Three days after the
But some are ignoring the mandatory evacuation orders, slipping past roadblocks and witnessing the devastation firsthand. Others are having to find out the status of their homes from afar — via social media footage, news reports or drone images.
READ MORE:
Whatever the source, the picture that is emerging is clear: Entire neighborhoods leveled. Homes from cozy cottages to lavish beachfront villas reduced to ash. Schools gutted. And along the commercial corridor, buildings from the Gelson's supermarket to the local Starbucks in ruins.
Darrin Hurwitz, a 49-year-old lawyer who lives in the Palisades, is staying with his family about 50 miles away from LA while they await official confirmation if their house was destroyed. But based on video footage and media reports, he says he's pretty certain that it's gone.
He had moved with his family to the area only a year and a half ago, charmed by its beauty, hiking trails and sense of community.
READ MORE:
"I love the Palisades, you know, it's paradise," he said. "But I don't know that we are those people that are going to want to invest the next five to 10 years of our lives to building our dream house in an area that you know is increasingly at risk of wildfire and other natural disasters."
Hurwitz's concern points to how the fires that have utterly devastated the Pacific Palisades and other enclaves across LA will reshape the city long after the last embers of the blazes burn out.
The Palisades fire, stretched across an area larger than Manhattan and where the median home price approaches $4 million, has damaged or destroyed more than 5,000 structures. The high value of real estate in the community sets up the prospect of a
Rick Caruso, the billionaire owner of the Palisades Village, a high-end shopping center that narrowly escaped the worst of the flames, expressed disbelief at the scale of the devastation.
"Most of the downtown is gone, whole sections of neighborhoods are gone," Caruso told Fox News. "What's amazing to me is how widespread the devastation — that this could happen in a relatively short period of time."
READ MORE:
The death toll from all of the Los Angeles-area fires has climbed to at least 10, including two in the Palisades blaze. Investigators, often working with cadaver-sniffing dogs, are just beginning to search many of the burned homes.
On Friday morning, members of the California National Guard gathered on Pacific Coast Highway at the beach to support police manning checkpoints into the Palisades area. Inside the evacuation zone, emergency vehicles and water trucks prowled the streets, passing smoldering homes and blackened storefronts. Police escorted small groups of residents who were allowed brief visits to retrieve surviving belongings from their homes.
The fallout in Pacific Palisades — known for its hiking trails, canyons and beachfront splendor — has sent the
Katie Koch, the chief executive officer of asset manager TCW Group Inc., based in downtown Los Angeles, posted a
With it came a poignant note of personal impact: She too lost her house in the fire.
"A number of our team members have been displaced and several have lost their homes completely, my family included," she wrote. "Even after the fires are contained and the devastation can be assessed, the recovery process is certain to be long for both the LA area and many among our TCW family."
READ MORE:
From CEOs to longtime residents to Hollywood stars, the blazes have been unsparing. Celebrities including actors Billy Crystal, Cary Elwes and James Woods lost their homes. Paris Hilton posted a
Actress Jamie Lee Curtis, who lives in the area, described the destruction during an emotional appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday night. "It's a catastrophe in southern California," she said as her voice cracked.
As of Friday afternoon, the
"This firestorm is the big one," Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said in a press briefing Wednesday. "I have seen the frontlines of the Palisades fire, and it is staggering."
Beyond the human trauma of destroyed residences and businesses, the fires are a reminder of the financial costs of the climate crisis for
READ MORE:
That's forced some residents to rely on the state-funded FAIR plan, where policies in that same ZIP code grew 85% between 2023 and 2024.
The Pacific Palisades housing market had been outperforming many areas in the region, with sales in the main ZIP code surging 19% in the third quarter, according to Jonathan Miller, the head of appraisal firm Miller Samuel Inc. The median sales price was $3.79 million, he said.
"What will be surprising in the aftermath will be the high number of homes that didn't have sufficient insurance coverage," Miller said. "Coastal locations that have been subjected to drought and high winds, no matter how wealthy their occupants are, are fair game for wildfires."
