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Rebuilding from the Unprecedented: Los Angeles Eight Months After the 2025 Wildfires

Thursday, September 25, 2025 
2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. ET

In January 2025, the Eaton and Palisades wildfires caused unprecedented devastation in Los Angeles, profoundly affecting two culturally rich and historically significant communities. Eight months later, a panel of preservation professionals based in Southern California will reflect on the ongoing processes of recovery and rebuilding. Drawing from both personal experience and professional expertise, the panelists will offer insights into the challenges and opportunities that have emerged in the aftermath of these disasters.

The first portion of this webinar will feature brief presentations by each panelist. They will share lessons learned as members of the affected communities and as professionals engaged in the preservation of both tangible and intangible cultural heritage. Their reflections will highlight the urgent need for preservation leadership in the face of widespread destruction and will explore strategies for sustaining the living histories embedded in these places.

Natural disasters continue to inflict widespread damage across the globe, with impacts that are not only physical but also emotional, cultural, and economic. The second portion of the webinar will be an open forum, allowing attendees to pose questions to the panelists and engage in dialogue with others who have experienced similar losses in different contexts.

 

Learning Objectives:

  • Examine diverse professional perspectives on the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires and the preservation challenges they present.
  • Analyze the conditions that allowed for such extensive urban devastation and discuss strategies for future prevention, preparedness, and recovery.
  • Understand the current status of rebuilding efforts through the lens of professionals specializing in architectural preservation and conservation.
  • Identify the specific needs and approaches involved in mitigating damage to art, artifacts, and cultural property that survive fire events.

Continuing Education Credits
1.5 LU/HSW/PDH

Accreditation guidelines dictate that CEU credit is only available to participants of the live program. 

Can't join the webinar live? A limited-access recording of this session will be available exclusively to those who register for the webinar.  Please note, per AIA guidelines, only participants of the live program are eligible for continuing education credits.

Registration Fees

  • APT Members: $20
  • Emerging Professionals: $15 $0*
  • Students: $10 $0*
  • Non-Members: $35

* Thanks to the generous support of the Preservation Fund of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, APT is pleased to offer this program at no cost to Student members and Emerging Professional members. Not a member? Learn how to join here. 

 

Register

Panelists:

 

Adrian Scott Fine, CEO Los Angeles Conservancy

The Los Angeles Conservancy is a nonprofit membership organization whose mission is to work through education and advocacy to recognize, preserve, and revitalize the historic, architectural, and cultural resources of Los Angeles County, serving 88 cities and unincorporated L.A. County, encompassing more than 4,000 sq. miles. 

Community heritage is more than just its physical buildings—it's also defined by the unique people, stories, and intangible qualities that give a place its character. Discover how the Los Angeles Conservancy, in collaboration with community partners, is working in Altadena to celebrate and safeguard what makes the community truly special. Learn about efforts underway in Altadena to do a community-wide historic resources survey and creation of a Historic Context Statement. Additionally, community-led and designed Cultural Asset Mapping and the Artists at Work program are actively engaging residents in identifying, honoring, and sharing Altadena’s cultural assets. Through these dynamic, inclusive projects, the Conservancy and its partners are shaping a new model for how a community’s living heritage—its memories, creativity, and resilience—can not only survive, but thrive, in the face of both loss, trauma, and renewal.
 

Ann Harrer, P.E., Principal with Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc.
Based in Los Angeles, Ann Harrer is a professional engineer licensed in California. She has significant experience assessing and repairing existing building materials—particularly concrete building and structural elements—with a specialty in the conservation and preservation of architecturally significant and heritage concrete structures.

As a resident of Altadena, Ann Harrer will share her first-hand experience of the Eaton Fire, not only during the event itself but the current and ongoing efforts for restoration and rebuilding of the Altadena community. She will also share stories of the rebuilding process through the lens of her expertise with building preservation and conservation of existing structures.
 

Christina Varvi, MSHP, RP-APT, F-AIC is President and Chief Conservator at RLA Conservation, with studios in Los Angeles and Miami.
Based out of Los Angeles, Christina Varvi is a specialist in architectural and public art conservation. She has lectured extensively at national and regional conferences on emergency preparedness and is a certified National Heritage Responder and certified CAP assessor through the American Institute for Conservation.

Over the past fifteen years, RLA has undertaken mitigation of indoor and outdoor collections and architectural elements damaged by fire, water, and chemical suppressants following the Woolsey, Thomas, Getty and Glass wildfires as well as structure fires at the San Gabriel Mission and China Alley Historic District in Hanford, CA. Christina will discuss the efforts undertaken by the conservation community in southern California to address the breadth and scale of historic fabric affected by the Eaton and Palisades fires; careful cleaning of objects and historic surfaces so that people could safely return to their homes and/or attempting to salvage pieces and architectural elements that were heavily impacted and damaged during the fire events.
Moderator:  
 

Kelly Sutherlin McLeod, FAIA, President, Kelly Sutherlin McLeod Architecture, Inc. (KSMA), APT TCMH co-chair
Kelly founded her eponymous firm in 1988 and KSMA’s award-winning portfolio includes preservation projects for many of the most important 20th century design masterworks in Southern California. KSMA’s design for new construction, adaptive reuse, and preservation encompasses institutional, commercial, residential, and cultural projects.

As an architect working with fire victims to rebuild their homes, Kelly will share her real time experience with local initiatives and navigating rebuild projects through the Los Angeles County review process and challenges faced by governing jurisdictions, and property owners, with implementing the promised expediting of the process.

 

 

 

Online Educational Content Sponsor

 This project has been funded in part by a grant from the National Trust Preservation Fund of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Specifically, in support of growing participation of students and emerging professionals in online programs.

 

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