By Mary O’KEEFE

A year after the Palisades and Eaton fires, residents and business owners are still waiting for answers as they try to rebuild. 

In a series of interviews with numerous media outlets, Edison International CEO Pedro Pizarro has stated the company’s equipment “likely” started the Eaton Fire; however, both the Palisades and Eaton fires are still under investigation. 

Edison International is the parent company of Southern California Edison.

As the investigation continues into the cause of the Altadena blaze residents and business owners are struggling with the decision of whether to rebuild and if they decide to rebuild then comes the act of actually rebuilding. 

Traveling through parts of Altadena and Pasadena, it is still overwhelming to see how decimated neighborhoods are; however, the one thing that hasn’t changed is the feeling of community and the support for one another. 

Assemblymember John Harabedian’s district includes the Eaton Fire area. He and his wife participated in the Altadena Forever Run on Jan. 4. He said the run was fantastic even if the weather wasn’t completely in their favor – it was raining and cold. 

“But I found it to be really cathartic,” he said. “It was emotional for a lot of the runners, but it was very uplifting for me and my wife when we were running in it.”

“Running through the community you see a lot of the devastation, a lot of empty lots that are still standing barren but you also saw a lot of hope – new construction, new businesses reopening and community members lining the streets cheering us on, which was really special,” Harabedian continued. “I think it just showed how special a place Altadena is, and how together we are resilient during this recovery.”

He added that he along with the other representatives who were at the Run, including Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger and members of the Altadena Town Council, listened to a lot of the residents’ concerns. 

“They want to make sure that the state is taking wildfire prevention response and recovery seriously,” he said, “and they want accountability. I do think that one thing that I’ve heard over and over again from constituents is survivors are still in desperate need of help – financially and otherwise – to rebuild their lives.”

He added they are looking to leaders to get answers. 

In June 2025 Assemblymember Harabedian, as the chair of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, initiated an audit by the California State Auditor on the prevention and response efforts related to the Eaton and Palisades fires. 

The audit will: “identify how many homes were destroyed, where deaths occurred and who was most impacted, especially vulnerable populations; analyze the timeline of the fires, evacuation orders and emergency responses to assess whether systems functioned properly and in a timely manner; examine fire preparedness, including brush management, building codes and resource planning, as well as whether critical information was shared with officials and the public; investigate water availability, utility shutoffs and whether firefighting and evacuation plans were adequate, especially under extreme conditions,” according to a statement from Harabedian’s office. 

Due to the backlog of work with the California State Auditor’s Office the start of the audit has taken a while; however, the audit will start this week, according to Harabedian. 

“This will be the only independent state agency reviewing what happened in both [the] Eaton and the Palisades fires,” he said. “The state auditor is reviewing everything from prevention efforts to preparedness and obviously the response …. But we want to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. We had 19 of our neighbors die [due to the fire] and that’s unacceptable.”

He stressed that this auditor’s report will be made of its own independent findings based on all of the information and facts before it, along with interviews conducted. 

“This should be a very robust audit. It’s hopefully going to answer a lot of the questions that the previous reviews of the incident have not answered yet,” he said. 

He said lessons are being learned from the rebuilding and that the County, through Barger’s support, has been able to streamline permitting. 

“Data has shown that permitting now is being done, on average, in 30 to 31 days,” he added. “And that’s actually much quicker than we’ve seen in previous fires and quicker than we’re seeing in the City of Los Angeles.”

He said the effort to reform issues like permitting is just one way leaders are trying to help residents rebuild. 

“[Those affected by the fires] are facing a number of different challenges financially: trying to find a contractors, trying to find the resources … and we are trying to help with that as much as we can,” he said.