ALTADENA, Calif.-- ALTADENA, Calif.(AP) — “DANGER: Lead Work Area” reads a sign on a front door of an Altadena home.
“May damage fertility or the unborn child.Causes damage to the central nervous system.”Block after block there are reminders that contaminants still linger.It’s been a year of heartbreak and worry since the most destructive wildfires in the Los Angeles area's history scorched neighborhoods and displaced tens of thousands of people.Two wind-whipped blazes that ignited on Jan.
7, 2025, killed at least 31 people and destroyed nearly 17,000 structures, including homes, schools, businesses and places of worship.Rebuilding will take years.The disaster has brought another wave of trauma for people afraid of what still lurks inside their homes.Indoor air quality after wildfires remains understudied, and scientists still don’t know the long-term health impacts of exposure to massive urban fires like last year’s in Los Angeles.But some chemicals released are known to be linked to heart disease and lung issues, and exposure to minerals like magnetite has been associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
Ash in the area is a toxic soup of incinerated cars, electronics, paints, furniture and every other kind of personal belonging.It can contain pesticides, asbestos, plastics, lead or other heavy metals.Many with homes still standing are now living with the hazards left by the fires.Nina and Billy Malone considered their home of 20 years a safe haven before smoke, ash and soot seeped inside, leaving behind harmful levels of lead even after professional cleaning.
Recent testing found the toxin is still on the wooden floors of their living room and bedroom.They were forced to move back home in August anyway, after insurance cut off their rental assistance.They're not alone.
According to a report released in November by the Eaton Fire Residents United, a volunteer group formed by residents, six out of 10 homes damaged from smoke from the Eaton Fire still have dangerous levels of cancer-causing asbestos, brain-damaging lead or both.That’s based on self-submitted data from 50 homeowners who have cleaned their homes, with 78% hiring professional cleaners.Of the 50 homes, 63% have lead levels above the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard, according to the report.The average lead levels were almost 60 times higher than the EPA's rule.“For individuals that are pregnant, for young children, it’s particularly important that we do everything we can to eliminate exposure to lead,” said pediatrician Dr.
Lisa Patel, executive director for the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health and a member of the climate group Science Moms.The same goes for asbestos, she added, because there is no safe level of exposure.Popular ReadsUS captures Maduro, carries out 'large scale strike' in VenezuelaJan 3, 5:03 PMVenezuela live updates: Trump says US is 'in charge' of Venezuela2 hours agoFBI releases images of seized motorcycles as search for Ryan Wedding continuesDec 30, 4:51 PMPeople who lived in the Pacific Palisades, which was also scorched, face similar challenges.“We have to live in the scar," she said.“We're all still really struggling." They will be living in a construction zone for years.
“This isn't over for us.”She sees the mental health toll it's having on people — and as a survivor herself of the 2017 Tubbs Fire in Northern California, she understands it.Many were at first joyful to see their houses still standing.“But they’ve been in their own special kind of hell ever since,” Barbour said.Now residents like the Malones are inspecting their belongings, one by one, fearing they may have absorbed toxins.
Boxes, bags and bins stuffed with clothes, chinaware and everything in between fill the couple's car, basement, garage and home.They have been painstakingly going through their things, assessing what they think can be adequately cleaned.In the process, Nina is cleaning cabinets, drawers, floors and still finding soot and ash.She wears gloves and a respirator, or sometimes just an N-95 mask.
———AP staff writer Alex Veiga contributed to this report.———
