UCLA experts guide commission’s L.A. fire recovery and rebuilding recommendations

By: Jason Islas

Key takeaways

• An independent commission launched in February by Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath and UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk today presented its recommendations for a safe and resilient recovery and rebuilding effort in the wake of the January 2025 Los Angeles fires.
• Led by Luskin Center for Innovation director, Megan Mullin, more than 40 UCLA scholars from across the campus provided expertise to inform the commission’s recommendations.
• UCLA also spearheaded community engagement efforts to ensure the commission had insights and feedback from those impacted by the fires.
• The commission recommends nearly 60 specific critical actions that policymakers should take to ensure long-term, equitable, sustainable and resilient recovery, including establishing a Resilient Rebuilding Authority and a Los Angeles County Fire Control District.

Capping off four months of close partnership with UCLA, the Blue Ribbon Commission on Climate Action and Fire-Safe Recovery today published its final report and policy recommendations aimed at charting a path toward recovery, climate-resilient rebuilding and long-term fire preparedness in the wake of the devastating January 2025 fires. The recommendations are paired with a summary of context and considerations provided by leading UCLA experts.

The independent commission, announced Feb. 14 by Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath and UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk, sought to develop a framework for recovery and rebuilding informed by world-class UCLA research and the perspectives of fire survivors.

A time of need: UCLA’s knowledge, expertise and community connection

More than 40 eminent UCLA scholars from across campus, including faculty from the Luskin Center of Innovation, the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the Sustainable LA Grand Challenge, contributed to the effort, helping to guide the commission’s inquiries and recommendations, along with experts from other universities and research institutions.

Drawing on their expertise in areas ranging from wildfires, the environment, sustainability and urban design to engineering, policy, law, public health and transportation, UCLA’s experts provided the contextual grounding for the commission’s recommendations, outlined the existing knowledge on global wildfire recovery and rebuilding and vetted commission recommendations for legal pathways to achieve their goals.
UCLA also played a major role in community engagement efforts throughout Los Angeles to ensure the commission heard from those impacted by the fires. Campus experts participated in 14 community-centered events, conducted 17 private interviews and convened four meetings between commissioners and affected community members, in addition to attending 23 local and county government-hosted events, to ensure the commission had insight and feedback from those impacted by the fires.

“The commission’s work is a terrific example of UCLA connecting with our wider community,” UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk said. “Faculty from across our campus contributed their expertise to reimagine our city — and to build back more safely and more sustainably. UCLA is not just a university in Los Angeles — it is a university of Los Angeles.”

“UCLA worked hard to ensure the commission responded to and engaged with community voices from the beginning,” said Darnell Hunt, UCLA’s executive vice chancellor and provost. “This kind of work is core to UCLA’s efforts to meaningfully impact the lives of Angelenos, tap into the contributions and expertise of our region’s communities, and partner with those communities to address critical societal challenges.”

The blue-ribbon commission’s recommendations

Among the recommendations, the commission calls for the creation of two new governance structures: a Resilient Rebuilding Authority aimed at helping finance and accelerate fire-resistant rebuilding, and a Los Angeles County Fire Control District, tasked with creating vegetated buffer zones and coordinating retrofits for vulnerable neighborhoods to improve the region’s long-term fire resilience.

A wide range of additional recommendations address urgent actions for immediate recovery and longer-term strategies to rebuild physical and social infrastructure, improve insurance systems, promote resiliency and advance efforts to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change over the long term.

“UCLA is proud to have been the commission’s research partner in this important undertaking,” said Megan Mullin, faculty director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, who led the UCLA effort. “Our objective was to ensure the commission had access to the best available evidence across a range of policy issues and the insights of people experiencing fire impacts.”

In the coming months, the commission will continue to promote and encourage the adoption and implementation of the recommendations, and UCLA will continue its actionable research to inform equitable regional recovery and long-term resilience.

“This effort has laid a sturdy foundation as we look to the UCLA team’s next steps: filling knowledge gaps, continuing engagement with community members and providing decision-makers with actionable research to guide not only the recovery process but also planning for a more resilient future in the face of a changing climate,” Mullin said.

How UCLA scholars laid the groundwork for the recommendations

In addition to the recommendations, the report includes a second section, titled “UCLA Research Context and Considerations: Informing Resilient Rebuilding From the January 2025 Los Angeles Fires,” which summarizes the curated, consolidated knowledge UCLA provided to the commission. That knowledge includes:

• Foregrounding the distinctive characteristics of the fire-impacted communities.
• Outlining the broader backdrop of the region’s fire vulnerability, existing policies and opportunities for building resilience.
• Offering lessons from fire recovery experiences in other areas and examining the design of governing entities that could lead rebuilding and fire resilience efforts.
• Reporting on the goals, concerns and priorities shared by fire survivors.
• Laying out areas of scientific consensus, areas where ongoing debates are underway, gaps in research, and questions on which policies must balance distinct priorities.

“The breadth and depth of the interdisciplinary research team UCLA brought together for this critical collaboration is a testament to the wealth of knowledge housed here — and also to UCLA’s commitment to use that knowledge to benefit our home community in a time of great need,” Hunt said.

“Rebuilding L.A.’s fire-impacted communities swiftly, sustainably and resiliently will require bold leadership and a clear plan of action,” said the commission’s chair, Matt Petersen, CEO of the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator. “These recommendations, crafted collaboratively among experts and refined by community members affected by the fires, provide a playbook for effective policy action.”

This effort was supported by a grant from the California Community Foundation and in-kind support from UCLA.

For more on the recommendations, the commission, and UCLA’s role, visit the UCLA Sustainable LA Grand Challenge website.

To learn more about the Luskin Center for Innovation’s fire research, visit our fire research hub.