrowing toll it has taken on her psychological well being.
Fabiola Sammartino
“I went to the grocery store, and it was so completely different, so completely different,” she stated. “Simply one other demography, one other style of folks that I simply wasn’t used to anymore, and the visitors, my God, I am unable to stand visitors. I simply cannot.”
She has not but returned to her work as a paralegal and stated she is at the moment in remedy coping with the bodily and psychological well being impacts of dropping her dwelling.
“My reminiscence retention is principally zero,” Sammartino stated. “I neglect issues, and really simply I lose issues. I simply have no focus. Often, I am very concentrated due to my job however my reminiscence is simply not even there. I stroll round and I can — it is like I am not right here. I am not right here.”
She went on, “I am all the time occupied with my [old] place. I see my issues. I take into consideration my espresso desk. I take into consideration the pictures that I left in my bed room or having to purchase issues that I already had, like a espresso machine, or like dishes once more. Ranging from scratch. It might sound thrilling, possibly should you’re shifting to a spot since you wish to transfer, however I used to be compelled to maneuver. And it’s extremely, very painful daily. And though I am making an attempt to, and I wish to, I am grieving, and it may take some time.”
Sammartino stated she has not but returned to work and is at the moment in remedy coping with the bodily and emotional trauma of the fires.
Courtesy of Fabiola Sammartino
Hope on the horizon
Dale Fielder and his spouse stayed in a shelter for a couple of days till FEMA put them up at a lodge in downtown Los Angeles. A mixture of a payout from their renter’s insurance coverage and a GoFundMe arrange by their mates put them in good monetary form, in keeping with Dale Fielder.
He stated his landlord is planning to rebuild however the couple is not positive in the event that they plan to remain in Los Angeles or transfer to Texas to be nearer to household.
Within the meantime, Dale Fielder stated he’s specializing in his music and utilizing it to assist himself heal. He and his band just lately recorded a CD, together with cowl artwork of him taking part in a saxophone among the many ruins of his home.
“Man, that helped me greater than something,” he stated. “As a result of I considered it, I deliberate it, I selected tunes that basically spoke to the second…It is a time of nice testing. And who is aware of, however it’s a time of actually studying find out how to reinvent your self.”
Fielder, a jazz musician, not solely misplaced a number of of his devices, but in addition 1000’s of pages of unique sheet music.
Courtesy of Dale Fielder
“I believe we’re very fortunate that we now have one another as a result of we’re tremendous constructive folks, you could be offended, upset, get into the blame, however we’re selecting to actually concentrate on the positives,” Katia Hausman instructed ABC Information.
Pacific Palisades household on revisiting their fire-destroyed dwellingKatia and Adam Hausman mirrored on completely happy reminiscences made of their Pacific Palisades dwelling and the closure they felt returning after the devastating wildfires.
ABCNews.com
“If we now have to go, let’s assume prefer it’s an journey. When else would we go and spend couple years in a unique state? It was not within the plans, however let’s make the most effective out of it.”
Regardless of all the uncertainty the Ubungens stated has clouded the month since dropping their dwelling, they mirrored on a logo of hope they found on their property whereas strolling by way of the wreckage.
“We had a extremely full, stunning backyard with a number of flowers and fruit timber and the whole rose backyard was decimated [but] there have been two tiny roses that survived — a medium-sized flower, and one tiny, little rosebud,” Ursula Ubungen stated.
“I bear in mind taking a look at that and… I noticed it as an indication of hope, like amidst this destruction, there may be nonetheless one thing that’s resilient and I could make it,” she added.
