Recent wildfires not only brought lose and heartache to the residents of the Los Angeles area, they also scorched state, city and county politics. While the initial voting in the races for California governor and Los Angeles mayor is more than a year away memories of how politicians dealt with the fires and its aftermath will linger.

As Los Angeles recovers from its devastating wildfires, environmental engineers, urban planners and natural disaster experts are casting forward with visions of what could come next for neighborhoods that have been reduced to ash and rubble.

The Hughes Fire has spread over 8,096 acres after starting just before lunchtime in Los Angeles County's Castaic Lake area on Wednesday.

Wildfires are endemic to California and natives used fire to shape the land. Orange County and California must learn from the wildfires and decades of government failure in Los Angeles County, and prevent the next disaster.

The experiences of those who rebuilt after the 2017 wildfires in northern California offer a template for Los Angeles area reconstruction efforts.

The number of deaths from the wildfires that destroyed entire communities in the Los Angeles area in January 2025 has risen to 29, the county medical examiner’s office said.