In the aftermath of the Eaton and Palisades fires, which together claimed 31 lives and destroyed thousands of historic structures in the Altadena and Pacific Palisades neighborhoods, Los Angeles preservationists sprang into action to begin the recovery process.

Well-established organizations like the Los Angeles Conservancy embarked on critical, big-picture preservation work, such as the 2025 Fire Impact Mapping Initiative, an effort supported by grant funding from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the World Monuments Fund to document and assess heritage sites affected by the fires. Now, with support from the Getty Foundation, the L.A. Conservancy is also leading a community-wide historic resources survey and a separate cultural asset mapping project in Altadena.

Meanwhile, newly formed groups and initiatives are pushing the boundaries of what preservation looks like—from saving surviving chimneys and historic tilework, to creating art from ceramic shards, to moving historic homes from other parts of the city into fire-affected neighborhoods.

“New groups have formed to really fill the need,” said Adrian Scott Fine, president and CEO of the Los Angeles Conservancy. “In a situation like this where so much was lost in terms of physical fabric, it’s important to save these fragments and expand the boundaries of how heritage is defined.”

Here are four initiatives that are salvaging what survived and thinking outside the box about how to rebuild.

Project Chimney

As the smoke dissipated in the days after January 7, the extent of destruction in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood became evident. Thousands of homes had burned, most scarred so badly that their distinct architectural features were erased overnight.

Los Angeles-based preservation and arts nonprofit House Museum quickly started conducting ground surveys to document architectural remains that survived the fire.

“We were able to locate over 55 historic chimneys,” said Evan Hall, founding director of House Museum. “There was something about the mass and the weight of these structures that was incredibly compelling.”

This was the start of Project Chimney—House Museum's 10th preservation initiative. House Museum began reaching out to homeowners to identify chimneys that could be saved—but the team had to work quickly.

“We were up against some very difficult time deadlines,” said Ean Frank of Significant Structures, one of the many construction professionals who have donated their time and resources to the project. “For us to acquire these chimneys, we had to extract them prior to the contractors who were directed by Army Corps of Engineers [to clear] the properties.”

Over the past seven months, masonry professionals from the Mason Contractors Association of California have carefully moved six chimneys to a secure location, and a seventh chimney is in the works. The next step will be a major fundraising effort and the search for a plot of public land where the chimneys will one day form a Palisades Fire memorial.

“It’s a privilege to be able to help my community cope, to get through this,” Save the Tiles co-founder Pinsonneault said.

A Thousand Voices Project

Days after the Eaton Fire, Altadena resident Alma Cielo was sifting through the charred remains of her home, when she discovered that some of her self-made ceramics had survived the fire. One pot stood out to Cielo as she read the quote she had inscribed on it years before: “It take a thousand voices to tell a single story.”

Cielo is a multidisciplinary artist, and one of the many materials she works with is mosaic tile. As she inspected the surviving pot, she had an idea.

“So many thousands of people lost their homes,” Cielo said. “Can we take these shards and make something beautiful from them?”

This was the start of Cielo’s A Thousand Voices Project, an effort to collect ceramic shards that survived the fires and turn them into a mosaic that honors the history and culture of Altadena. In partnership with the Los Angeles Conservancy and L.A. County Arts and Culture, in June 2025, Cielo was selected to participate in the Artists at Work program, an 18-month-long art residency that will allow her to bring her vision to life.

So far, Cielo has collected ceramic shards from more than 20 families who lost their homes to the fires, and she continues to accept donations. She will eventually assemble the mosaic on a cement backerboard, allowing the art piece to be moveable once completed.

“Clay is a medium that is so malleable, but also teaches resilience. ... It’s the fire that sets it as stoneware,” said Cielo. “So the symbol of this medium is powerful when we are working with people who lost everything to the fire.”

Historic House Relocation Project

While initiatives like Project Chimney, Save the Tiles, and A Thousand Voices Project are focused on salvaging what survived, others are looking beyond ground zero for opportunities to rebuild.

In the weeks after the fires, Morgan Sykes Jaybush, the creative director of L.A.-based architecture firm Omgivning, couldn’t stop thinking about all the historic houses that get demolished throughout Los Angeles each year. He thought, what if those homes were saved and relocated to Altadena?

Omgivning soon launched the Historic House Relocation Project, with Jaybush at the helm as project manager. As of August 2025, two historic homes previously slated for demolition—one in Hollywood and another in Los Feliz—had been transplanted to Altadena.

Omgivning is currently tracking about 160 houses that could potentially be relocated, and dozens of families who lost their homes have expressed interest in receiving one.

Not only is relocating a home less expensive than building a new one—typically about two-thirds the cost per square foot, Jaybush said—it's also better for the environment.

“It’s the most sustainable way to rebuild, by not throwing an entire house into the landfill,” Jaybush said. “It’s also a great way to bring some historic character back to these neighborhoods which have suffered so much loss.”