California Today: What It Will Take to Clean Up Properties After the L.A. Fires

Today's top stories from California.

February 3, 2025, 9:31 a.m. Eastern time By Alyce McFadden My dad, Dennis McFadden, taught me how to look at buildings as beings. He's an architect and has lived in Los Angeles since he was a toddler, except for two years away for graduate school. He told me that buildings have many stages of life, as all beings do. First, for a designer, they exist in your mind, as part of you. Then you draw them, mold them into something better. And then they get built, and exist in the world. I'd seen his buildings at just about every stage, from pencil sketches in notebooks to construction sites to finished products. But I'd never seen one after death. The truth is, he'd forgotten about 822 Haverford Avenue, even though it had been special to him once. It was the first of his designs to be built, a career milestone for him back then, in 1980. He was 28, just a couple of years older than I am now, and fresh out of graduate school. Seeing it go up, he said, made him feel for the first time that he was a real architect. "You realize you have some agency and you have some skills and some power to make something," he told me. "Building a building, for architects anyway, is leaving a permanent mark on the world." We were certain that mark was gone now: The condo complex at 822 Haverford Avenue was in the middle of the area devastated by the Palisades fire. He pulled out a dusty portfolio and we pored over it at the kitchen table in the Los Angeles house where he lives and where I grew up. We flipped through laminated pages of plans, hand-drawn in careful black ink, and grainy photographs taken when the building was brand-new. "I was a workaholic, not too much different than what I am now," he said. I went looking the next day for the building my dad had designed more than 40 years ago. Fire has a way of equalizing. When I got out of my car in Pacific Palisades, each lot looked pretty much the same: one set of rubble next to one set of rubble next to another. I tried to make out the design elements my dad had described the night before. Two doorways stood precariously over a pit of ashy wreckage. These, I supposed, had been entrances to the first two units. I recognized the thin black window frames — once-rectangular portals placed strategically to give the units privacy and a view of Temescal Canyon. Those window frames survived, strangely intact, like angular line drawings dotting the wreckage. Back at the house, I showed him pictures I'd taken on my phone. He flipped through them, silent. "Devastating to look at," he said after a while. "Shocking." My dad never knew who lived inside 822 Haverford. He hopes they liked it, and that it made a good home. What he told me about buildings being alive was only part of the story, it turns out. "You send it out into the world to have a great life," he said. "And it's really only alive because of the people who live in it." Today's Top Story Mark Abramson for The New York Times What It Will Take to Clean Up Properties After the L.A. Fires Many fire victims are eager to clear their home sites and move on to rebuilding. The big question is when. Read more More California News Best and Worst Moments From the 2025 Grammys Doechii and Chappell Roan brought dramatic performances and heartfelt speeches, new artists stole the spotlight and men took a back seat at the 67th annual awards. No More Palm Trees, and Six Other Ways L.A. Can Protect Itself From Wildfires Around the world, other communities are experimenting with ideas that Los Angeles could borrow as it rebuilds from disastrous wildfires. F.D.A. Upgrades Recall of Some Chocolate Snacks to Highest Risk Level The agency warned that the products, made by Cal Yee Farm, could have potentially serious or even deadly consequences because the packages were mislabeled. No illnesses have been reported. California Wildfires Relief Efforts Are Woven Into the Ceremony The Grammys doubled as an awards ceremony and a fund-raising appeal. Trevor Noah, the host, opened the show by noting the devastation of the fires and the resilience of Los Angeles. Immigrant Communities in Hiding: 'People Think ICE Is Everywhere' Schools, churches and shops are feeling the chilling effect of the fear of deportation. One minister said fewer congregants were showing up for services. The Los Angeles Wildfires Are Fully Contained The Palisades and Eaton fires, two of the deadliest and most destructive wildfires in California history, reached 100 percent containment more than three weeks after they began. Karen Bass Was Elected for Her Experience. Right Now, L.A. Wants More. Ms. Bass, a longtime state and federal lawmaker, was seen as a pragmatic leader before the fires. But many Los Angeles residents are looking for something bolder at the moment. SoftBank Said to Be in Talks to Invest as Much as $25 Billion in OpenAI A new investment from the Japanese conglomerate would be separate from the $100 billion tied to a project announced at the White House last week. Today's Extreme Weather CITY RISK TYPES San Jose Excessive rain San Francisco Excessive rain Sacramento Excessive rain Stockton Excessive rain Risk Some High View detailed forecast Get separate alerts for your own places Local Conditions Look up the heat index in your area using The Times's heat tracker. See active fires using The Times's wildfire tracker. Today's Recipe Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne. 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