Researcher's goal: Palisades resilient to fire

Robert Lempert of Rand hopes to use computer simulations to aid his community.

- BY NOAH HAGGERTY

JASON ARMOND Los Angeles Times

RAND researcher Robert Lempert visits his property in the Palisades last month.

In what used to be a dry cleaner's on Sunset Boulevard, Robert Lempert listened, hands clasped behind his back, as his neighbors finally took a moment to step away from recovery's endless stream of paperwork, permits, bills and bureaucracy to, instead, envision a fire-resilient Pacific Palisades in 2035.

As a researcher at Rand, Lempert has spent decades studying how communities, corporations and governments can use computer simulations to understand complex problems with huge uncertainties — from how an Alaska town can better warn its residents about landslides to how climate change is worsening disasters and what strategies the United Nations can support to address them.

In January, one such complex problem ran straight through his neighborhood and burned down his house.

As he and his wife process their own trauma forged by flames, Lempert has become fixated on capturing the flickers of insights from fellow survivors and, hopefully, eventually transforming them into computer programs that could help the community rebuild the Palisades into a global leader in wildfire resilience.

"Otherwise, we won't end up with a functional community that anybody wants to — or can — live in," he said. "You can spin out all sorts of disaster scenarios" for the Pacific Palisades of 2035. If the community fails to confront them in rebuilding, "you make them a hell of a lot more likely."