A father of three teenagers said in December he is the first to rebuild his home in California’s Pacific Palisades and move back in after the devastating wildfires.
Craig Forrest took immediate action in January 2025 as he watched his house burn to the ground, Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez wrote on December 19.
Forrest eventually received nearly all the insurance money he needed, and a few months later construction crews got to work on his home which enabled his family to start moving back in and pick up where they left off.
“I moved as fast as I could. We have three teenagers and I had to give them hope and a positive outlook and show them how to deal with adversity,” Forrest told Lopez.
The Palisades and Altadena areas are being rebuilt but progress is slow as construction continues on 500 of the over 16,000 structures that burned, according to a Breitbart News article published on Monday.
The outlet noted that many survivors are planning to gather on Wednesday to mark the one-year anniversary since the fires and demand answers from Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D).
“THEY LET US BURN through gross negligence, mismanagement, poor preparedness, lack of infrastructure and protocol. THEY LET US BURN today with gaslighting, lack of transparency, accountability and vision,” the group stated.
In November, Breitbart News reported a documentary proved Newsom and Bass did nothing as the fires burned those communities and devastated the residents.
Video footage from January 2025 shows the horrors and losses neighbors had to endure:
Breitbart’s Jon Kahn, the singer-songwriter who wrote the billboard-topping “Fighter” that was inspired by President Donald Trump, lost his home in the Palisades fires but has since written a song of reflection.
The outlet said he is “channeling that devastation into a stirring new song and video, ‘After It Burns,’ an intimate, hard-edged reflection on loss, anger, and the resolve that follows when everything familiar is reduced to ash.”
Kahn said, “This is a song for the thousands of victims that experienced what I did, but maybe even more broadly than that, I hope it moves those who have experienced any catastrophic loss in their lives. It happens every day, whether it be hurricanes, illness, or death. I lost my house. I lost a lot of stuff. But I’m still here and there are so many that have experienced worse.”
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