Fire Survivors Rebuild All‑Electric Homes
- Wildfire survivors in the Altadena and Los Angeles area are rebuilding destroyed homes with all-electric designs and modern safety features. - Survivors can get $7,000–$10,000 subsidies, plus extra low-income bonuses; 116 Altadena residents applied in ten days. - Officials say the all-electric push aims to speed resilient, energy-efficient rebuilding amid rising wildfire risks and climate concerns (latimes.com).
Fire survivors in Altadena and Pacific Palisades are rebuilding homes without gas lines, choosing all-electric designs as they start over after the January 2025 wildfires. (cpuc.ca.gov) California’s new Rebuilding Incentives for Sustainable Electric Homes program, or RISE Homes, opened applications on April 6, 2026, for owners whose homes were destroyed in disasters since Jan. 1, 2017 and have not yet received a certificate of occupancy. The California Public Utilities Commission said the program has a $50 million budget and serves customers of six investor-owned electric utilities, including Southern California Edison. (cpuc.ca.gov) In the city of Los Angeles, the Department of Water and Power is offering separate HOME LA incentives of $10,000 for a single-family all-electric rebuild, $8,000 for modular housing, and $7,000 for an accessory dwelling unit. The program also adds $5,000 for a whole-home battery and $3,000 for a heat-pump water heater that uses a lower-global-warming refrigerant. (ladwp.com) The push comes as rebuilding in Altadena remains slow more than a year after the Eaton Fire. Catalyst California said the fire burned 14,000 acres over 24 days, destroyed 9,413 structures, killed 19 people, and left only 23 significantly damaged residential properties fully rebuilt by December 2025. (catalystcalifornia.org) Another March snapshot showed how far most owners still had to go. LA Public Press reported that the Eaton Fire burned down nearly 6,000 parcels, a little over 1,700 new-home permits had been issued, applications for new builds were averaging 118 days in review, and just 17 homes had been completely rebuilt. (lapublicpress.org) All-electric rebuilding changes the equipment inside the house more than the shape of the house. Instead of gas furnaces, gas water heaters and gas stoves, owners install electric heat pumps for heating and cooling, heat-pump water heaters, induction stoves and electric dryers. (ladwp.com) Los Angeles County is steering owners toward those choices with a broader recovery guide that lists rebates for batteries, solar, electric-vehicle charging, efficient appliances, cool roofs and fire-resilient upgrades. The county says those incentives come from utilities, local agencies and state and federal programs, and that eligibility can change. (recovery.lacounty.gov) The all-electric option is not mandatory for most survivors rebuilding in these burn areas. The state program applies only in investor-owned utility territories, while Los Angeles’ HOME LA pilot is limited to properties in the city utility’s service area that were substantially damaged or destroyed in the January 2025 Palisades, Hurst, Kenneth, Archer and Sunset wildfires. (cpuc.ca.gov) (ladwp.com) Officials are pitching the programs as a way to cut energy use and indoor combustion while residents rebuild from scratch. For many owners, the immediate calculation is simpler: if the permits clear, the insurance money arrives, and the incentives stack, the replacement house can be wired for electricity only from day one. (cpuc.ca.gov) (lapublicpress.org)
