Survivors find alternative ways to rebuild after fires

Following the January wildfires, many survivors are choosing to rebuild their homes differently to help prevent another disaster.

Instead of rebuilding from scratch, Gwen Sukeena chose to move a century-old home from Silver Lake. It's a bit of a "fixer-upper upper" and it only cost a dollar.

"It was this time capsule from 1910, and it just made me cry when I first saw it," Sukeena said. "I couldn't believe someone was going to tear down this house."

The home was cut into four pieces, disassembled and moved in the middle of the night to their property in Altadena. It is currently being put back together, just like her emotions.

"It's been a hard year, there's been a lot of ups and downs," Sukeena said.

Sukeena and her partner had just moved into their home in Altadena when the Eaton Fire erupted.

"We bought it and then 10 days after we moved our last box in, the house burned down," Sukeena said.

They bought a 1940s trailer and moved back onto their property after the fire. They got their new home here in August, just in time for the rains to ruin a lot of it.

"We had no roof and were very unprepared, threw up tarps and they all failed," Sukeena said.

But as she walked through the shell of what will be her mostly new 3000-square-foot home, it was the excitement and hope that resonated in the walls.

"We are giving it new life," Sukeena said.

About a mile away, another family is also hopeful about rebuilding, although the vision is a little harder to see with an empty lot.

"This will be my office, which is exactly where my office was before because I loved looking out on my garden," said Eaton Fire survivor Ellen Snortland.

She is in the process of building an "RSG- 3D home."

"We are close to submitting our blueprints for permitting," Snortland said. "If we're disaster-prone, we're going to go with disaster-proof."

RSG 3D makes custom-built panels with a steel grid and steel wiring, insulated with polystyrene. It's premade and assembled on-site, then coated in concrete. The company has already contracted with more than 50 survivors from the Eaton and Palisades fires.

"Condensed Styrofoam in between steel meshing and the advantage of it when I say indestructible, I mean indestructible," Snortland said. "Hurricanes, fires, winds, floods, you can't destroy it, it will be here a 1,000 years later." 

Another company, Ghost Factory, is making custom steel beams on one property in the Pacific Palisades, as many who lost it all are now passing on wood altogether. 

Snortland said using more fire-resistant materials seems like the safer choice. 

"It's just the sheer amount and number of decisions we have to make, it's just; I have a hard time sleeping, I'm just so afraid we're not going to do the right thing," Snortland said.

Although her new home is still months away, it's the little purchases that she says keep her going, like the new bright yellow stove that will go in her new kitchen.

"I needed these things as something to look forward to because it's devastating looking back," Snortland said. "It's been really hard. I would not wish this on anybody." 

Whatever it takes for these homeowners to find the strength they need to keep building and eventually make it "home" again.