My Climate Journey - The disaster isn’t over for thousands of property owners impacted by the January 2025 California Wildfires. A slow, complicated, and opaque insurance process has become one of the biggest barriers to rebuilding. Insurance payouts are falling short. Claims are being denied and delayed. And for many, the help they need is nowhere in sight. Our latest Wildfire Impact Report identifies who was hit hardest, exposes critical gaps in the system, and highlights the urgent need for change.
When the media covers wildfires, the headlines often focus on who lost their homes, honing in on celebrities and luxury properties. But the truth is far less glamorous. Beyond the headlines, our research tells a different story. Most properties destroyed in these fires belonged to working and middle-class families who now face the impossible task of rebuilding with too little insurance coverage and no roadmap for recovery.
At Dorothy, we analyzed over 30,487 properties in the Pacific Palisades and Eaton regions and found 90% of the affected properties were completely destroyed. Of those damaged properties, 92% were single-family homes, indicating over 28,000 homeowners were entirely uprooted due to the fires. Estimated structural losses for single-family homes alone totaled $34.4 billion.
Our analysis reveals a strong correlation between property size and value, but size alone doesn’t define a home’s worth. Most losses occurred in the $1 million range —well below luxury levels for Los Angeles, where this is considered an average home value. The data shows that mid-range and working-class homes suffered the greatest destruction, while luxury estates were impacted far less.
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