Rebuild:LA
REBUILD:LA began in the aftermath of the devastating January 2025 wildfires, when firestorms tore through Pacific Palisades and Altadena, claiming 31 lives and leaving historic destruction in their wake. The podcast was created to follow the difficult road to recovery and to help Los Angeles understand what it would take to rebuild. Today, REBUILD:LA is expanding its mission—and moving to both video and audio. Rebuilding Los Angeles is about much more than replacing homes lost to wildfire. It is about the future of the entire region: our neighborhoods, streets, water and power systems, public safety, housing and construction, wildfire resilience, disaster preparedness, and the infrastructure that connects our communities. Each week, REBUILD:LA goes beyond the headlines to examine the issues, decisions and people shaping the future of Los Angeles. Through field-produced stories, in-depth conversations, expert analysis and perspectives from people working directly in our communities, we explore what is changing, what isn’t working, and what it will take to build a safer, stronger and more resilient L.A. Because rebuilding isn’t simply about putting things back the way they were. It’s an opportunity to build Los Angeles better. REBUILD:LA is the proud recipient of the 2025 Communicator Award of Excellence, the 2025 Silver W3 Award, and the 2026 Silver NYX Award for podcasting.
Episodes
This week, we’re wrapping up our series on native plants by bringing you two experts who can help you plant a native garden. First, we meet Erik Blank, the head gardener at the Theodore Payne Foundation who teaches Los Angelenos how to create a native plant landscape. And host Cameron Barrett tours a home garden in Tujunga that shows you just how beautiful and wildfire-resilient a landscape filled with n...
On this week's episode of Rebuild:LA, host Cameron Barrett continues our series on native plants when she asks biologist and Loyola Marymount professor Dr. Demian Willette if LA is doing brush clearance all wrong. The answer might surprise you. We also spend time with nursery manager Jade Faith from the non-profit North East Trees, and discover where you might be able to get your hands on a coast live oak.
Resources:
...This week's show is a visual feast for anyone who loves native plants or wants to learn more about them. Host Cameron Barrett tours a micro-forest in Northeast Los Angeles, located in Ascot Hills Park, with micro-forest designer and native plant horticulturalist Katherine Pakradouni. The micro-forest is living proof that Los Angeles's native wildlands no longer contain the native plants that once protected the regio...
This week we wrap up our series on wildfire evacuation with another harrowing story of survival. Caroline Nick, her husband, and her kids fled the Palisades Fire in January 2025. They thought they had time, but ended up dead-stopped in traffic as the fire crept closer. They abandoned both cars and made a run for it up Pacific Coast Highway. You’ll hear her conversation with host Cameron Barrett, as well as a t...
This week, we continue our series on evacuation when host Cameron Barrett chats with Palisades Fire Survivor Erin Kyle Osborne. When Erin evacuated on January 6, 2025, she had packed the car with her daughter, her daughter’s friend, the cats, and a few precious things she had time to grab. But the minute she hit Palisades Parkway, she joined thousands of others trying to flee. Turns out the only thing fast-mov...
In this week's Rebuild:LA, we begin a series on wildfire evacuation. After the panic that ensued as thousands of residents tried to evacuate from the Palisades and Eaton Fires in January 2025, Los Angeles County fire departments turned to technology for help. Host Cameron Barrett talks to the Glendale Fire Department's Community Risk Reduction Officer to learn what mobile applications they've put in place for reside...
The California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection has withdrawn its Zone Zero emergency regulation package from the California Office of Administrative Law (OAL). The Board later said the withdrawal is procedural and that it's working through technical edits and questions with the OAL. The Board expects to make changes and resubmit the regulations. But no one has shared a public timetable for when.
On this week's ...
Last week, state legislators wrapped up their session and sent several bills to Governor Gavin Newsom's desk, all aimed at strengthening wildfire resilience and recovery.
This week, host Cameron Barrett brings you a legislative roundup of the bills that could help LA recover and speaks with Senator Ben Allen. Allen's district includes Pacific Palisades, and one of the bills he authored this session, SB894, is current...
WE'RE BACK! All-new season. All-new podcast. Now with video!
And we're kicking off the new season and the new Rebuild:LA with one of our most controversial topics - Zone Zero.
On August 19th of this year, the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection - the policy-making body of CAL FIRE - passed its final draft of Zone Zero. There are still procedural hoops to jump through, but the defensible space policy...
In our last Encore Episode before the premiere of Season 5, we revisit the Future Organization and its founder, Aimery Thomas. After the Eaton Fire, Thomas and his partner, Leila Towry, looked around their destroyed Altadena neighborhood and realized their training as researchers of vulnerable populations uniquely positioned them to help their community. They decided to survey 1,228 neighbors to learn what happened ...
Our latest Encore Episode brings you back to just a few weeks after the Palisades Fire and introduces you to someone who fought that fire…from the skies. Linnea Edmeier is the Public Information Officer for CAL FIRE’s Aviation Unit. She responded to the Palisades Fire hours after it broke out, deploying to Catalina Island, where she and CAL FIRE pilots set up a base of operations to drop water and fire ...
We’re busy retooling our podcast, and the new Rebuild:LA will premiere September 1st! In the meantime, another ENCORE EPISODE comes your way. Episode 50 first aired on November 11, 2025, and was the first of a two-part episode featuring Eaton Fire survivors Angela Giachetti and Andrew King. Their evacuation stories are as frightening as they are frustrating. Neither King nor Giachetti ever received an official...
We’re busy retooling our podcast and the new Rebuild:LA will premiere September 1st! In the meantime, another ENCORE EPISODE comes your way. Episode 59 originally aired on January 5, 2026, and marked the first anniversary of the Palisades and Eaton Fires. Host Cameron Barrett and the MySafe:LA production team recorded the episode at an art exhibit marking the anniversary, at the City Market Social House in Dow...
We’re busy retooling our podcast, and the new Rebuild:LA will premiere September 1st! In the meantime, another ENCORE EPISODE comes your way. Episode 30 originally aired on June 20, 2025. Host Cameron Barrett sat down with friend, colleague, and former Glendale Fire Chief Sylvio Lanzas, who had recently retired to join the private sector as the Chief Operating Officer for a company called M-Fire. They have a s...
Do you remember what it was like in those first few weeks after the Palisades and Eaton Fires? The raw emotions? The confusion? The rumors?!
We started Rebuild:LA in those dark days after the January 2025 Firestorms, and we've been trying to break through the noise ever since.
Welcome to another Encore Episode as we retool our podcast for the fifth season, which premieres on September first! This week, we go all the w...
We’re busy retooling our podcast, and the new Rebuild:LA will premiere September 1st! In the meantime, another ENCORE EPISODE comes your way. Episode 52 originally aired on November 25, 2025. While that doesn’t seem that long ago, a lot has happened in the intervening seven and a half months - especially for our returning guest, Dr. Nicole Maccalla of Eaton Fire Residents United. She, her children, and h...
On the first of September, the new Rebuild:LA will premiere. We’re entering into the scary world of video and will be bringing you the next crop of leaders, visionaries, and doers who are helping to Rebuild LA.
Until then, we’re queuing up our most popular episodes and updating them where we can. So welcome to our first encore episode. The Hard Truth About Zone Zero first aired on May 30, 2025. The guest ...
TreePeople has been around for more than 50 years and has planted millions of trees. The non-profit dedicated to maintaining and growing our forests, parks, and even street tree populations, sees trees as not only integral but necessary parts of our infrastructure. And they’re trying to get the rebuilding effort in Los Angeles to recognize the importance of what they call green infrastructure and agree to plan...
There are state, county, regional, and city programs offering rebates, incentives, and planning assistance if you've been affected by the Los Angeles Wildfires and are considering building an electric home. We talk with three representatives from three different programs this week, in the second part of our two-part series on electrifying your home. Host Cameron Barrett welcomes our first guest, Patrice Hicks from R...
Are you rebuilding? Renovating? Adding on? Rethinking your living space? Have you thought about going all-electric? That’s what we’re talking about this week and next with three experts - Patrice Hicks from RISE Homes, Erin Keller from the California Electric Homes Project, and Enayet Miah from Los Angeles’ Department of Water and Power. They have the expertise…and perhaps the money&he...
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