LOS ANGELES — More than a year after the Eaton and Palisades fires tore through Southern California, survivors say the physical destruction was only the beginning.
What You Need To Know
Wildfire trauma often intensifies more than a year after disasters, experts say
Smoke exposure is linked to sharp increases in depression and mood emergencies
Free long-term counseling is now available across Los Angeles County
Funding ensures continued mental health recovery services through 2026
Mental health experts warn the emotional toll of wildfires often peaks long after the smoke clears, with grief, anxiety and trauma surfacing months or even years later.
For Ann D’Angelo, each morning now begins with breathwork, a way to ground herself after losing her Altadena home and generations of family history in the Eaton Fire.
“It’s been a year, and grief still is here, and it still comes up daily,” she said. “My practice has to just been to sit with it and to honor it.”
A mindfulness teacher and grief educator, D’Angelo spent most of her life in Altadena raising her family and preserving family heirlooms, mostly all of it destroyed.
“We were the keepers of our family heirlooms,” she said. “Pictures, all those family treasures… losing all of that was devastating.”
D’Angelo noted that the hardest part of grief is only now setting in.
“The first year of grief is really just about survival… and this is a long process to navigate this grief.”
Searching for support led her to Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, widely known for its suicide-prevention hotline but now expanding long-term care for wildfire survivors.
CEO Lyn Morris says the organization recognized early that recovery would take years, not weeks.
“We knew that there was going to be support needed in the immediate aftermath, but more so long term, years for recovery with this kind of trauma, grief and loss,” said Morris.
Didi Hirsch recently received a $1 million grant from the American Red Cross to launch and expand its Disaster Care Program, a two-year initiative focused on long-term mental health recovery after wildfires.
“We’re using evidence based practices in trauma, loss and grief,” Morris explained. “The most important thing is that it’s free, and it’s accessible.”
For D’Angelo, those sessions uncovered layers of grief she didn’t realize she was carrying.
After months away, her family has returned to West Altadena — changed forever. One burned page the fire spared now sits as a reminder of what remains.
“My husband found this page, and it says, it doesn’t matter… [what we lost] of course matters,” she said. “But also, I think that we have been taught from the fire that really what matters is people and community and friends and connection.”
D’Angelo urges other survivors not to face healing alone.