After the fires

Planet Money

NPR

Business, News

4.6 • 29.8K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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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Transcript

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0:00.0	What's in store for the music, TV, and film industries for 2025?
0:05.0	We don't know, but we're making some fun, bold predictions for the new year.
0:09.0	Listen now to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR.
0:13.0	This is Planet Money from NPR.
0:17.0	Have you been able to from NPR.
0:27.4	Have you been able to go back to your house?
0:32.0	I was able to go back to my house that Wednesday, Wednesday after.
0:36.2	The Wednesday after the big fires started in Los Angeles.
0:42.1	Yes, I was able to go back to my home, which was demolished.
0:45.4	It's like fully burned down to... Burned down to the ground.
0:47.7	Yeah, there's no evidence of a stove, refrigerator, a bathtub, a sink.
0:52.6	Those things don't exist.
0:54.1	It was flat.
0:55.3	This is Aaron Abdushikor.
0:57.4	He saw it.
0:58.7	He saw it.
1:00.0	I have not seen it myself.
1:02.3	And that is his son, Jihad Abdu Shakur.
1:04.7	It was his child at home.
1:06.2	It was my home home.
1:07.3	Yeah.
1:08.1	I grew up there.
	...

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