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After the fires

By Sarah Gonzalez,
Nick Fountain, Keith Romer, James Sneed
Published January 23, 2025 at 8:52 AM EST
Firefighters work the scene as an apartment building burns during the Eaton fire in the Altadena area of Los Angeles county, California on January 8, 2025.
Josh Edelson
/
AFP via Getty Images
Firefighters work the scene as an apartment building burns during the Eaton fire in the Altadena area of Los Angeles county, California on January 8, 2025.

The fires in Los Angeles are almost out. Residents are starting to trickle back into their burned-out neighborhoods. When they get to their houses, they face a series of almost impossible questions: Do we want to live here amongst all this destruction? And if we do, how do we even start?

Today, we meet a father and son from Altadena who are confronting those choices. We pass through the National Guard checkpoints and enter the burn zone, where we see for ourselves all the challenges waiting for residents who want to rebuild. And we talk with an insurance adjuster about how the industry tries to value people's homes — and all of their possessions — after they have been reduced to rubble.

For more on the California wildfires, check out our newsletter. We spoke with an economist who survived Oakland's wildfires in 1991 and has big ideas for how to rescue California from its insurance doom spiral.

This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Sarah Gonzalez and Nick Fountain. It was produced by James Sneed and edited by Keith Romer. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Neil Tevault with help from Gilly Moon. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

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Music: SourceAudio - "Background Bodies," "Swamp," and "Deluxe."

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Sarah Gonzalez
Sarah Gonzalez is a host and reporter with Planet Money, NPR's award-winning podcast that finds creative, entertaining ways to make sense of the big, complicated forces that move our economy. She joined the team in April 2018.
Nick Fountain
Nick Fountain produces and reports for Planet Money. Since he joined the team in 2015, he's reported stories on pears, black pepper, ice cream, chicken, and hot dogs (twice). Come to think of it, he reports on food a whole lot. But he's also driven the world's longest yard sale, uncovered the secretive group that controls international mail, and told the story of a crazy patent scheme that involved an acting Attorney General.
See stories by Nick Fountain
Keith Romer
Keith Romer has been a contributing reporter for Planet Money since 2015. He has reported stories on risk-pooling among poker players, whether it's legal to write a spin-off of the children's book Goodnight Moon and the time one man cornered the American market in onions. Sometimes on the show, he sings.
See stories by Keith Romer
James Sneed
James Sneed began his career at NPR as Planet Money's Winter 2020 intern. Previous to that, Sneed worked at KBOO Community Radio and attended the Transom Story Workshop. His other professional experience includes Open Signal Media Center, KSMoCA and MASS MoCA. Currently, Sneed is an associate producer with Planet Money where he has produced stories about a comic book character from the public domain, the business of Black joy and the Christmas tree market — as well as reported on the racial wealth gap, the NCAA at the Supreme Court and why the New York Mets don't always Mets everything up... necessarily.