Los Angeles County has now put its own recovery effort under the microscope and the findings land close to home for Altadena and northwest Pasadena.
What changed
On Friday, September 11, LA County released its second independent after-action review of the Eaton and Palisades fires, this one focused specifically on recovery and repopulation operations between January 7 and March 31, 2025. The review was conducted by the McChrystal Group and covers six areas: communications, volunteer and donations management, recovery, repopulation, shelter/housing and people at higher risk, and public health and access needs.
It contains 26 findings and 25 recommendations. Among the headline takeaways: several of the recovery structures that actually worked during the crisis were improvised on the fly, not the product of an established county plan. The report points to specific gaps, including:
- No updated countywide recovery plan in place before the fires
- No formal repopulation framework for getting residents safely back into their neighborhoods
- No countywide system for managing volunteers and donations at this scale
For context, the Eaton Fire burned 14,021 acres and destroyed 9,414 structures across Altadena and parts of Pasadena. This is the county’s second after-action review; an earlier one, released last September, examined the alerts and evacuation failures that preceded the fire’s spread into west Altadena.
What happens next
The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to discuss the report at its meeting Tuesday, September 15, at 9:30 a.m., streamed at bos.lacounty.gov. That meeting is where county officials will need to say what they’re actually going to do about the 25 recommendations — and by when.
Why it matters to Altadena and Pasadena
This isn’t an abstract governance document. The gaps it identifies repopulation delays, inconsistent volunteer coordination, uneven communication with displaced residents describe things many Altadena families lived through directly in the weeks after January 7, 2025. The value of Tuesday’s meeting isn’t the recap; it’s whether the county commits to funding, deadlines, and a permanent plan instead of relying on the next crisis to be improvised again.
What we’re watching for at Tuesday’s meeting
- Whether supervisors set actual deadlines for the 25 recommendations, rather than accepting the report “for information”
- Any funding commitments tied to a permanent countywide recovery and repopulation plan
- Direct response from Supervisor Kathryn Barger’s office, which has led on both after-action reviews
Everything Pasadena will cover the Board of Supervisors meeting and follow up on what commitments — if any come out of it.
Sources: Los Angeles County official announcement and executive summary (Sept. 11, 2026); Altadena-focused reporting on the review’s findings.
Image: Getty Images