2025 Palisades Fire Recovery Analysis for the City of Malibu

Abstract

This paper focuses on the recovery of destroyed single-family homes in the City of Malibu following the January 2025 Palisades Fire. It presents an overview of a year-long effort to collect data, analyse ongoing recovery efforts and forecast future recovery timelines using predictive models. The aim is to provide an estimate of what the community can expect from the recovery process under different future scenarios. Beyond forecasting, this effort aims to support recovery management by testing, designing, and monitoring recovery policies in a structured, data-driven, and as-objective- as-reasonably-possible way using the data and models presented in this analysis.

Recovery of the City of Malibu following the 2025 Palisades Fire will take years. Whether the homeowners will need 2, 5, 7 or 12 years to rebuild their homes depends on numerous factors, some of which the city and the homeowners have a control over and some of which they do not. What is certain is that the administrative capacity of the city and homeowners decisions will have a significant impact on the recovery timeline. We forecast what this impact will be and assess the extent to which the city can expedite recovery by increasing its administrative capacity.