If you are a student of disasters you know that the 1-year anniversary is a landmark date for community recovery. Survivors of disasters and other ‘public tragedies’ use anniversaries and other memorialization to connect, grieve, and reframe the meaning of events. Elected officials and community leaders take stock of their efforts (policies, plans, programs, etc.) and sometimes make course corrections. And the news media revisits places to do intense reporting. This creates an information environment that is second-only to the event date(s) itself. For most disasters the 1-year anniversary is the last time that the larger public will focus on the progress of recovery, except in rare cases like Hurricane Katrina.

Today marks the 1-year anniversary of the Los Angeles Fires, and as expected there has been many important and deeply-reported stories published on the state of recovery. Here is a small selection of my favorites so far:

For those who want to go deeper, there is no shortage of high-quality studies on the impacts of the fire and the status of recovery at the 1-year anniversary. Here are several that I have found useful in my own work tracking major equity challenges in the rebuilding efforts:

• Impact of 2025 Los Angeles Wildfires and Comparative Study (LA County Economic Development Commission): Details the economic and fiscal losses from the Palisades and Eaton Fires. Quantifies property damage, business disruption, job losses, and tax revenue losses under various recovery scenarios, emphasizing that the speed of recovery is the most critical factor in minimizing long-term economic harm.

• LA Wildfires: Impacts on Altadena’s Black Community (UCLA): Uses multiple data sources to highlight the disproportionate impact of the fires on Black households in Altadena.

• Impacts of the January 2025 Wildfires on Businesses: The Local Business Landscape in Altadena and Pacific Palisades Before the Fire (UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute). One in a series of briefs on the business impacts of the fires.

• Community Voices – LA Fire Recovery Report (Embold Research for Department of Angels): Survey of 2,335 adults who were living in impacted communities in LA in January of 2025, approximately 9 months after the fire. Includes data on housing stability, insurance access, financial impacts, mental health, environmental health, and rebuilding progress.

• Findings from the Pacific Palisades Resident Preferences and Priorities Survey (NORC at the University of Chicago, for the Pacific Palisades Community Council): Survey of 1,265 adults who lived in the Pacific Palisades at the time of the fire, broadly looking at questions of household return and rebuilding; financial barriers to recovery; environmental safety concerns; funding and governance models; and infrastructure.

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