
With no legal way to go home in a disaster zone, tens of thousands of evacuated residents are hanging on a thread as they wait to find out if their houses survived.
Many are furiously refreshing a county website that is, slowly but surely, detailing the damage lot-by-lot.
Those determinations that can change the course of a family's life are being made by people such as Natasha Fouts, a damage-inspection specialist with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. On a recent sunny morning, she high-stepped over a downed power line as she circled what used to be a low-slung 1960s-era Malibu Hills home with soaring views of the Pacific Ocean. Now, all that stands is a brick chimney.
"That's it for this property," Fouts, 45 years old, said, returning to the road. "The house was destroyed." A ribbon tied around an iron gate signaled the house's fate was officially logged.
It was a somber conclusion for just one of the 30-some homes Fouts thought she would get to during her first day on the job. Up to 12,000 parcels awaited inspection when the roughly 52 inspectors fanned out across the vast Palisades fire area to begin their work. Thousands more examinations were in progress at the nearby Eaton fire.
"Usually it's a two-week assignment, but for this one they told us to plan for three," Fouts said.
As of Sunday, Cal Fire inspectors had tagged roughly 78% of properties in the Palisades fire area and 90% for the Eaton.
This story is from the January 21, 2025 edition of The Wall Street Journal.
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This story is from the January 21, 2025 edition of The Wall Street Journal.
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