A study published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health found that 56% of unhoused Angelenos surveyed said January 2025’s Palisades and Eaton fires put their lives at risk. The findings come from 374 participants in an ongoing UCLA and USC research project, and they paint a picture that got almost no attention during the initial disaster coverage.
Los Angeles County has roughly 74,000 unhoused residents. When the fires tore through in January 2025, those residents had no insurance adjusters to call, no relatives with spare bedrooms, and in many cases no idea an evacuation order had even been issued. The fires killed 29 people countywide and destroyed more than 10,000 homes. Most of the reporting tracked losses among housed residents. The unhoused population was largely invisible.
The survey numbers tell a different story. Beyond the 56% who said their lives were endangered, 21% reported actual injuries. About 76% said the fires disrupted their daily routines. Nearly half, 46%, said their living areas were damaged. That means tents shredded by debris, belongings scattered by wind, and nowhere to replace any of it. Clinics and service sites that burned or closed left people without medication and medical care at exactly the wrong moment.
Ben Henwood, a professor at USC’s School of Social Work and one of the study’s co-authors, didn’t pull his language. “People are living in these extraordinarily awful conditions where high winds can cause damage to where they live, can displace them and can cause injury,” he told LAist. “And that’s by definition because they are vulnerable living out on the streets.”
The data didn’t treat all unhoused people the same, and it shouldn’t. People sleeping in tents or vehicles reported worse outcomes than those who had shelter beds or county-funded hotel rooms. The 15% of participants who lived within wildfire evacuation zones faced more frequent forced moves, longer smoke exposure, and greater difficulty locating any safe destination. There’s no shelter bed waiting on short notice. There’s no car to sleep in when the car is gone.
The study drew from PATHS, a monthly survey of unhoused Angelenos that researchers have tracked since 2021. Participants completed surveys in both December 2024 and January 2025, answering specific questions about natural disasters and their housing situations during that stretch. That pre-fire baseline is what makes the research useful. It’s not a snapshot taken after the fact. It’s a comparison.
Henwood framed the broader problem plainly. “Most of what we know about homelessness comes from systems-gathered data,” he said. “With people who aren’t connected to systems, it’s really hard to know how services or policies are affecting them. And in this case, how natural disasters might be affecting them.”
That’s a direct challenge to the Office of Emergency Services and county planners who design wildfire response protocols. If your data only comes from people already inside the shelter system, you don’t know what’s happening to the majority of the unhoused population during a disaster. You’re flying blind.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has documented a steady increase in extreme wind events across Southern California. Wildfire seasons don’t follow a predictable calendar anymore. What happened in January 2025 wasn’t a once-a-generation anomaly. County officials can’t treat it like one.
What the PATHS survey can do, and what county emergency planners can’t easily replicate, is track individuals who aren’t in any database. Researchers knew who these 374 participants were before the fires started. They could ask specific questions afterward. That’s not the same as a point-in-time count or an intake form at a shelter. It’s actual longitudinal data on people the system doesn’t see.
The study’s authors stopped short of prescribing specific policy remedies. But the numbers don’t require much interpretation. More than half of a sample of 374 unhoused Angelenos said a wildfire put them in danger of dying. Nearly a quarter reported getting hurt. The county needs emergency protocols that reach people without addresses, without phones registered to permanent residences, and without any formal connection to the systems that are supposed to protect them.
The fires of January 2025 won’t be the last test.