Without hesitation, residents are already planning to rebuild.
As flames ravage the Southern California landscape, some people are focused on what’s next. Neighborhoods in the Pacific Palisades were burned to the ground by the Palisades Fire. Containment is minimal, while debris, fallen trees and power lines remain scattered, posing a dangerous fire hazard amid the Santa Ana winds.
Without hesitation, residents are already planning to rebuild.
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“I never in my wildest dreams would have thought that what I’m seeing right now would have given way to the phone call I received,” said fourth-generation Palisidian Chuck Hart.
From the second Hart heard about the fire, he and his team of entrepreneurs jumped headfirst into the front lines to protect their community.
Playground burned in Pacific Palisades. (Sunny Tsai/FOXBusiness)
“I’ve put water on fires before, but when they come into a canyon with the wind ripping and blowing embers and hot flames, and now hot steam, my eyes, my nose, my face … I mean, it’s intense,” Hart says.
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After battling the flames, Hart and his team got straight to cleaning the streets.
“I think more than anything, it’s about the desire to clean up the place, to get things going so we can hit the streets,” Hart said.
A tractor moves fallen trees. (Sunny Tsai/FOXBusiness)
These efforts extend far beyond Hart and his team.
“I think it’s easy. It’s exactly what we know how to do. Like we don’t want to leave or be far from here… We want to be part of rebuilding it,” said Palisidian Nicole Gyarmathy.
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Gyarmathy and Eli Johnson’s home burned in the Palisades fire. Without hesitation, they immediately returned to the destruction, ready to rebuild their community.
A view of a fire-ravaged beach property overlooking the Pacific Ocean that burned following the Palisades Fire on January 12, 2025 in Malibu, California. (FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)
“I grew up here and I know my dad grew up here and my grandparents, I mean, are where my roots are. And you protect that,” Johnson said.
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This is exactly what these Palisidians are going to do, who are deploying their efforts day by day.
“It’s so new that we’re going to start something we’ve never done before: one day at a time, it’s going to reveal itself, what our next indicated action is,” Gyarmathy said.
