LOS ANGELES—Anita Ghazarian and Simon Penny live in a house on the westernmost edge of Altadena—missed by the flames from the catastrophic Eaton Fire, but still close enough to be blanketed in ash. Farther east, in the burn zone, they own a house they rent out, which was minimally damaged.

As soon as the electricity comes back on, Ghazarian’s insurance adjuster told her, the rental house is considered habitable.

“How can I tell my tenants to move back into a house where the entire backyard is filled with ash and broken stuff and the houses around it are all burn zones? Are the kids going to play in that backyard?” Ghazarian asked.

In a maze of online maps, residents can find themselves in an uncertain space: Their house might be in an EPA “normal” zone, meaning it has been repopulated after evacuations, and also marked green on a county map (showing no or minimal damage), and yet surrounded by obliterated structures and covered in ash.

Such intact structures risk being cross-contaminated by nearby burned structures, according to research from the University of Colorado at Boulder that looked at health impacts from smoke in homes after the Marshall Fire, which destroyed more than 1,000 buildings in 2021.

After Colorado’s Marshall Fire, more than half of the hundreds of people surveyed experienced symptoms from wildfire smoke six months after the fire, and continue to report symptoms even after extensive remediation.

Homes untouched by the fires had high levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including benzene and toluene, carried in by ash and smoke from the homes that did burn.

In scope and scale, the Los Angeles disaster dwarfs the tragic Marshall Fire, and threatens a commensurate environmental crisis.

Los Angeles County’s two major fires, in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena, burned through 40,000 acres, about 60 square miles, and killed 25 people, destroying more than 16,000 structures and reducing whole neighborhoods to rubble.

In total, five concurrent fires burned more than 55,000 acres—around three times the size of Manhattan.

“We’re now in the disaster after the disaster,” said Jane Williams, executive director of the nonprofit California Communities Against Toxics.

“And exactly the same thing that happened at 9/11 is happening here, where everyone just wants to return to normal, and they put pressure on public officials to say everything is safe, and everybody goes back to drinking the water and breathing the air,” she told The Epoch Times.

At the same time, nearly three weeks in, some residents had not been allowed back to see the ruins of their homes, search for memorabilia or fully process what had happened.

That tension—between the need to rebuild, and the untold hazards left by the fires—will shape the largest disaster recovery in California history.

Williams, who has worked with governments and communities in the aftermath of some of the largest disasters in recent memory, including the 2023 Maui fires in Hawaii, expects that even in environmentally conscious California, advocating for caution will be difficult.

“You’re going to see workers in scuba gear with Tyvek suits and booties over their shoes and gloves, removing hazardous waste. And across the street, you’re going to see kids playing in a playground,” she said.

Federal agencies in charge of the cleanup have outlined enhanced safety protocols for collection and disposal of hazardous waste and debris, but there are critical blind spots.

In particular, questions remain about the habitability of structures left intact by the fires, and the safety of air, soil, and water in impacted areas.

This issue is likely to take center stage in areas impacted by the Eaton Fire, where destroyed homes are surrounded by thousands left intact but saturated with smoke and ash.

Appetites for risk vary. Some residents whose homes survived never left; others want to return immediately. But a lack of clear guidance or standards in the federally led cleanup has left many more in limbo.

As displaced residents face the challenges ahead, many are wondering who is ultimately responsible for protecting their health and safety—and why the burden of proof appears to be on their shoulders.

As for the ash-covered soil, Ghazarian wonders if she’ll need to remove it herself.

The Army Corps of Engineers, in the second phase of a two-part federal cleanup plan, will remove six inches of soil from damaged and destroyed properties. That process may take up to a year or longer, and it is unclear if it will apply to intact structures like Ghazarian’s rental property. The first phase, currently underway, involves mandatory hazardous material removal by the EPA.

At a recent town hall meeting for the Eaton Fire recovery, the county Department of Public Works (DPW) said it has no plans to test soil. The EPA has said that testing air, soil, and water is the responsibility of local agencies.

Insurance companies are not lining up to spend thousands of dollars on the effort, either, Ghazarian said. “They say, no, that’s not our problem.”

Her partner, Penny, who grew up accustomed to wildfires in Australia, said he was amazed there was no organized response from authorities to test ash for a baseline before the expected rains came.

“There’s no county, state, or apparently federal agency that has the responsibility for testing toxic ash fallout from fires. There’s no one who is responsible,” Penny said. “The Army Corps of Engineers is telling us it’s L.A. County DPW [Department of Public Works], and DPW is saying it’s [L.A. County Board of Supervisors Chair Kathryn] Barger’s responsibility, and Barger is saying it’s the EPA. They’re backing this thing around and it’s like, where is the regulation?”

Penny spoke with an industrial hygienist about doing work on the house, and the hygienist told him, “It’s the wild, wild West out here.”

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health and its Department of Public Works did not respond to requests for comment.

In this vacuum, exiled neighbors have turned to social media to organize. In Facebook pages, group emails, Zoom meetings, and text messages, they are posting results of heavy metal tests from private contractors and thinking about how to map their data.

They also share tips—for example, if you request soil testing and your insurance denies it, go ask FEMA in person.

In a Reddit forum on the subject, one Altadena resident posted results from an inspector who tested dust samples in her home for lead and asbestos. The results showed lead up to 33 times federal and state regulated levels—in areas where there was no visible dust, in a house outside the burn zone.

“While I know I can get the interior cleaned up, what worries me is that all of this stuff is also on the street, in the soil, on our yards,” the resident wrote.

Altadena residents have reason to be concerned about asbestos, which is blamed for much of the post-9/11 public health crisis.

In the case of the Eaton Fire, the vast majority—35,543 out of 41,128—of structures in the burn zone were built before 1979. That means they are more likely to contain asbestos, the cheap, fire-resistant material that was used widely in construction starting in the 1930s before being phased out in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

“This is the largest cleanup in California’s history,” Williams said.

The largest before it, created by decades of contamination from the former lead-battery giant Exide in Los Angeles, was a fraction of the size and had third-party monitors, air monitoring, extensive worker safety, and community safety protocols, Williams said.

“All those protections we already have in place are going to go by the wayside here. And you’re talking about 50 square miles of ash and debris and toxic waste that have to be removed.”

Even at Ghazarian’s home outside the burn zone, there is heavy ash residue.

“Can you garden? Can you eat off it? Can you have kids play in that backyard?” Ghazarian asks. “What is going to happen in three, five, 10, 20 years to people who inhabit that house?”

She is having a hard time finding companies equipped to test for a long list of contaminants known to be in play after the fires.

“We’re just going to be left to our own devices and we’re not sure when we can move back. Is it safe? What about our tenants? And who is going to be in charge of all this?”

Residents grappling with these questions have created a petition to demand clear standards for remediation and testing, claiming the lack of guidance is putting them at risk.

“The goal here is not to keep people from their homes. Instead we demand official guidelines clarifying for homeowners and insurers what is safe when,” the petition reads.

“Choice ultimately should lie with the homeowner if they want to return early, but we don’t want homeowners to be forced home sooner than is safe.”

Known Hazards, New Territory

Nearly a quarter-century after 9/11, more than twice the number of people have died of exposure to contaminants released in the fall of the Twin Towers than in the attack itself—of respiratory, cardiac, and digestive disorders, as well as cancers.

In the days immediately after 9/11, the former director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told the public the air was safe to breathe—a statement for which she later apologized. Subsequent investigations revealed officials intentionally downplayed dangers amid insufficient data.

As of 2021, 24,000 people have been diagnosed with a 9/11-related cancer, including mesothelioma, a rare and aggressive malignancy caused by asbestos exposure that can take decades to manifest.

Comparisons of California’s fires to 9/11 tend to elicit a fierce backlash. In the long shadow of the response to COVID-19, many are wary of any perceived rush to panic over public health.

The massive toxic cloud of dust and ash that descended over lower Manhattan in 2001 is not an exact parallel to California’s fires—but it and other modern disasters have shown how toxic contaminants can travel and continue to threaten human health years later.

But it’s not just the size of the fires, it’s what they burned.

Winding across intersections of wild and urban landscapes, the wind-driven infernos melted electric cars, solar panels, gas tanks, lithium-ion batteries, plastics, asbestos, and more, releasing a horrific grab bag of hazardous toxins into the air, water, and soil.

Authorities have closed miles of Southern California beaches indefinitely, citing unsafe ocean water and sand from debris runoff following recent rains, and local water agencies have issued do-not-drink orders for the foreseeable future.

Pollutants released by such fires and concentrated in the ashes are known hazards, linked to acute irritation as well as chronic disease and heightened cancer risk. Even brief exposure to asbestos and heavy metals such as lead and arsenic can lead to severe illness years after exposure, L.A. County officials have warned.

Other chemicals found in urban wildfires, some at levels several orders of magnitude higher than levels typically found in wildfires—including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, dioxins and furans, as well as toxic VOCs such as benzene—are known carcinogens, absorbed through inhalation, ingestion, or skin contact.

The fact that fire smoke can exacerbate existing respiratory conditions is well-established, but growing evidence also links even short-term exposure to inflammation in healthy people, respiratory infections and all-cause mortality, and cardiovascular effects such as heart attacks and strokes. Between 2008 and 2018, researchers estimate more than 52,000 premature deaths were attributable to particulate matter from wildland fire in California. Research funded by the National Institutes of Health has also shown a pronounced link between fine particulate matter from wildfires and dementia risk.

Invisible, ultrafine particles released in the fires can impact nearly every organ system—including the brain, leading to other effects on metabolism, cognition, and memory, explained Ed Avol, a professor of clinical medicine with the University of Southern California, during a recent webinar on health impacts of the fires hosted by the California Coalition for Clean Air.

“[These are] particles so small they actually can evade the many mechanisms your body has to defend it and get in through the bloodstream. And once they get into the bloodstream, they can circulate to virtually every organ system in the body,” Avol said.

But you wouldn’t know it.

Available air quality sensors do not pick up such particles, which are smaller than those continuously monitored in the Air Quality Index by government agencies, Avol said.

‘No Definitive Answer’

As the smoke cleared, many experts, when asked how residents of Los Angeles County can know they’re safe, say there is no magic number—that it depends on how the wind blows.

Some of the worst chemical pollutants can be absorbed or attached to particulate matter in smoke or ash that travels great distances, or settle on surfaces and in homes and continue to pose a risk for years to come.

Williams, of California Communities Against Toxics, recalls that researchers investigating the Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise, California, found lead particles 150 miles away. “This is why health impacts from the Twin Towers spread so far.”

The problem for California now, she said, is that there is no government agency reliably tracking the worst toxins coming out of the fires.

“You don’t see any monitoring happening for air toxics. It’s all for the regional pollutants that are in the Air Quality Index. And you have well-meaning people saying, if the AQI is fine, then you’re good. [But] if you’re anywhere near where there is ash, even within a few miles of ash zones, the AQI could be perfect. But you can still have asbestos and metals in the air,” Williams said.

In an email to The Epoch Times, the South Coast Air Quality Management District said it already regularly measures lead, arsenic, and other toxic metals at several sites throughout the L.A. County Basin.

Data analyzed after Jan. 7, when the Eaton and Palisades fires began, showed elevated toxic metals, even compared with other fires in the region, but the levels “decreased significantly” after Jan. 12, and are now similar to pre-fire levels.

The district said determining the range of fallout from smoke and ash is difficult and depends on factors such as wind direction and speed, but that ash from the initial smoke plumes has likely already fallen and settled out, and rain may have helped prevent it from getting resuspended in the air.

However, remaining ash can dry out and be resuspended across the entire region, especially in strong winds.

“In terms of how long this could be an issue, there is no definitive answer,” the district said. “In fires that have burned wildland areas, we have seen ash transported on windy days until the vegetation regrows in the spring. However, these fires impacted a highly populated area, so urban ash could be very different.”

On Jan. 31, more than three weeks after the fires started, the district announced it began additional monitoring efforts in the burn scars of both Palisades and Eaton fires at the request of the EPA. It will deploy two mobile monitoring vehicles to test for toxic metals and VOCs over the next four weeks, according to a press release. The results will help inform placement of monitoring stations to test for particulate matter, lead, arsenic, and asbestos.

When previously asked whether those mobile vans would be deployed, the district said it was a federally led effort, and deferred to the authority of the EPA.

Water Warnings

Under state direction, local water agencies in fire-impacted areas have a do-not-drink order in place, advising residents to avoid heating tap water and to bathe with ventilation.

Some suggest that might not be enough.

Mark Gold, director of water scarcity solutions and environmental health at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said suppliers must be given time to test the water for contaminants and make sure infrastructure hasn’t been damaged or compromised.

“I don’t want to tell water utilities how to do their job, but I am saying that if you have a warning, until you get a clean bill of health, I would recommend not using the water—because some of the contaminants, like VOCs, when you take a shower they can volatize and you can inhale them,” he said.

“Are you going to get a dose that poses a significant health risk? I don’t know that,” Gold said. “I’m just saying that would be enough of a concern to me that I would recommend, [if] you’re already not drinking it, you may as well not use it for bathing and cooking as well.”

After the Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise in 2018, researchers found benzene levels at 1,000 times the allowable maximum standard, with both burned and intact homes impacted.

“It was months before they really dealt with all these homes, getting them tested and cleared out,” explained Gina Solomon, head of the University of California at San Francisco’s Occupational, Environmental and Climate Medicine program, in a Coalition for Clean Air webinar.

Solomon was part of an investigation that looked at more than 5,000 water samples and determined polluted smoke had likely been sucked into plastic piping when the pressure dropped as firefighters were tapping the system.

She said we should expect about a six-month process in the burned areas to fully investigate and clear out the water system.

While Gold said monitoring drinking water might be more manageable than air or soil, it depends on what’s being monitored.

“I’m not going to say it’s easy ... because the sorts of constituents that could be in there might not be the sorts analyzed on a regular basis,” he said. While VOCs like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene, which were found in elevated levels in the Camp Fire investigation, will be monitored early on, Gold said, other more “unusual” toxins that arise from combustion in urban fires might not be.

“The worst case would be something like dioxins, those aren’t monitored on a regular basis and the variability on how water utilities monitor their systems could be concerning,” he said.

Gold said he would hope the EPA and State Water Resources Control Board are communicating with water agencies before full use is returned.

An inquiry sent to the State Water Board’s division of drinking water asking about coordination with the federal government on water quality standards was not returned in time for publication.

‘Ready for a Fight’

Natalie LaFourche and Nicole Stephenson consider themselves lucky. The fire that consumed most of Altadena, burning more than 9,000 structures and killing 17 people, missed their homes—if just barely.

But these twin sisters and lifelong Altadena residents, 46, are not in a hurry to return.

While their homes remain intact, they are wary of exposure to the stew of toxic compounds and ash that remain blanketed over their neighborhood, and of the potential for longer-term soil and water contamination.

They have reason to be cautious.

In the late 1990s, their family found itself at the center of another environmental catastrophe when their mother, Shirley Ganther, was diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma, a rare, aggressive cancer.

Ganther was one of more than 50 plaintiffs in a mass tort lawsuit alleging NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in nearby La Cañada Flintridge had contaminated groundwater and sickened nearby residents who drank or bathed in their tap water.

Statistically, lawyers for the plaintiffs argued, it was virtually impossible that so many cases of such rare cancers would arise in such a small radius. The case was settled confidentially.

“When you know better, you do better, right?” LaFourche said. “When you’ve had a lesson like we’ve had with a completely healthy woman being diagnosed with such a rare cancer at the same age we are now—it’s like all the signs lead to making the right decision.

“It was a very slow and painful death and because we know what we know, we have to be very protective over our children and our families to make sure we don’t have the same story.”

A toxicologist for the plaintiffs argued at the time that bathing, rather than drinking the water, posed a greater risk of ingesting hazardous chemicals—including benzene, chromium and cadmium.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s 176-acre campus was officially listed as a “superfund” site in 1992, which means it’s under long-term federal surveillance to clean up hazardous materials, after findings that past research and development contaminated local groundwater. The organization has been subject to a number of lawsuits in the years since over related issues.

In 1998, a federal assessment of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory found that groundwater at the site did not present a past, present, or future public health hazard.

LaFourche and Stephenson said they’ve retained a public adjuster to help deal with their insurance company, so they can pay for independent testing at both their homes.

“Both houses literally have to be gutted. So we don’t know when we’re going to be able to go back home. We don’t know when our houses will be inhabited, we don’t know when the work will begin,” Stephenson said.

Thinking of her mother, and the heartbreak that disaster and negligence can still visit on the community, she added, “We’re ready for a fight.”

LaFourche remembered a large room full of ailing neighbors, plaintiffs in the lawsuit alongside her mother more than 20 years ago, as if it were yesterday.

“I’m thinking about 10 years from now one of us being diagnosed with a cancer. I’m thinking about constant exposure, exposure, exposure leading to an early death. I won’t trust results from government agencies,” LaFourche said.