Multiple wildfires in the Los Angeles area have left at least 10 people dead and thousands more with damaged or destroyed homes. Putting everything back together could take billions of dollars and a decade of rebuilding, experts say.
The wildfires have ripped through an area of about 20,000 acres, or around twice the size of Manhattan, and left at least 10,000 structures destroyed. And the damages and economic losses could add up to between $135 billion to $150 billion, according to a preliminary estimate by AccuWeather.
Based on similar disasters, rebuilding the wildfire-affected areas could take five to 10 years, said Aris Papadopoulos, the founder of the Resilience Action Fund, a nonprofit helping raise awareness about building resilience in homes against natural disasters.
Papadopoulos said that when the smoke clears, around one third of property owners will sell and leave the area, while another third of wealthier residents will rebuild within three to five years. The remaining third of people who are not wealthy and are uninsured or underinsured could take up to a decade to rebuild.
Those homeowners that choose to rebuild will have to deal with much higher materials and labor costs and possibly a long wait for in-demand contractors.
“The category with the money is the first to lock up the contractors, and then everybody else has to wait for them to finish,” Papadopoulos told Fortune.
Almost half of all small businesses in the area will also likely not reopen, he added, further draining the area’s tax base. The lagging economic impact could last for at least five years. Meanwhile, the government will be encumbered by the added cost of repairing public property and restarting services.
Yet, when the rebuilding starts, Papadopoulos stressed that both homeowners and the government need to step up to build more resilient structures that can better withstand future fires.
For years, builders across the country have lowered their building standards and safety precautions in an effort to cut costs, he claimed. Many state and local governments have also turned a blind eye by not requiring buildings to be upgraded with safety features under strict deadlines to protect against disasters such as wildfires. Regulators have also been lax in raising standards for new construction, said Papadopoulos.
“In the name of efficiency, in the name of profit, and all these things, we’ve gone down this path of increasing risk and increasing vulnerability, and we’re paying the price now,” he said.
Any type of rebuilding needs to take into account higher standards to protect against fire risk, he said. Using anti-combustible building materials, installing a metal roof, and adding fire-rated windows is a start. Such precautions have been shown to decrease the likelihood of a property incurring major damages.
Any home being rebuilt in the area should take into account such safety precautions, Papadopoulos added, but even homes that were only slightly damaged or were lucky enough to avoid the fires should also be updated.
“This is not going to be the last wildfire that California and that region sees,” he said.
