A Year After Los Angeles Wildfires, Contaminants Still Linger
Even a year after the Los Angeles wildfires, there are still reminders that contaminants linger, like “DANGER: Lead Work Area.” House cleaners, hazardous waste workers, and homeowners all come and go wearing masks, respirators, gloves and hazmat suits as they clean, vacuum, and power-wash homes that were not burnt to ash. The wildfires were the most destructive in Los Angeles history, scorching neighborhoods and displacing tens of thousands of people. Two wind-fueled blazes ignited on January 7, 2025, and killed at least 31 people and destroyed nearly 17,000 structures, including homes, schools, businesses, and places of worship. It will take years to rebuild.
Wildfires have brought new forms of trauma for people afraid of what still lurks inside their homes. Indoor air quality after wildfires continues to be understudied, and scientists still do not know the long-term health effects of exposure to massive urban fires like the one last year in Los Angeles. Some chemicals are linked to heart disease and lung issues, and exposure to minerals like magnetite has been associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Ash in the area is a toxic mix of incinerated cars, electronics, paints, furniture, and every other personal belonging. It can contain pesticides, asbestos, plastics, lead, or other heavy metals. Many people are living in homes containing these harmful materials left by the fires.
People are being forced into their damaged and contaminated homes. Their homes were once a safe haven before soot, ash, and smoke seeped inside, leaving behind harmful levels of lead even after professional cleaning. Recent testing found that the toxin is still on the wooden floors of their living room and bedroom. They were forced to move back into their home anyway, after insurance cut off their rental assistance. Now that they are back inside their home one person wakes up almost daily with a sore throat and headaches while the other had to get an inhaler for his worsening wheezing and congestion. They say their bedroom smells like an ashtray that has been sitting around for a long time. They now worry about exposure to contaminants that insurance companies are not required to test for.
According to a report released by the Eaton Fire Residents United, a volunteer group formed by residents, six out of 10 homes damaged from smoke from the Eaton Fire still have dangerous levels of cancer-causing asbestos, brain-damaging lead or both. This is based on self-submitted data from 50 homeowners who have cleaned their homes, with 78 percent hiring professional cleaners. Of the 50 homes, 63 percent have lead levels above the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard, according to the report. The average lead levels were almost 60 times higher than the EPA’s rule. Even after fires were extinguished, volatile organic compounds from smoke, some known to cause cancer, lingered inside people’s homes. To mitigate risks, residents need to ventilate and filter indoor air by opening windows or running high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) purifiers with charcoal filters. One resident said she can’t get her insurance company to pay for an adequate cleanup of her family’s Altadena home, which tested positive for lead and other toxic compounds. Experts believe the lead, which lingers in dust on floors and windowsills, comes from burned lead paint. The University of Southern California reported that 70 percent of homes within the Eaton Fire were built before 1979, when lead paint was common.
People who lived in the Pacific Palisades, which was also scorched, face similar challenges. Residents are at the mercy of insurance companies, who decide what they cover and how much. The state’s insurer of last resort, known as the California Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan, has been scrutinized for years over its handling of fire damage claims. Homeowners want state agencies to enforce a requirement that insurance companies return a property to pre-fire condition. One resident is not taking any risks. She paid about $7,000 out of pocket to test the soil in her Altadena home, even though her insurance agency agreed to pay to replace the grass in her front yard. She planned on testing for contaminants once they finished remediating the inside, the process in which a home is made contaminant free. If insurance does not pay for it, she will pay for it herself. Even once their homes are livable again, residents will face other losses, like equity and the community that was once there. Homes will be a construction zone for years.
Some people are being helped to navigate the many different challenges like insurance companies resisting to pay for contamination testing and industrial hygienists disagreeing on what to test for. There is a major mental health toll that surviving a fire creates. Many people are at first joyful to see their houses still standing, but it goes downhill from there. People have to inspect belongings, one by one, fearing that they may have absorbed toxins. Painstakingly going through their things and assessing what can be adequately cleaned. One resident is cleaning cabinets, drawers, floors, and is still finding soot and ash. She wears gloves and a respirator, or sometimes just an N-95 mask. Insurance will not pay to test her home, so she and her husband have to consider paying for testing themselves, which would cost $10,000. If results show contamination, the insurance company will not pay to clean up toxins that are not federally regulated, like lead and asbestos.
Were you exposed to a toxic substance like asbestos and later diagnosed with mesothelioma or lung cancer? Contact us today to see if you could be entitled to compensation. Call 412-471-3980 or fill out our contact form on our website and a member of our team will get back to you as soon as possible.
