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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 Downtown Los Angeles. The exhibit presented fire survivors through an immersive experience featuring sound, still photography, film, and original artwork. It was only open for a few days in early January, but thousands of people visited, bringing donated food, financial aid, and volunteer hours. A dozen organizations attended the opening, and MySafe:LA was on hand to talk to them, record their reports from the fireground, and hear their hopes for the future of Los Angeles. Listen (or re-listen!) to this heartbreaking, yet hopeful tribute to the survivors of the Altadena and Palisades Fires.

Resources:

• With Us
• Department of Angels
• Extreme Weather Survivors
• Project:Camp
• Eaton Fire Survivors Network
• Team Palisades
• Palisades Recovery Coalition

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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 spray-on fire retardant made of food-grade materials that Lanzas believes can revolutionize home building in fire-ravaged areas and help prepare high-risk communities for wildfires. The product is called AF31 and is widely used in other parts of the world but has had trouble gaining traction in the United States. Why? Well, that’s a story you have to hear to believe. So listen…or re-listen to episode 30, all about M-Fire’s AF31.

Resources:

• M-Fire Technologies
• M-Fire Suppression
• Questions about AF31? Email [email protected]

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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 way back to those weeks right after the fires, and bring you our very first episode. We wanted to bring facts to the post-fire conversation. We wanted to find the subject matter experts, the scientists, the firefighters, the elected officials, the non-profit and community leaders who could help make sense of our post-fire world.

In our very first episode, we also had another objective in mind. We wanted to give people hope. We wanted to tell them that they were not powerless. They could protect themselves, their families, and their homes from wildfires. There were steps they could take. So we brought on MySafe:LA’s Executive Officer, David Barrett, to outline three steps homeowners could take. And then we offered to help with all three steps...for free.

That’s MySafe:LA’s job. It was before the fires. And it remains our job today. Help people prepare for wildfires and build community resilience. So let’s go back in time to those raw days right after the fires, and hear words of hope from MySafe:LA’s David Barrett.

Resources:

• For free home wildfire inspections: 213-634-0100

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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 her pets evacuated the Eaton Fire and were relieved to learn in the days after the January 2025 Firestorm that their house was still standing. But it took months for them to return home. While her house hadn’t been consumed by flames, it had been saturated with smoke and toxic debris. During the months of testing, cleaning, remodeling, and fighting insurance companies, she started Eaton Fire Residents United. The non-profit sources and publishes testing results from the fire and helps survivors understand the dangers of returning home before remediation. It is also proving that not all remediation is created equal. Have a relisten to Episode 052 and learn what the January 21025 Firestorms left behind.

Resources:

• Eaton Fire Residents United
• What the Eaton Fire Left Behind
• Pre-remediation Contamination Map
• Post-remediation Contamination Map
  
  

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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 was Dr. Travis Longcore, an Adjunct Professor at UCLA and the co-chair of the Environmental Science and Engineering Program at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. He serves on the Los Angeles County Environmental Review Board and is a vocal critic of Zone Zero. In 2020, California passed Assembly Bill 3074, which established Zone Zero - an ember-resistant zone within five feet of homes in High and Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones. And since that Bill passed, Californians have been arguing about how to implement it. State Fire Officials say it’s necessary to help fight the state’s increasing wildfire risk. Dr. Longcore and thousands of others say Zone Zero is impossible to implement or regulate, and won’t do much to prevent wildfire.

Now we go back in time to May 30, 2025, and the fight over Zone Zero.

New Resources:

• California Board of Forestry & Fire Protection Draft Rules
• Is My Home in a High Fire Hazard Severity Zone?
• MySafe:LA's Take on Zone Zero

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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 the new Pacific Palisades, Altadena, and Malibu with trees playing a central role. Science proves them right. Trees provide cooling microclimates, combat climate change, capture and create moisture, slow erosion, and even serve as windbreaks and ember catchers during wildfires. This week, host Cameron Barrett talks to biologist and tree scientist Dr. Cassie Rauser. She is also the executive director of TreePeople. And she has a plan for rebuilding LA.

Resources:

• TreePeople
• Theodore Payne Foundation
• ARLA (Accelerate Resilience LA)
• Resilient Palisades
• A Living Memorial to Those Lost in the January 7th Fire

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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 RISE Homes. RISE Homes is short for Rebuilding Incentives for Sustainable Electric Homes - a state-wide program funded by the California Public Utilities Commission. Our second guest is Erin Keller, who is talking about her incentive programs at Cal EHP, or the California Electric Homes Program. Finally, our third guest, from LA DWP, is Enayet Miah, who presents the HOME LA program, short for High-performance, Optimized, Modern Electrification in Los Angeles. Each of our experts this week brings not only details on their programs and how to apply, but also their hopes for the future of Los Angeles as we rebuild. 

Resources:

• LA DWP's HomeLA
• LA DWP in the Palisades
• LA DWP's Save Programs
• RISE Homes
• California's Electric Homes Program
• Passive House Institute

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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…to help you go electric. Host Cameron Barrett begins our two-episode conversation with our three subject matter experts this week, finding out why electric could be a better solution for you, and how to learn more. Next week she gets into the money offered by each organization, and how these programs could change the future of homebuilding in Pacific Palisades and Altadena.

Resources:

• RISE Homes
• CalEHP
• LA DWP Save

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We're getting our next two-part episode ready for you. It will drop at 1:00 am Pacific Time on June 16 and is the first in a two-part series on electrifying the rebuild in the Palisades and Altadena. We'll have three experts who will outline the substantial incentives available to those interested in de-gasifying their new homes.

Don't miss it!

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The Palisades Fire created an ecological disaster as only a widespread urban conflagration can. But it also created a blank canvas and an opportunity, according to Sara Marti, the Communications Director of Resilient Palisades. The eco-centric non-profit began in 2019, offering free help in a wide array of environmentally friendly initiatives from clearing invasive species to electrifying your home. But when the Palisades Fire destroyed much of the region that Resilient Palisades had spent years trying to improve, the group had to pivot. And they did, releasing a plan for rebuilding the Palisades that would make it the environmental stronghold they had always believed it could be. This week, Sara Marti explains the initiatives Resilient Palisades is working on post-fire, and how you can leverage the group's expertise to make your home more environmentally resilient.

Resources:

• Resilient Palisades
• Reimagining the Palisades
• Tree People
• Palisades Beautiful
• Electrify the Rebuild

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